Ava touched the small silver star around her neck.

“My mommy gave it to me.”

Ethan remembered the night Claire had fastened the necklace around their daughter.

It was two days before Claire died.

She had told Ava never to remove it.

Ward carefully opened the back of the silver star.

A tiny memory chip slid into his palm.

Ethan could not speak.

Claire had hidden evidence on their daughter.

Ward connected the chip to a hotel laptop.

One encrypted file appeared.

MERCER_18.

“Can you open it?” Ethan asked.

Ward typed an old medical code.

The screen displayed a video.

Claire appeared inside the abandoned Halcyon Field locker room.

Dust covered the benches. Rusted numbers hung above green metal doors.

She looked terrified.

“Ethan, I found the Northstar survivor list,” she said. “But Samuel warned me not to remove it.”

Someone struck a door in the background.

Claire turned.

“He says the list contains more than names. It contains genetic matches.”

The video shook as she picked up the camera.

“There is something about Ava. Something Eleanor discovered when Ava was born.”

Ethan looked at his daughter.

Claire continued.

“If I do not make it home, find locker 927. Use Ava’s necklace and Samuel’s key together.”

A shadow moved behind her.

Claire whispered, “Someone is here.”

The video ended.

Ethan pressed replay.

The shadow appeared for less than one second.

A man wearing a black security jacket.

The same kind Marcus Dane wore now.

Dane backed toward the door.

“You killed her,” Ethan said.

Dane drew his pistol.

Conrad moved first.

He struck Dane’s wrist with a metal chair.

The gun slid across the floor.

Bianca kicked it away.

Dane ran toward the service corridor.

Ethan chased him through the ballroom.

Dane crashed through the kitchen doors and disappeared into a waiting elevator.

Before the doors closed, he looked at Ethan.

“Claire was alive when I left her.”

“Who was with her?”

Dane smiled.

“Ask your mother.”

The elevator descended.

Ethan stopped breathing.

Margaret Mercer had told him she was home the night Claire died.

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