Chapter 7
Thomas rushed to the central control panel.
“It needs two authorization keys.”
Evelyn held up one key on a silver chain.
“The other was destroyed years ago.”
Maria’s voice came through the glass room’s speaker.
“No, it wasn’t.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Her hands were still tied behind the chair.
She looked at Adam.
“Inside your pendant.”
Adam touched the small black pendant around his neck.
“I’ve had this since I was a baby.”
“Your mother put it there.”
Adam tore the chain free and twisted the pendant.
A narrow metal key dropped into his palm.
Evelyn’s face changed.
“Give that to me.”
Adam looked at Richard.
For twenty-eight years, he had obeyed people who told him they were protecting him.
Now he had seconds to decide whom to trust.
Richard held out his hand.
“I won’t force you.”
Sophie clung to Richard’s neck.
“He saved me.”
Adam looked at her.
Then he threw the key to Thomas.
Thomas caught it and inserted it into the panel.
Evelyn turned to run.
Daniel blocked her path.
“You’re staying.”
She struck him with the metal drive.
Caroline grabbed Evelyn’s arm.
The two women struggled.
Richard placed Sophie behind a medical cabinet.
“Stay here.”
“No!”
“I’m not leaving. I need to help them.”
He joined Thomas at the controls.
“Where is the second key slot?”
“Inside Evelyn’s office.”
The countdown showed four minutes.
Richard looked at the sealed steel door.
“How do we get there?”
Thomas pointed toward a maintenance hatch above the beds.
“Through the ceiling.”
Adam dragged a cart beneath it.
Richard climbed up and pushed the hatch open.
The narrow space above was filled with cables and dust.
“I’ll go,” Adam said.
Richard looked at his son.
“No.”
“You don’t know the layout.”
“And you do?”
“I grew up here.”
Those words carried twenty-eight years of pain.
Adam pulled himself into the ceiling before Richard could stop him.
“Third junction, then left!” Thomas called.
Richard heard Adam crawling overhead.
Evelyn broke free from Caroline and reached toward the control panel.
Daniel caught her around the waist.
She elbowed him hard.
The guards who had served her were no longer fighting.
They stared at the countdown, realizing they would die too.
One of them helped Caroline restrain Evelyn.
“Release the doors,” he ordered.
“You betrayed me,” Evelyn said.
“You were going to kill us.”
“You were paid to accept risk.”
The timer reached three minutes.
A faint hiss came from the vents.
Caroline covered Sophie’s mouth and nose with a damp cloth.
Richard felt pressure building in his chest.
“Adam!” he shouted.
A panel above Evelyn’s office crashed open.
Adam dropped through.
Thomas directed him over the speaker.
“Desk drawer. Red box.”
Adam found it, but the drawer was locked.
“Keypad,” he said.
Evelyn laughed.
“He will never guess the code.”
Richard looked at her.
“What date would you use?”
She said nothing.
He thought of the laboratory, the children, and her obsession with survival.
Not a birthday.
Not an anniversary.
A date she considered a victory.
“When did your symptoms disappear?” he asked Daniel.
Daniel understood.
“Twenty-eight years ago. After Adam’s first treatment.”
Maria called out the date.
“March seventeenth.”
Adam entered 0317.
The drawer opened.
Inside was the second authorization key.
Evelyn screamed.
“No!”
Adam grabbed it and ran toward the office door.
It was sealed.
“Use the ceiling,” Richard shouted.
Two minutes.
The hissing grew louder.
One patient began gasping.
Caroline moved from bed to bed, adjusting oxygen masks.
“They won’t survive this.”
Richard’s vision blurred.
Sophie coughed behind the cabinet.
He wanted to go to her, but he stayed at the panel.
Adam climbed back into the ceiling.
A crash echoed above them.
Then silence.
“Adam?”
No answer.
Richard’s fear sharpened into panic.
“Adam!”
The ceiling panel opened.
Adam fell through and landed on the cart.
He rolled to the floor, gripping the key.
Richard pulled him upright.
“You okay?”
“I’ve had worse birthdays.”
It was such a bitter joke that Richard almost broke.
Adam inserted the second key.
Thomas turned the first.
Both men rotated them at the same moment.
The countdown stopped at forty-three seconds.
The hissing ended.
Steel doors lifted.
Fresh air entered the ward.
Sophie ran to Richard.
He dropped to his knees and held her.
Adam stood a few feet away.
Richard reached toward him.
Adam hesitated.
Then Sophie took Adam’s hand and pulled him closer.
Richard wrapped one arm around his son.
Adam remained stiff.
After a moment, his shoulders shook.
