Chapter 11 - The Replacement
The diner went silent except for the hiss of coffee pouring behind the counter.
“Another Eli?” Nora asked.
Ada nodded. “I saw him practicing Eli's handwriting. He was close.”
Ethan pushed the phone back to Nora. “You can't go alone.”
“He knows that,” she said. “He wants me to try anyway.”
They divided the work. Jasmine would release a verified sample of the original recordings to three independent newsrooms. Ada would guide Ethan through the flood tunnel. Nora would meet Victor at a public art museum with a decoy card, while Celeste watched from a car with an open line to Jasmine.
“Why a museum?” Ethan asked.
“Because he likes rooms full of people who never look closely,” Nora said.
At the museum, Nora found Victor standing before a painting of a burning ship. He wore the same immaculate suit as the night of the gala.
“Daughter,” he greeted her. “You've become inconvenient.”
“You've made being your daughter pretty unpleasant.”
“Give me the card.”
“Let Eli go.”
Victor glanced toward the glass doors. “Your brother is not a boy anymore. He understands loyalty.”
“Loyalty isn't a gun to your mother's head.”
He smiled. “Neither is love, usually. Yet both work.”
Nora held up the decoy. Victor made a call. A security camera feed appeared on his phone: Eli walked down a hallway toward an exit.
“Your turn,” Victor said.
Nora slid the card across the bench. As Victor reached for it, she caught sight of a small scar near his thumb. The same scar she had seen on Eli's hand in the depot. It looked almost painted on.
“Who are you?” she whispered.
The man blinked. For the first time, his smile faltered.
Across town, Ethan and Ada reached the flood gate beneath the pier. A keypad waited beside the tunnel entrance. Ada entered Mia's birthday, then hesitated at the last digit.
“What is it?” Ethan asked.
“Mia changed it before she disappeared.”
“To what?”
Ada swallowed. “The date your mother died.”
May you like
Ethan stared. Their mother was alive. She'd called him last Sunday.
Behind them, the flood tunnel gate began to close.
