Chapter 5 - The Sister I Never Knew
I stared at my father.
“Emily?”
He closed his eyes.
Nathan looked from him to me.
“Richard.”
My father said nothing.
I stepped closer.
“Who is Emily?”
His answer came barely above a whisper.
“Your sister.”
My knees nearly failed.
I caught the edge of the table.
“My what?”
“You had a younger sister.”
“Had?”
He looked sick.
“She disappeared twelve years ago.”
My anger became something colder.
“You told me Mom had one child.”
“I lied.”
“Again.”
“Yes.”
Hale remained on speakerphone.
“Touching.”
Nathan picked up the phone.
“Where is Emily?”
“Alive.”
My father made a sound I had never heard from him.
Hope and pain colliding.
“Marcus.”
“Bring Claire to the old Palisade clinic by eight. She authorizes the transfer. Emily goes free.”
The line disconnected.
My father turned toward me.
“You're not going.”
I almost laughed.
“You don't get to decide that.”
“He may not even have her.”
Anna interrupted.
“He does.”
Everyone turned.
“You knew?”
“I knew Hale had a protected witness.”
“You knew it was my sister?”
“No. But I suspected.”
I stared at her.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because until tonight I wasn't sure you knew she existed.”
“I didn't!”
My father sank into a chair.
I looked at him.
“Tell me everything.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“Emily was eight when she disappeared.”
“How old was I?”
“Seventeen.”
I searched my memory.
Nothing.
That frightened me more than everything else.
“I don't remember having a sister.”
Nathan’s face changed.
“Palisade.”
My father nodded.
My stomach turned.
“No.”
“Your mother volunteered for a trauma treatment program after Emily was born.”
“Hale's program?”
“Yes.”
“And us?”
“Family members were included in memory studies.”
I stepped backward.
“You let them experiment on us?”
“I didn't know what it was.”
“At first,” Voss said.
My father glared.
“At first,” he admitted.
I wanted to scream.
Instead I sat.
One memory surfaced.
A little girl laughing on a swing.
Red shoes.
A missing front tooth.
Then gone.
I pressed my fingers to my temple.
“Red shoes.”
My father began crying.
“She loved red shoes.”
I covered my mouth.
She was real.
My sister was real.
And someone had taken her from my memory.
Nathan crouched beside me.
“Don't chase the memories too hard.”
I looked at him.
“How would you know?”
Pain moved across his face.
“Because I've been trying to remember Anna for six years.”
Anna looked away.
Nathan stood.
“We go to the clinic.”
My father immediately objected.
“No.”
Nathan ignored him.
“We don't authorize anything. We retrieve Emily.”
Voss shook his head.
“Hale will expect that.”
“He expects fear.”
“He expects military tactics too.”
I looked at the ledger.
“What does he not expect?”
Everyone looked at me.
I understood why the woman in the recorded video had hidden everything so carefully.
Hale knew soldiers.
Lawyers.
Operatives.
He expected power.
What he might not expect was me.
The daughter everyone believed had forgotten.
“We let him think I'm coming alone.”
My father stood.
“Absolutely not.”
“I won't actually be alone.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed.
“What are you thinking?”
I pointed to the ledger.
“If I authorize the transaction, can we redirect it?”
Anna studied the system.
“Possibly.”
“Where?”
“To an account controlled by federal investigators.”
Voss laughed.
“You don't trust federal investigators.”
“I don't need all of them.”
I looked at Nathan.
“You said there was one white-haired veteran at the gala who nodded to you.”
He understood.
“Senator Warren.”
My father frowned.
“Warren chairs Armed Services oversight.”
“Exactly.”
Anna said, “Hale has influence around him.”
“But not over him?”
Nathan shook his head.
“No.”
We used Anna’s hidden satellite terminal to send Senator Warren a small piece of the ledger.
Not everything.
Enough.
Ten minutes later a secure reply arrived.
COME TO ME.
Nathan shook his head.
“Too risky.”
I typed back.
COME TO US.
Warren arrived ninety minutes later with two federal inspectors and one woman from the Justice Department.
No motorcade.
No security entourage.
He read the ledger.
Then watched the warehouse footage.
