Chapter 9 - The Night Rachel Disappeared
Rachel stared at Brooks.
He didn't deny it.
Instead he sat down.
“My father was Harrison Brooks.”
Rachel frowned.
“You said—”
“I was named after him.”
The recording referred to Brooks's father, a former Harbor Mercy administrator.
Brooks explained that his father had laundered money for Marco.
When Brooks discovered the truth years later, he spent his career trying to repair damage he hadn't caused.
“Why hide it?”
“Because telling Caleb Rossi my father helped murder his family seemed unhealthy.”
Rachel almost smiled despite herself.
Then the lights failed.
Again.
When emergency power returned, Brooks was unconscious.
Rachel was gone.
She woke inside a moving vehicle.
Her hands were tied.
Marco sat opposite.
“You are remarkably difficult to frighten.”
“I work emergency medicine.”
He smiled.
“Daniel used humor too.”
Rachel's anger sharpened.
“You don't get to talk about him.”
Marco wanted the location of Daniel's second evidence cache.
Rachel didn't know it.
He didn't believe her.
Meanwhile Caleb left the hospital against medical advice.
Enzo couldn't stop him.
Neither could Isabella.
“You can barely walk,” she told him.
Caleb buttoned his shirt over fresh bandages.
“She gave me forty-seven seconds when everyone else quit.”
Isabella understood.
“She saved me too.”
They went together.
Rachel noticed Marco's vehicle passing familiar streets.
Her neighborhood.
He brought her to her childhood home.
Inside, floorboards had been removed.
Marco believed Daniel hid evidence there.
Rachel remembered something.
Her father had measured her height every birthday against the pantry doorframe.
Numbers.
Dates.
Initials.
One measurement had always bothered her.
Age fourteen.
She understood.
M-317 wasn't only the archive.
It was a cipher.
Rachel used Daniel's markings to decode a location.
Marco watched.
“Smart girl.”
Rachel intentionally changed one digit.
He noticed.
“Your father tried that.”
He struck her.
Rachel tasted blood.
Then headlights appeared outside.
Caleb.
Marco dragged Rachel toward the basement.
Gunfire erupted upstairs.
Rachel kicked backward.
Marco lost his grip.
She ran.
A shot cracked.
Caleb appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
Rachel collided with him.
For one second he held her.
“You came.”
“You sound surprised.”
“You're supposed to be hospitalized.”
“You're supposed to be at work.”
Another shot hit the wall.
They escaped through the basement window.
Enzo captured two of Marco's men.
Marco escaped again.
Later, Rachel decoded the real location.
A safety-deposit box.
Inside was Daniel's second cache.
It contained bank records, photographs, and a sealed letter.
For Caleb.
Caleb opened it.
Daniel had written:
If Rachel ever learns the truth, don't ask her to forgive you. Give her the choice I didn't have.
Caleb folded the letter.
Rachel looked at him.
“What choice?”
“To walk away from all of this.”
Rachel considered it.
Then she noticed another document.
A birth certificate.
Isabella Rossi.
But the date was wrong.
Rachel showed Caleb.
He stared.
Then Isabella entered.
She saw the document.
Her face changed.
“That isn't my birth certificate.”
Margaret examined it.
Then she whispered:
“Because Isabella Rossi wasn't the child born that night.”
Everyone looked at her.
Margaret sat down.
“There were two babies.”
Caleb went still.
“What are you saying?”
May you like
Margaret looked directly at Rachel.
“One of them was you.”
