Chapter 13 - The Doctor's Hands
Vale smiled the same polite smile he'd worn at the wedding. "Please don't make this uglier than necessary."
Mara put herself between him and Ethan. "You used my sister. You wrote the false report."
"Your sister volunteered," Vale said.
"She volunteered for physical therapy. Not an experimental injection."
Vale's smile vanished. "The research could have changed medicine."
"Then why bury the bodies?" Ethan asked.
Vale lunged. Mara caught his wrist before the needle touched her neck. They crashed into the wall. Ethan grabbed Vale's sleeve, and the syringe dropped down the stairs, breaking against the vault door.
Mara twisted Vale's arm until he cried out. "Where is Lily?"
"I don't have her," he gasped. "Cross did. Before the warehouse. I only got a live feed."
"Nadine was with us," Ethan said.
"You think she's the only accountant who knows the numbers?"
Reed arrived with agents and handcuffed Vale. His phone revealed dozens of messages from someone labeled HARBOR ADMIN, but the sender's identity was hidden behind a relay.
They opened the vault with Beatrice's notebook. Inside were rows of paper records and refrigerated sample boxes. Ethan recognized Daniel's handwriting on a sealed envelope marked FOR MY BROTHER.
He opened it with shaking hands.
Ethan, I was wrong about one thing. Dad isn't the center of this. He is the wallet. The people above him will sacrifice us both. If I'm gone, find the person who signs the releases. Never let Lily disappear.
"People above him?" Mara whispered.
On the last page Daniel had drawn a symbol: a harbor bell inside a circle. Beneath it, a location—an abandoned ferry terminal across town.
Ethan showed Reed. "Who signs the releases?"
She stared at the symbol too long before answering. "I know what this is."
Mara stepped back. "Agent Reed?"
May you like
Reed raised her radio. "All units, stand down. I'll take custody of the evidence."
Then Ethan saw the same harbor bell tattooed inside her wrist.
