Chapter 9 - The Girl They Couldn't Find
Austin answered.
No greeting came.
Only a woman's voice.
Older.
Controlled.
Familiar.
“Hello, Austin.”
His knees nearly failed him.
“Mother?”
“You always did take too long to see what was in front of you.”
Daniel backed away from the phone as though it were a weapon.
Austin's voice hardened.
“You're dead.”
“So your father intended.”
The sentence changed everything.
“What does that mean?”
“Your father tried to kill me when he learned what I'd built.”
Austin looked at Daniel.
Daniel shook his head, stunned.
Catherine continued.
“Vale was useful. Whitmore was ambitious. Your father was sentimental.”
“You trafficked people.”
Silence.
Then, “I built an empire.”
“You destroyed lives.”
“I gave you yours.”
Austin felt something inside him sever.
“Where are you?”
“You'll find me when you're ready.”
“I'm ready now.”
“No. You're angry.”
“I'm beyond angry.”
A soft laugh.
“You sound like your father.”
The call ended.
Jacey watched him.
“That was your mom?”
Austin nodded.
“She's bad?”
Elena moved toward her, but Austin answered.
“Yes.”
Jacey thought about that.
“Can moms be bad?”
“Yes.”
“Can dads?”
Austin looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Are you?”
The room went silent.
Austin crouched.
“I've done bad things.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Elena's eyes filled.
Austin swallowed.
“I'm trying not to be.”
Jacey nodded.
“Okay.”
That simple acceptance hurt more than judgment.
Daniel traced Catherine's call.
It led to a property outside Boston.
An old private clinic.
The place where she had supposedly died.
They went that night.
Austin left Jacey with Judge Bell in a secure apartment.
This time Jacey didn't protest.
She only made him promise to return.
At the clinic, Austin, Elena, Marcus, Bruno, and Daniel entered through a service corridor.
The building appeared abandoned.
It wasn't.
Electricity hummed behind walls.
Security cameras tracked them.
They found a basement office.
Inside were decades of records.
Catherine Cole had financed the network before Austin's father discovered what the shipping companies were actually moving.
His father had tried to dismantle it.
Catherine ordered Vale to kill him.
Austin sat down.
For twenty years he had believed his father died because he was a criminal who lost a war.
The truth was uglier.
He died trying to stop one.
Elena touched Austin's shoulder.
“You couldn't have known.”
“I should have.”
“You were seventeen.”
He looked at her.
“I spent half my life becoming the man I thought he was.”
“You can spend the rest becoming the man he actually tried to be.”
A noise came from the corridor.
Marcus raised his weapon.
Nathan Pierce entered.
Austin aimed.
Nathan stopped.
“I'd appreciate not being shot.”
“Give me a reason.”
“I found Catherine.”
“Where?”
“Harbor.”
Nathan placed photographs on the desk.
Catherine boarding a yacht.
Whitmore beside her.
Vale too.
“They're leaving tomorrow night.”
“With what?”
“Everything. Money. records. identities.”
Elena frowned.
“Why not leave now?”
“Because they can't.”
Nathan looked at her.
“You hid the master ledger.”
Elena's expression changed.
“I destroyed it.”
“No.”
Nathan looked toward Austin.
“Jacey has it.”
Austin stepped forward.
“What?”
“Not physically.”
Nathan explained.
Elena had encoded the final decryption key into a sequence of images, songs, numbers, and memories taught to Jacey without the child understanding their purpose.
Catherine couldn't open the ledger without her.
Austin's face hardened.
“They're not getting near her.”
Nathan looked grim.
“Then we have a problem.”
“What?”
“Judge Bell's apartment was compromised twenty minutes ago.”
Austin grabbed his phone.
He called.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Elena was already running.
They reached the apartment twelve minutes later.
The door was open.
Judge Bell lay unconscious but breathing.
Jacey was gone.
On the kitchen table sat her white hair ribbon.
Austin picked it up.
His phone vibrated.
A video arrived.
Jacey sat inside a moving car.
She looked frightened but unharmed.
Then the camera turned.
A silver-haired woman sat beside her.
Catherine Cole smiled.
“Come to Pier Nine, Austin.”
Jacey looked straight into the camera.
Then she said something that made Elena stop cold.
“Dad, don't give her the song.”
It was the first time Jacey had ever called Austin Dad.
May you like
The video ended.
And Austin realized his seven-year-old daughter had just warned him that Catherine still didn't have the key.
