Chapter 6 - The Traitor in the Room
Suspicion changed everything.
Elena looked at Vale.
Vale looked at Claire.
Claire looked at Mercer.
Mercer kept driving.
"Who?" Elena asked.
"He wouldn't tell me."
"Convenient."
"I know."
They met Rourke inside an abandoned marina warehouse.
He looked exhausted.
"You shouldn't have brought Claire."
Claire stepped toward him.
"You shouldn't be alive."
"Neither should you."
Vale moved between them.
"Enough."
Rourke placed a drive on the table.
"Kessler's current network."
Elena didn't touch it.
"Why help us?"
"Because I'm disposable now."
"You were willing to let a five-year-old be declared dead."
Rourke looked at her scar.
"I saved you."
"Margaret saved me."
"I falsified the records."
"That doesn't make you good."
"No."
At least he admitted it.
Rourke explained Kessler had informants throughout military and contractor systems.
The bunker had been monitored.
Only four people knew they were going.
Elena.
Vale.
Margaret.
And one investigator assigned by Holloway.
Agent Daniel Price.
Vale immediately called.
No answer.
Then Elena remembered something.
Price had handled the evidence case from the training yard.
Including her broken clasp.
"Find him."
They returned to Coronado.
Price was gone.
So was the clasp.
Holloway was furious.
"I vetted him myself."
Vale replied, "Kessler has had decades."
Elena checked security footage.
Price left carrying a bag.
Destination unknown.
Then Mercer noticed a vehicle number.
They traced it to an old Navy housing complex.
Inside one unit, they found Price dead.
No graphic scene.
Just a man silenced before he could speak.
The clasp was missing.
But Price's phone remained.
One outgoing message had been deleted.
Cyber specialists recovered part of it.
417 CONFIRMED. VALE DOESN'T KNOW ABOUT—
The message ended there.
"About what?" Elena asked.
Nobody knew.
Claire stared at the screen.
Then she whispered, "The second child."
Vale looked at her.
"What second child?"
Claire closed her eyes.
Elena's stomach dropped.
"Mom."
It was the first time she'd called Claire that.
Claire looked at her.
"There was another child in Harbor Light."
"Who?"
"A boy."
"Mine?"
"No."
Claire hesitated.
"Marcus's."
Vale looked stunned.
"I had a son?"
Claire nodded.
"Kessler told me the child died."
Elena laughed bitterly.
"Apparently that's his favorite lie."
The boy had been used to control Vale.
Claire had tried to find him.
Never succeeded.
Elena looked at Mercer.
He was staring at the floor.
Something about his expression felt wrong.
"Mercer."
He didn't answer.
"Look at me."
Slowly, he did.
Claire stared at him.
Then at Vale.
The resemblance wasn't obvious until someone knew to look.
The jaw.
The eyes.
Vale whispered, "How old are you?"
Mercer didn't answer.
"How old?"
"Thirty-six."
Vale stepped backward.
Mercer reached into his pocket.
Elena's hand moved toward her weapon.
He removed a folded piece of paper.
"I've had this since I was eighteen."
He gave it to Vale.
A birth record.
Father unknown.
Mother listed as Sarah Mercer.
Attached was a photograph.
Sarah stood beside Thomas Kessler.
Vale stared.
Mercer's voice cracked.
"Rourke told me Kessler arranged my adoption."
Elena looked between them.
The man who had shoved her might be the half brother neither of them knew existed.
Mercer laughed nervously.
"That's impossible, right?"
Nobody answered.
Then Rourke's phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His face changed.
"Kessler."
Vale said, "Answer it."
Rourke did.
A distorted voice spoke.
"Bring both of Marcus Vale's children to Pier Seventeen."
Elena froze.
May you like
The voice continued.
"Or Margaret Ward dies before midnight."
