He Thought His Mother Was Dead for 8 Years—Until She Appeared on Screen as a Gunman Threatened His Wife!

Mara stopped so suddenly that Adrian nearly collided with her.

“Lily's alive,” she said.

Ruiz looked at the photograph. “We don't know when it was taken.”

“She's alive.” Mara shoved the phone toward Adrian. “Why does she say not to trust you?”

His expression tightened. “I don't know.”

“Don't insult me.”

“I've lied to you by omission,” he said. “But I haven't lied about your sister.”

“Then start talking.”

They ducked beneath the overhang of a closed laundromat. Adrian rubbed rain from his face.

“When I was nineteen, I was interning in my father's office. After the fire, I delivered a sealed transfer authorization to a medical clinic. I thought it concerned evacuated residents.”

“Whose transfer?”

He looked sick. “I never opened the envelope.”

“You helped move children, and you didn't even ask where?”

“I believed my father was helping them.”

Mara stepped back. “My sister disappeared. My dad went to prison. And you kept living in that mansion.”

Adrian let her walk away. He didn't argue. That almost made her angrier.

June Park's shop occupied a basement full of old radios, broken televisions, and one extremely unfriendly cat. June listened to Ruiz's explanation without interrupting.

“Last time you showed up,” June said, “I lost my job.”

“This time you could save a life.”

“Same sales pitch. Worse timing.”

Then June saw the drive. Her face changed.

“Nightglass,” she murmured. “I thought they burned that program down.”

She unplugged the shop's internet router, connected an isolated computer, and began working. On the screen, a map of Larkspur appeared. The basement had contained not just storage rooms but a private medical facility operating without permits.

“Children were transferred after a toxic exposure,” June said. “The fire was a cover story.”

Mara gripped the desk. “What toxic exposure?”

June enlarged a document signed by Graham Cross. “Experimental air-filtration chemicals. They tested them in occupied buildings. Residents got sick. People complained. Then records started disappearing.”

A video file opened. Seven-year-old Lily sat in a clinic bed, crying for her father.