CHAPTER 7 — THE CHILD IN THE FILE
Daniel fired at the locking mechanism.
The bullet flattened against reinforced steel.
“Emily!”
His daughter struck the other side of the door.
“I’m okay!”
Charles pulled her away from the glass.
The countdown continued.
DATA TRANSFER: 38%
Rebecca opened the control panel.
“Vivian installed a manual override somewhere inside the chamber.”
Daniel searched through the window.
Anna sat against the vault wall.
Chief Reed had recovered his pistol.
Vivian shouted at Charles.
“You don’t know where those files are going!”
Charles continued holding Emily.
“That is the point.”
“If the covenant records become public, we lose everything.”
“No, Mother. You lose everything.”
Vivian stared at him.
Charles smiled.
“This was never about protecting the Whitmore family.”
The transfer reached forty-three percent.
Daniel looked toward Rebecca.
“Can you stop it?”
“Not from here.”
Evelyn’s voice returned through the earpiece.
“Daniel, armed units are entering the upper floors.”
“Federal?”
“No identification.”
Gunfire erupted somewhere above them.
The party guests began screaming.
Daniel heard hundreds of feet running across the marble floors.
Fireworks continued exploding outside.
The mansion had become a war zone hidden beneath a patriotic celebration.
Inside the chamber, Chief Reed aimed his pistol at Charles.
“Release Emily.”
Charles looked amused.
“You finally found a conscience?”
“I gave you the key. That was the agreement.”
“You gave me a key because you spent your whole life begging to become part of this family.”
“I am part of this family.”
“No.”
Charles’s smile sharpened.
“You are Rebecca’s discarded mistake.”
Reed fired.
The bullet struck Charles in the shoulder.
Emily pulled away and ran toward the steel door.
Daniel pressed his palm against the glass.
“Find the override!”
Anna pointed toward the open vault.
“Behind the files!”
Emily rushed inside.
Vivian followed her.
Reed and Charles struggled for the gun.
The weapon fired again.
A light shattered.
The chamber fell into flashing red darkness.
DATA TRANSFER: 57%
Daniel moved to the emergency hinge.
Rebecca joined him.
Together, they forced a steel tool into the narrow gap.
“On three,” Daniel said.
Rebecca looked at him.
“Like Prague?”
“Prague was your fault.”
“You still came back for me.”
“I always came back for you.”
Pain crossed her face.
“I know.”
They pulled.
The hinge groaned but did not break.
Inside the vault, Emily pushed aside boxes of files.
She found a small lever hidden behind the shelving.
She pulled it.
Nothing happened.
Anna shouted, “Both keys must turn!”
Emily looked at the three keys still embedded beside the vault.
Vivian ran toward them.
Emily blocked her path.
“You knew my mother was alive.”
Vivian’s expression hardened.
“She betrayed us.”
“You imprisoned her.”
“She abandoned her duty.”
“She was your sister.”
“She was weak.”
Emily struck Vivian across the face.
Vivian fell against the table.
For the first time, Emily did not retreat.
She seized the first key.
Anna crawled toward the second.
“Turn them together!”
Emily gripped Rebecca’s key.
Anna took her own.
The third key remained inside Chief Reed’s jacket.
He was still fighting Charles.
Emily shouted, “Douglas!”
Reed froze when she used his first name.
“Our mother left that key with you.”
“She wasn’t my mother.”
“Yes, she was.”
“She threw me away!”
“No. They took you from her.”
Rebecca heard the words through the steel door.
Her face crumpled.
“Douglas!”
Reed turned toward the glass.
He saw Rebecca.
For the first time in his life, he looked directly at his mother.
Rebecca placed her hand against the window.
“I looked for you.”
Reed’s gun lowered.
Charles drove a knife into his side.
Reed gasped.
Emily screamed.
Charles grabbed the third key.
“Enough family reunions.”
He ran toward the open vault.
Daniel pulled the tool again.
The hinge cracked.
“Again!”
He and Rebecca forced the bar downward.
The steel began to bend.
Inside, Charles inserted the third key.
“Turn them!” Anna shouted.
Emily turned Rebecca’s key.
Anna turned hers.
Charles turned the third.
The locking system released.
The chamber door lifted six inches.
Daniel dropped to the floor and forced his arm beneath it.
He pulled upward.
Rebecca joined him.
The gap widened.
Emily crawled toward them.
Daniel reached inside and grabbed her wrist.
A gunshot thundered behind her.
Emily jerked.
Daniel dragged her under the door.
Blood covered the front of her white dress.
“Emily!”
“It’s not mine,” she gasped.
Chief Reed had collapsed beside the vault.
Charles stood over him with the gun.
The steel door began descending again.
Rebecca tried to crawl inside.
“Douglas!”
Daniel caught her.
“You’ll be trapped.”
“He’s my son!”
The door slammed shut between them.
Rebecca struck the steel with both hands.
Inside, Charles picked up the remote.
DATA TRANSFER: 91%
Vivian backed toward the wall.
“What have you done?”
Charles looked at the open files.
“I found the one thing this family was always afraid of.”
He pulled a thin red folder from the vault.
A name was written across the front.
PROJECT HEIR
Charles opened it.
The first page showed a photograph of a newborn baby.
The date was twenty-four years earlier.
The child wore a hospital bracelet.
Emily moved closer to the window.
“That’s Douglas.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
The baby in the photograph was female.
Charles turned the page toward the glass.
A second image showed Rebecca holding two newborn children.
Twins.
A boy and a girl.
Daniel stared at his wife.
Rebecca’s face went completely white.
Emily looked from the photograph to her mother.
“You had twins?”
Rebecca whispered, “They told me the girl died.”
Charles read the name printed beneath the photograph.
“Subject B survived.”
The transfer reached ninety-seven percent.
A final page slid from the folder.
It contained a recent photograph of the missing daughter.
The woman was alive.
She was standing outside Daniel’s house.
The image had been taken three days earlier.
Daniel recognized her immediately.
She was the woman who had delivered his mail every morning for the past six years.
Before anyone could speak, the lights in the mansion went out.
The data transfer reached one hundred percent.
Every phone inside the estate began ringing at once.
Emily’s cracked phone lit up beneath the fountain upstairs.
May you like
A single message appeared on the damaged screen.
HELLO, FATHER.
