Chapter 10 - The Woman in the Photograph
They hid in the basement of Carol’s brother’s auto shop.
No windows.
One entrance.
Daniel liked that.
Ethan didn’t speak for nearly twenty minutes.
Finally Daniel sat across from him.
“Tell me exactly what your father said.”
Ethan looked at the floor.
“He said if anything happened to him, I should find Daniel Hayes.”
“And?”
“He said you would protect me.”
Daniel waited.
“And that you were there the night Mom died.”
Daniel slowly leaned back.
“What was her name?”
“Rachel Cole.”
Daniel frowned.
Nothing.
Then Ethan pulled a folded photograph from his backpack.
A woman holding a baby.
Daniel took it.
His heart stopped.
He knew her.
Not as Rachel Cole.
As Rachel Mercer.
Intelligence analyst.
Mission planner.
The woman who had warned Daniel not to trust Shaw.
The woman who disappeared two days before Daniel’s team walked into an ambush.
“She wasn’t your mother when I knew her.”
Ethan stared.
“What does that mean?”
“She used another name.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Carol leaned against the workbench.
“You better start knowing things fast.”
Daniel turned the photo over.
There was writing.
Same handwriting as Michael’s.
RACHEL KNEW FIRST.
Daniel whispered:
“She found the network.”
Ethan’s voice shook.
“Did you kill her?”
“No.”
“Then why did Dad say you were there?”
Daniel remembered rain.
A motel.
Rachel pounding on his door.
A flash drive in her hand.
Her saying:
“If Shaw finds out I talked to you, we’re both dead.”
Daniel had told her to wait.
He went to get Michael.
When he returned, the motel room was burning.
He never found a body.
Daniel stared at Ethan.
“I thought she died in a fire.”
Ethan’s eyes filled.
“She did.”
“No.”
Daniel looked at the photograph again.
“She disappeared before the fire.”
Carol frowned.
“You think she escaped?”
Daniel shook his head.
“I think someone moved her.”
A phone rang upstairs.
Everyone froze.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then silence.
Footsteps crossed the shop floor above them.
Carol whispered:
“Nobody knows we’re here.”
Daniel stood.
A man’s voice came through the basement door.
“Daniel?”
Daniel froze.
The voice continued.
“It’s Michael.”
Ethan jumped to his feet.
“Dad?”
Daniel grabbed him.
“No.”
Because Daniel had seen Michael Cole’s body in the crime-scene photograph.
And dead men didn’t knock.
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