Chapter 18 - Rosa's Promise

The gunshot echoed in darkness.

Then Owen screamed.

Claire crawled toward the sound.

"Baby! Baby!"

Emergency lights flickered on.

Eleanor was on the floor.

Agent Ward had tackled her against a cabinet.

The gun lay three feet away.

Rosa was sitting against the wall with one hand pressed to her upper arm.

Blood ran between her fingers.

"Rosa!"

"I am fine," she said through clenched teeth. "Get your boy."

Owen lay inside an open records box where Eleanor had dropped him during the struggle. He was crying, furious and unharmed.

Claire lifted him against her chest.

The room disappeared.

There was only the tiny warmth of his body and the sound of him breathing.

"You're okay," she whispered over and over. "Mommy's here."

Rosa laughed weakly. "You said that before he was born."

Paramedics rushed in.

Eleanor was handcuffed.

As Ward pulled her to her feet, Eleanor looked at Claire with pure hatred.

"You think this ends because you have the baby?"

Claire stared back.

"No. It ends because people finally stopped being afraid of you."

Eleanor smiled.

"Ask Graham Pike where the original books are."

Ward stopped.

"What?"

Eleanor's smile widened. "The copies are useful. The originals are catastrophic."

Pike was brought into protective custody and questioned through the night.

At first he denied knowing anything.

Then Ward showed him Eleanor's arrest photograph.

He broke.

For seventeen years, he had maintained two accounting systems. One reflected the company's public finances. The other recorded bribes, kickbacks, hidden property purchases, and political favors.

"Where is it?" Ward asked.

Pike looked at Claire through the interview-room glass.

"Charles took it."

"Where?"

"He hid the archive somewhere inside the Bennett mansion."

Claire almost laughed from exhaustion. "Of course he did."

Pike continued, "Daniel knows the room."

Ward called the detention center.

Daniel agreed to cooperate.

His price was simple.

He wanted to see his son once.

Claire said no.

Daniel gave them the location anyway.

Behind the wine cellar was a reinforced archive room accessible through an old coal chute.

Agents opened it at dawn.

Inside were twenty-three banker boxes and three hard drives.

On top of the first box sat a handwritten note from Charles.

IF CLAIRE IS READING THIS, I FAILED TO KEEP DANGER AWAY FROM HER.

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The second line made Claire sit down.

DANIEL IS NOT MY BIOLOGICAL SON.