Chapter 5 - The Dead Brother's Voice

Mara shut off the phone. Ethan pulled Lily behind an overturned cabinet. Footsteps tapped along the corridor, slow and patient.

"Daniel?" Ethan whispered at the black screen. His brother had been dead for five years. The sight of him speaking was worse than a ghost.

A flashlight beam slipped under the blue door. A man's voice said, "The little girl is worth more alive. The others aren't."

Mara pointed toward an air vent. Ethan removed the cover with the brass key while she braced the door with a chair. Lily climbed first. The door burst inward just as Ethan hauled himself up.

A shot struck the cabinet. Another tore through the vent cover. Ethan crawled, dragging his weight through dust and wire, until the shaft dropped into an abandoned treatment room.

They hit the floor hard. Behind them, Mara kicked the vent grille loose, making it crash in the other direction. The pursuers ran toward the noise. They escaped through a broken window into the rain.

In the van, Ethan replayed Daniel's video. His brother said that Vale had tested an experimental treatment on people without their knowledge. Charles had funded it through a charitable foundation. Daniel discovered the missing patient records. Two days later he died.

"The syringe," Ethan said. "Was it the same drug?"

"Maybe," Mara replied. "But the amber color could be a marker, not the medicine itself. We need a lab."

Daniel's final words caught in Ethan's throat: Tell Ethan I tried to protect him. Tell him I'm sorry.

"Sorry for what?" Ethan asked the screen.

Mara hesitated. "There's another file you should see."

It was a birth certificate. Lily's. Her mother's name was Hannah Mercer. The father's field had been sealed by court order, but someone had typed a note in the margin.

PATERNITY CONFIRMED: DANIEL WHITMORE.

Ethan looked back at the girl asleep in her pink dress. His brother had left behind a daughter. Charles had left behind a reason to silence her.

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Then Mara's phone lit up with a message from Olivia's number.

If you want to see me alive, bring Lily to the boathouse before dawn. Come alone.