Police officers entered from both sides of the ward.
Mason led them.
Evelyn was handcuffed.
She looked at Richard with hatred.
“You have condemned yourself.”
“No,” he said. “You did that years ago.”
“You need the treatment.”
“I would rather face any illness than become you.”
She glanced toward Sophie.
“Your daughter will become sick too.”
Caroline stepped between them.
“The research you buried includes safer treatments. Treatments developed without hurting anyone.”
Evelyn’s confidence disappeared.
“That is impossible.”
“Elizabeth completed the work before you took her.”
Richard looked at Caroline.
“Where is it?”
“She hid it.”
Evelyn laughed again.
“Your sister died before she could save anything.”
Caroline stared at her.
“My sister?”
The way Evelyn said it made Richard’s skin prickle.
“You know where Elizabeth is,” he said.
Mason guided Evelyn toward the corridor.
She stopped.
“I know where I left her.”
Richard stepped closer.
“Alive?”
“Ask Thomas.”
Everyone turned.
Thomas looked destroyed.
Richard approached him slowly.
“What does she mean?”
Thomas sat against the control console.
“The night Elizabeth collapsed, your mother ordered me to move her.”
“Where?”
“To a private house near the coast.”
“Was she alive?”
“Yes.”
Hope struck Richard so hard it hurt.
“What happened after that?”
“She woke up two days later.”
“Then why didn’t she come home?”
“Her memory was damaged. She didn’t know who she was.”
Richard stared at him.
“You kept my wife hidden.”
“I was told she would die if I brought her back.”
“You believed Evelyn?”
“No.”
“Then who told you?”
Thomas looked toward Daniel.
“Daniel did.”
Richard turned.
Daniel’s face had gone gray.
Caroline shook her head.
“That isn’t true.”
“It is,” Thomas said. “Daniel visited the house. He said Elizabeth could never return to Richard because the Sterlings would keep hunting her.”
Daniel backed away.
Richard advanced.
“You knew she survived.”
“I knew for six months.”
“Six months?”
“I was trying to protect her.”
“You let me bury a stranger.”
“Your grief made everyone believe she was dead. It gave her time.”
“Where is she?”
Daniel looked at the officers around them.
“She vanished.”
“From the house?”
“She recovered parts of her memory. One morning, she was gone.”
“When?”
“Eighteen months ago.”
Richard grabbed his shirt.
“You have lied every time you opened your mouth.”
Daniel did not resist.
“I loved her too.”
“She chose me.”
“She chose the mission.”
Richard shoved him away.
Sophie began crying.
He immediately stepped back.
Adam watched the confrontation with hollow eyes.
“All of you knew something,” he said. “Every one of you decided secrets were more important than us.”
No one could answer.
Mason received a call.
He listened, then looked at Richard.
“We found the white van.”
“Was anyone inside?”
“No. But there was a map.”
“Of what?”
“The Sterling estate.”
Richard’s phone rang.
The call came from his home security system.
He answered.
A woman’s face appeared on the screen.
She stood inside Elizabeth’s bedroom.
Her hair was longer than Caroline’s.
A pale scar crossed her forehead.
Richard stopped breathing.
The woman looked directly into the camera.
“Richard?”
He could not speak.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I heard Sophie was taken.”
“Elizabeth?”
The woman covered her mouth.
Behind her, a door creaked.
She turned.
A shadow moved across the room.
The video ended.
Richard called the estate.
No answer.
He turned to Mason.
“She’s alive.”
They raced from the underground ward.
Richard carried Sophie to the police vehicle.
Adam followed.
“You are not leaving me here,” he said.
Richard met his son’s eyes.
“You’re coming home.”
The words affected both of them.
Adam looked away.
As Mason drove, Thomas called from the facility.
“The estate’s backup system just activated. Someone has locked every exterior door.”
“Can you override it?”
“Not remotely.”
Richard tried the camera feed again.
Only one camera remained active.
It showed Elizabeth standing in the nursery where Sophie had slept as a baby.
A masked figure approached behind her.
Elizabeth turned and fought.
The image shook.
Then the mask came off.
Vanessa stared into the camera.
Richard felt the blood drain from his face.
“She escaped.”
Mason contacted the station.
The answer confirmed it.
Vanessa’s attorney had arrived with falsified federal documents.
During the transfer, two armed men attacked the transport vehicle.
Vanessa was free.
On the camera, she raised a phone to Elizabeth’s face.
A message reached Richard.
May you like
COME HOME, HUSBAND.
THIS TIME, YOU GET TO CHOOSE WHICH WOMAN SURVIVES.
