CHAPTER 9: THE EMPTY CHAIR

The lights returned seconds later.

Victoria was gone.

The emergency door behind her chair stood open.

Adrian’s guards found no trace of her in the alley.

She had planned the escape before entering the room.

Mason returned with worse news.

The private DNA technician they had contacted was dead.

His apartment had been emptied.

Every computer, hard drive and paper file was missing.

Only one thing remained.

A message written across the wall:

STOP SEARCHING FOR DANIEL.

Adrian stared at the photograph inside his office.

“Why would my own son want me disabled?”

Mason folded his arms.

“We don’t know that he does.”

“Victoria said the man in the photograph was listening.”

“She might have meant someone who was there when it was taken.”

Adrian studied the image.

A reflection appeared in the window behind Elena.

A man stood inside the clinic room, partly hidden by glare.

Adrian enlarged the photograph on a scanner.

The man had a narrow face and a distinctive silver ring.

Adrian recognized him.

Sebastian Cross.

Victoria’s father.

He had died eight years earlier.

At least, that was what Adrian had been told.

Eli entered carrying a glass of water.

When he saw the enlarged face, he dropped it.

The glass shattered.

“That’s the Director.”

“You saw him at the facility?”

“Every week.”

“Sebastian Cross is alive?”

Eli nodded.

“He never showed us his whole face, but he wore that ring.”

Adrian felt sick.

Sebastian Cross had been his father’s closest friend.

He had introduced Adrian to Dr. Hale.

He had funded the clinic where Elena supposedly died.

Eli reached toward the photograph.

“There’s something inside it.”

Adrian watched him peel back a thin layer of paper from the damaged corner.

A tiny transparent strip fell onto the desk.

Mason held it beneath a magnifying lamp.

It contained a series of numbers and a location.

The location pointed to an old railway station closed for twenty-three years.

Beneath the coordinates was a date.

Tomorrow.

And a time.

11:47 p.m.

Adrian looked at Eli.

“Your mother expected me to find this.”

Eli nodded.

“She said the photograph would lead you to the first grave.”

“The first?”

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Eli swallowed.

“She said there were hundreds.”