Chapter 5 - Elena's Hidden Recording
Austin moved before Jacey could turn.
He pulled her toward him and aimed past her.
No one stood directly behind her.
But the foyer mirror reflected the balcony.
A shadow moved upstairs.
Bruno ran for the staircase.
Austin handed Jacey to Marcus.
“Don't move.”
He followed.
They reached the upper corridor.
A window stood open.
A rope hung outside.
Whoever had entered was already gone.
On the carpet lay a phone.
Austin picked it up.
The call with Elena was still connected.
“Elena?”
“Austin?”
Her voice.
Really her.
His chest tightened.
“Where are you?”
“I don't know.”
“Are you hurt?”
“Not badly.”
“Who has you?”
A sound came through the line.
Elena lowered her voice.
“You don't have much time.”
“Neither do they.”
“Austin, listen to me. This is bigger than Vale.”
“I know.”
“No. You don't.”
Austin looked toward Jacey downstairs.
“Elena, I found the report.”
Silence.
“What report?”
“The DNA test.”
Nothing.
Then a quiet breath.
“Oh.”
“She's mine.”
Elena didn't deny it.
Austin closed his eyes.
“You should have told me.”
“I wanted to.”
“For six years?”
“I wanted her alive more.”
He couldn't argue with that.
“Who else knows?”
“Vale suspects.”
“Why?”
“Because your father knew.”
Austin froze.
“My father died before Jacey was born.”
“Not about Jacey. About the network.”
Elena's voice shook.
“Your father created the first ledger.”
Austin looked at Marcus.
Marcus's face confirmed it.
“He was trying to expose them?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did everyone tell me he was part of them?”
“Because that's how they buried him.”
Austin felt twenty years of anger shift beneath his feet.
His father had been brutal.
Complicated.
Sometimes cruel.
But perhaps not guilty of the one crime Austin had hated him most for.
“Elena, where is the drive?”
“I split the files.”
“Where?”
“Jacey has the map.”
Austin looked at the girl.
“She doesn't know she has it.”
“What does that mean?”
“The lullaby.”
Austin went still.
“What?”
“The song you used to hum to her.”
He remembered.
His mother had sung it to him.
He had sung it to Jacey.
Elena continued.
“I turned the notes into a cipher. The locations are hidden in a music box.”
“Where?”
“Yellow house.”
Vermont.
Before Austin could answer, a door slammed through the phone.
Elena gasped.
“Austin—”
“Elena?”
“If they ask for the drive, give them anything. Just don't let them get Jacey.”
“I won't.”
“And Austin?”
“Yes?”
“I didn't disappear because I stopped loving you.”
The line went dead.
Austin stared at the phone.
Marcus quietly looked away.
Jacey came upstairs.
“Was that Mom?”
“Yes.”
“Is she okay?”
“She will be.”
“You promise?”
Austin crouched.
“Yes.”
This time he understood exactly what the promise meant.
They returned to Vermont before sunrise the next day.
The yellow house remained occupied, but Austin had quietly bought the property through a shell company years earlier.
He had never known why he couldn't let it go.
Now he did.
The music box was beneath a loose floorboard in the old nursery.
Jacey watched as Austin lifted it.
“That's mine.”
“You remember it?”
“No. Mom had a picture.”
Austin opened the lid.
The old melody began.
His mother's lullaby.
Inside the lid, beneath faded velvet, someone had carved numbers.
Coordinates.
Four locations.
Boston Harbor.
A storage facility.
A courthouse archive.
And Austin's mansion.
Marcus frowned.
“One location is your house.”
Austin looked at him.
“Which means Elena hid something there.”
They returned immediately.
Rosa met them at the entrance.
“You have a visitor.”
Austin's hand moved toward his weapon.
“Who?”
“She wouldn't give me her name.”
“Where?”
“Library.”
Austin entered alone.
A woman in her sixties stood near the fireplace.
He recognized her.
Judge Margaret Bell.
Retired federal judge.
She had overseen the Bullard prosecutions.
“You shouldn't be here,” Austin said.
“Neither should you.”
She handed him a sealed file.
“Elena sent this to me six months ago.”
Austin opened it.
Inside was a list of names.
Judges.
Police commanders.
Businessmen.
A senator.
Then a familiar name.
Nathan Pierce.
And beneath Nathan's name was another.
Marcus Delaney.
Austin looked up.
“Explain.”
Judge Bell's expression was grim.
“Elena believed there were two infiltrators in your organization.”
“Marcus?”
“She wasn't certain.”
Austin heard movement behind him.
Marcus entered.
The judge went pale.
Marcus saw the list.
His expression hardened.
“Where did you get that?”
Before she could answer, the mansion alarm sounded.
Bruno's voice came through Austin's phone.
“Boss, we have a breach.”
“Where?”
“The east gate.”
“How many?”
A pause.
“None.”
Austin frowned.
“Then what triggered it?”
Bruno answered quietly.
“Someone just drove Elena Reed's car through the gate.”
Austin ran outside.
A battered sedan had stopped in the circular driveway.
The driver's door opened.
No one emerged.
Austin approached.
Blood covered the driver's seat.
On the dashboard sat a recorder.
He pressed PLAY.
Elena's voice filled the car.
“If you're hearing this, Austin, someone inside your house has already betrayed you.”
A second voice suddenly appeared on the recording.
A man's voice.
May you like
Austin recognized it immediately.
And Marcus, standing beside him, slowly turned toward Bruno.