His face grew older by ten years.
“I served with Hale.”
Nathan said nothing.
Warren looked at my scar.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don't be sorry. Help me get my sister.”
He nodded.
We developed a plan.
At 7:43 the next morning, I arrived at the abandoned Palisade clinic.
Alone.
Or apparently alone.
Nathan wore a concealed transmitter two buildings away.
Warren’s team waited beyond the perimeter.
My father hated every second.
I walked through rusted double doors.
The clinic smelled of bleach despite being abandoned.
Hale waited in the lobby.
He wore civilian clothes now.
Without his uniform, he seemed smaller.
But his eyes were the same.
“Claire.”
“Where is Emily?”
“Safe.”
“Show me.”
He lifted a tablet.
Live video appeared.
A woman sat in a room.
Thirty years old.
Dark brown hair.
Thin.
Frightened.
She looked into the camera.
And I knew.
Not from memory.
From her eyes.
Mine.
“Claire?”
Her voice broke.
I nearly dropped the tablet.
“Emily.”
She started crying.
“Oh my God.”
Hale turned off the screen.
“Authorize the transfer.”
I looked at him.
“Let her go first.”
“No.”
“Then no transfer.”
He smiled.
“You've become difficult.”
“Apparently I always was.”
A flicker of irritation.
Good.
“I know about the warehouse.”
“Do you?”
“I know you delayed the rescue.”
“I made a tactical decision.”
“You left us to burn.”
“Yet here you are.”
I hated him.
But I stayed calm.
That was the plan.
“Why erase Emily?”
He tilted his head.
“She remembered too much.”
“She was eight.”
“Children notice things adults ignore.”
“What did she notice?”
Hale smiled.
“Your mother.”
My breath caught.
“What about her?”
“She found Palisade’s original patient records.”
“My mother died when I was nineteen.”
Hale said nothing.
My pulse changed.
“No.”
His smile disappeared.
“What?”
“She didn't die.”
Hale looked annoyed.
That told me everything.
“Where is she?”
“Authorize the transfer.”
“Where is my mother?”
The earpiece hidden beneath my hair crackled.
Nathan’s voice:
Claire. Stay focused.
I swallowed.
“Emily first.”
Hale handed me a biometric pad.
“Thumb here.”
I pressed it.
The system recognized me.
AUTHORIZATION READY.
A second prompt appeared.
DESTINATION ACCOUNT.
Hale entered numbers.
I entered the override Warren’s team had given me.
The screen flashed.
TRANSFER PROCESSING.
Hale smiled.
Then his smile vanished.
DESTINATION LOCKED BY FEDERAL OVERSIGHT.
He looked at me.
“What did you do?”
I stepped backward.
Sirens erupted outside.
Nathan’s voice came through my earpiece.
Move.
Hale grabbed my wrist.
I drove my knee into him.
He stumbled.
The doors burst open.
Federal agents rushed in.
Nathan came behind them.
Hale reached for a weapon.
Nathan tackled him.
The gun slid across the floor.
I ran toward the hallway.
“Emily!”
A voice answered.
“Claire!”
I followed it.
Room 12.
Locked.
I grabbed a fire extinguisher and smashed the keypad.
The door opened.
Emily stood inside.
For one second we simply stared.
Then she ran into me.
I held my sister for the first time I could remember.
She shook against me.
“I knew you'd come.”
“I didn't even remember you.”
“I know.”
Those words hurt beyond description.
I pulled back.
“Mom.”
Emily froze.
“You know?”
“Hale said she found the records.”
Emily looked toward the hallway.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“She’s alive.”
My knees weakened.
“Where?”
Emily’s eyes filled with fear.
“Hale moved her last night.”
“Where?”
“I heard one of the guards.”
She grabbed my hands.
“They didn't take her away from the clinic.”
“What does that mean?”
Emily looked toward the floor.
“There’s another level underneath us.”
A distant alarm began sounding.
Nathan shouted from the corridor.
“Claire! Get out!”
Smoke appeared beneath a stairwell door.
Emily turned pale.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
Her voice became a whisper.
May you like
“This is exactly what they did twelve years ago.”
Then the basement door slowly opened from the other side.
