CHAPTER 9 — THE TRACKER

Nathan pulled the SUV off the road and crashed through a wooden fence.

Branches scraped across the windows.

The helicopters remained above them.

Mara scanned every device.

“No signal from our phones. No signal from the vehicle.”

Celeste touched the scar behind her ear.

“Check me.”

Evelyn pushed aside her mother’s white hair.

Beneath the skin was a small metal shape.

Mara swore under her breath.

“It’s an implanted transmitter.”

“Can you remove it?” Evelyn asked.

“Not while we’re moving.”

Nathan turned toward an abandoned farmhouse ahead.

“We stop there.”

They entered the farmhouse and locked the doors.

Mara placed Celeste on a kitchen table.

The transmitter had been hidden deep beneath old surgical tissue.

“Who put this inside you?” Evelyn asked.

Celeste looked toward the ceiling.

“Dr. Elias Harrow.”

The name appeared in several Nightingale files.

He had operated the closed clinic and later became one of the country’s most respected neurologists.

“He treated me for fourteen years,” Celeste continued. “Drugs, memory conditioning, isolation. Every time I remembered too much, he started again.”

Mara removed the transmitter and dropped it into a glass jar.

Nathan attached the jar to a hunting drone found in the farmhouse.

Minutes later, the drone flew east.

The helicopters followed it.

For the first time, Evelyn saw fear leave her mother’s face.

Then someone knocked on the farmhouse door.

Three slow knocks.

A pause.

Two more.

Nathan raised his rifle.

“That’s a Vance emergency code.”

“Who knows it?” Evelyn asked.

“Gabriel. Daniel. Me.”

A voice came from outside.

“Evelyn, I know you’re in there.”

It was Gabriel.

Nathan checked the window.

Gabriel stood alone in the yard, one hand pressed against his bleeding side.

Mara opened the door but kept her weapon raised.

Gabriel stumbled inside.

“Julian let you escape?” Evelyn asked.

“No.”

Gabriel dropped a security badge onto the table.

It belonged to Beatrice.

“She did.”

Celeste stood.

“Why would Beatrice release you?”

Gabriel looked directly at Evelyn.

“Because Julian has stopped following orders.”

“What did he do?”

“He opened the sealed level of Nightingale.”

Celeste’s face changed.

“That requires Daniel’s key.”

Gabriel nodded.

“Julian has Daniel.”

He placed a photograph on the table.

Daniel Vance sat chained to a chair.

A newspaper beside him showed that morning’s date.

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On the back, someone had written one sentence.

BRING EVELYN TO THE OLD COURTHOUSE BEFORE MIDNIGHT.