Chapter 3 - The Secret in Locker 317
I read the sentence again.
QUINN IS NOT MY DAUGHTER.
My mother’s handwriting.
My birthday.
Gabriel’s father holding a newborn.
Me.
“No.”
Gabriel said nothing.
I turned the photograph over again as though another answer might appear.
Nothing did.
“My father was David Hayes.”
“Was?”
“He died when I was eight.”
Gabriel studied the picture.
“My father knew your mother.”
“Apparently.”
“That doesn’t prove he was your father.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
But we were both thinking it.
A sound came from the corridor.
Gabriel’s hand immediately went beneath his coat.
“Behind me.”
“I hate when men say that.”
“Tonight you can hate it from behind me.”
Footsteps approached.
A hospital security officer appeared.
He stopped.
“Dr. Hayes?”
I recognized him.
Eric Sloan.
Night security.
“What are you doing down here?”
Before I could answer, Gabriel noticed Eric’s hand.
It was moving toward his radio.
“Don’t.”
Eric froze.
Gabriel asked, “Who told you we were here?”
“Nobody.”
His radio crackled.
A voice came through.
“Is she at 317?”
Eric’s face gave him away.
Gabriel moved first.
He seized the radio.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
Then a man laughed.
“Gabriel.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“Leo.”
My blood went cold.
The supposedly dead man answered calmly.
“You always did sound like Matteo when you were angry.”
“Where are you?”
“Close.”
“Why Quinn?”
“Ask her mother.”
“My mother is dead,” I snapped.
Leo laughed again.
“No, sweetheart. She’s just very good at disappearing.”
The radio went silent.
Gabriel’s men arrived and restrained Eric.
We returned to the house before dawn.
Julian analyzed the photograph.
It was authentic.
No digital manipulation.
The print itself was nearly thirty years old.
Liam sat across from me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Then stop apologizing for things you didn’t know and start explaining the things you did.”
He nodded.
The flash drive contained more.
My mother had worked on an experimental oncology program.
Officially, it ended in 2009.
Unofficially, patient samples continued moving through St. Catherine’s.
Gabriel’s father had discovered the operation.
His shipping company had unknowingly transported materials.
“He threatened to expose it,” Julian said.
“And died,” Gabriel replied.
I stared at the photograph.
“Mom helped him.”
“Maybe,” Gabriel said.
“Her signature is on his final medication record.”
“That could mean anything.”
“You’re defending her?”
“I’m refusing to condemn someone using evidence planted by people who just staged your kidnapping.”
That was the moment I first understood Gabriel Costa was not what his reputation suggested.
He was dangerous.
Absolutely.
But danger and cruelty were not the same thing.
At sunrise, Julian discovered what EH-17 meant.
Evelyn Hayes.
Trial subject seventeen.
My mother had not simply worked on the experiment.
She had participated in it.
The treatment targeted a rare hereditary cancer mutation.
A mutation my mother supposedly carried.
Except genetic records showed she didn’t.
I did.
I stared at the screen.
“Why would they test her for my mutation?”
Gabriel understood before I did.
“Because they weren’t studying Evelyn.”
They were studying me.
My entire medical history had been copied.
Childhood bloodwork.
Vaccinations.
Genetic screening I never remembered consenting to.
Someone had followed my biology for thirty-two years.
I ran to the bathroom and vomited.
Gabriel waited outside.
When I emerged, he handed me water.
“Don’t tell me everything is going to be okay.”
“I wasn’t planning to lie.”
“Good.”
“We’re going to find the truth.”
“That sounds suspiciously comforting.”
“It wasn’t intended to.”
I smiled despite myself.
He noticed.
Neither of us mentioned it.
By afternoon, another message arrived.
Unknown number.
A location.
Old Costa Pier 9.
Midnight.
COME ALONE, QUINN.
Gabriel read it.
“No.”
“I didn’t ask.”
“You’re not going.”
“It’s my mother.”
“It might be Leo.”
“Then we learn something.”
“You learned something last night. People want you.”
“Which is why hiding won’t fix it.”
His eyes flashed.
“You think this is about control.”
“Isn’t everything with you?”
“No.”
He stepped closer.
“This is about keeping you alive.”
The room became too quiet.
I remembered his hand against my cheek in the alley.
“Pretend you love me,” I murmured.
His expression changed.
“That was your idea.”
“You were convincing.”
“I don’t do things halfway.”
“That’s what worries me.”
At midnight, we went to Pier 9.
Not alone.
Gabriel placed men throughout the warehouses.
I walked into the central building wearing a wire.
A woman stood beneath a hanging industrial lamp.
My knees almost failed.
“Mom?”
Evelyn Hayes turned.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
I wanted to run to her.
I wanted to hit her.
I did neither.
She cried first.
“Quinnie.”
Only my mother called me that.
“You died.”
“I know.”
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“You let me.”
“I had to.”
“No.”
My voice broke.
“No, you didn’t.”
She stepped closer.
Gabriel emerged from the shadows.
My mother stopped.
Her face changed when she saw him.
“Matteo.”
Gabriel stiffened.
“I’m Gabriel.”
She stared.
“I know.”
“Then don’t call me my father.”
“You look like him.”
“Why did he die?”
My mother closed her eyes.
“Because he found out what Leonardo was doing.”
“What was Leo doing?”
“Selling access.”
“To what?”
She looked at me.
“To Quinn.”
I felt suddenly cold.
“Why me?”
My mother reached toward me.
I stepped back.
She lowered her hand.
“Because you were born with a mutation researchers believed could unlock a treatment worth billions.”
“That makes no sense.”
“You weren’t sick. Your body carried the mutation without developing the disease.”
“So?”
“You were the control.”
Gabriel asked, “And my father?”
“He discovered Leo had been transporting samples and falsifying clinical records. Matteo threatened to go to federal investigators.”
“So Leo killed him.”
My mother hesitated.
“No.”
Gabriel’s eyes sharpened.
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Seventeen years and that’s your answer?”
“I helped Matteo escape that night.”
“He didn’t escape.”
“I know.”
My mother began crying.
“He was alive when he left St. Catherine’s.”
Gabriel stared at her.
“The official report says he died there.”
“It was falsified.”
“Then where did he die?”
“I never found out.”
A gunshot shattered the warehouse light.
Gabriel pulled me down.
His men moved.
My mother screamed.
Another shot.
Then darkness.
When emergency lights came on, Evelyn was gone.
A door stood open at the back.
Gabriel’s men searched.
Nothing.
Then Gabriel found something on the floor.
A silver chain.
His face drained.
“What is it?”
He lifted it.
A small Saint Christopher medal hung from the chain.
“My father wore this.”
“Maybe your mother kept it.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“No.”
He turned the medal over.
Fresh scratches marked the back.
Three letters.
G.C.
Then footsteps sounded from the dark corridor beyond the open door.
Slow.
Deliberate.
A man’s voice called Gabriel’s name.
May you like
Gabriel stopped breathing.
Because he recognized his father’s voice.
