Chapter 3 - The Secret Inside Jacey's Backpack
The name on the screen was Richard Vale.
Austin had watched Richard Vale's coffin lowered into the ground.
Or at least he had watched a coffin with Vale's name on it disappear beneath six feet of earth.
“That's impossible,” Bruno said.
Austin handed him the phone.
“In our world, impossible usually means somebody paid enough.”
Marcus stood beside the window.
“Vale worked with Bullard.”
Austin looked at him.
“Before Bullard existed.”
Marcus nodded.
“And your father.”
That part Austin knew.
What he hadn't known was why his father and Vale became enemies.
Jacey tugged his sleeve.
“Is my mom alive?”
Austin looked down.
“Yes.”
“You saw her?”
“Yes.”
“Then we're getting her?”
There were a thousand answers a man like Austin could have given.
We need a plan.
It's complicated.
We have to be careful.
Instead he said, “Yes.”
Jacey nodded as though that settled it.
Austin wished he possessed her certainty.
He ordered the mansion cleared except for six people he trusted enough to watch while they breathed.
Then he took Jacey into the kitchen.
Rosa placed soup in front of her.
Jacey stared at it.
“Eat.”
“I'm not hungry.”
“Neither am I.”
“Are you eating?”
Austin paused.
Rosa hid a smile.
Ten minutes later, Austin Cole sat at his kitchen island eating tomato soup because a seven-year-old had negotiated him into it.
For a few minutes, the violence outside that room felt distant.
Then Jacey asked, “Did you love my mom?”
Austin set down his spoon.
Rosa quietly left.
“Why would you ask that?”
“She kept a picture of you.”
Austin's chest tightened.
“What picture?”
“You were holding me.”
He remembered it.
Elena had taken it in Vermont.
Jacey had been asleep against his chest.
Austin had been looking down at her.
He hadn't known Elena had kept the photograph.
“Your mother and I were friends.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Austin almost laughed.
“You're seven.”
“Almost eight.”
“That changes everything.”
“It changes one year.”
Austin looked at her.
“Yes,” he said finally. “I loved your mother.”
Jacey's expression softened.
“Then why did you leave?”
Because everyone Austin loved became leverage.
Because his father had taught him that affection was a loaded weapon pointed backward.
Because Elena deserved a life without men carrying guns outside her door.
“I thought leaving would keep her safe.”
Jacey looked down.
“It didn't.”
No accusation.
That made it worse.
Austin took the key marked 317 from his pocket.
“We're going to Vermont.”
Marcus entered.
“That's what they expect.”
“Probably.”
“And you're still going?”
“Yes.”
“Austin—”
“Elena sent the key.”
Marcus looked at Jacey.
Then back at Austin.
“I'll come.”
“No.”
Marcus's jaw tightened.
“You still don't trust me.”
“I don't trust anyone.”
“Good. You're finally learning.”
Three hours later, Austin and Jacey left Boston in an unmarked SUV driven by Bruno.
No convoy.
No visible security.
Marcus stayed behind to find Nathan.
The farther north they traveled, the quieter Jacey became.
Eventually she fell asleep against the window.
Austin covered her with his coat.
Bruno watched through the mirror.
“You look like you remember how.”
Austin didn't answer.
“How old was she when you last saw her?”
“One.”
“She remembers you?”
“No.”
“Maybe children remember more than we think.”
Austin looked at Jacey.
“I hope not.”
They reached Vermont after dark.
The safe house had been sold years earlier.
But the bus station two towns over remained almost unchanged.
Locker 317 stood in the rear corridor.
Austin inserted Elena's key.
The door opened.
Inside sat a metal box.
Austin carried it to the SUV.
Jacey woke.
“Is that it?”
“I think so.”
The box required another key.
Austin stared at the lock.
Jacey reached into her shoe.
Bruno blinked.
“You have another key?”
“Mom said adults never check children's shoes unless they're airport people.”
Austin looked at Bruno.
“I'm beginning to understand why Elena survived this long.”
Jacey handed him the key.
The box opened.
Inside were financial ledgers.
A flash drive.
Photographs.
And a sealed DNA laboratory report.
Austin picked it up.
His name was printed on the front.
So was Jacey's.
He stopped breathing.
Jacey noticed.
“What is it?”
Austin opened the report.
He read the conclusion once.
Then again.
Probability of biological paternity: 99.998%.
His hands went numb.
Jacey watched him.
“What does it say?”
Austin couldn't speak.
Seven years collapsed into one second.
Vermont.
Elena.
The baby.
The dates.
The nights he had never allowed himself to remember too clearly.
Jacey wasn't merely the child he'd promised to protect.
She was his daughter.
Before he could say anything, headlights flooded the parking lot.
Three black SUVs blocked the exit.
Bruno reached for his weapon.
Austin shoved the report inside his jacket.
Men stepped from the vehicles.
One walked forward alone.
Older.
Silver-haired.
Alive.
Richard Vale smiled through the windshield.
Then he raised a phone displaying a live video feed.
May you like
Elena was on the screen.
And someone was holding a gun against her head.
