Chapter 6 - Uncle Nate
I backed into the wall.
"Put it down."
Nathan did.
Slowly.
"It's midazolam. Emergency sedation. Not for you."
"Then why hold it?"
"Because I heard a car outside."
Headlights swept across the front windows.
Nathan turned off the lamp.
"Basement. Now."
"No."
A knock hit the front door.
Three times.
Then a man's voice.
"Dr. Cole? Federal agents."
Nathan looked at me.
"Vale."
My stomach dropped.
"You said he was federal."
"He is."
"Then why hide?"
"Because that's the problem."
The knock came again.
Nathan grabbed the medical case.
I wanted to run.
I also wanted answers.
I followed him downstairs.
The basement door had a steel bolt.
Nathan locked it.
Logan clung to me.
"I need proof," I whispered.
Nathan opened a safe.
Inside were old phones.
Hard drives.
A pistol.
And three voice recorders.
He played the first.
David's voice filled the room.
"Nathan, if I disappear, you watch Catherine. Do not contact her unless Vale moves first."
My knees weakened.
The recording date was four days before David's crash.
Another file.
"If she finds out I'm alive too early, she'll come looking. She won't be able to help herself."
I covered my mouth.
That sounded exactly like David.
Annoyingly certain he knew me.
Nathan said, "He was right."
"Don't."
Upstairs, wood splintered.
The front door.
Nathan turned the volume lower.
A third recording.
David sounded frightened.
"If I disappear twice, don't trust Vale."
Then a pause.
"And Nathan... don't let Catherine discover what we put in Logan."
Everything inside me stopped.
I looked at my son.
Nathan switched off the recorder.
"No one put anything in his body."
"Then what does that mean?"
Boots crossed the floor overhead.
Nathan lowered his voice.
"David hid data in Logan's newborn imaging files."
"What data?"
"Encryption material."
"In my son's medical record?"
"Metadata. Harmless."
"You knew?"
"Not until after David vanished."
A flashlight beam slid under the basement door.
Nathan picked up the pistol.
"The key can reconstruct a financial ledger."
"Whose money?"
"Vale's. Romano's. A lot of people who would kill for it."
The basement handle moved.
Nathan motioned us behind the furnace.
A drill whined against the lock.
Then Alessandro's black phone vibrated in my pocket.
A message.
DO NOT LET VALE GET THE BOY.
The drill stopped.
Silence.
Then Marcus Vale spoke through the door.
"Catherine, Nathan is lying to you."
Nathan's face went white.
Vale continued.
"Ask him who gave me David's route the night he crashed."
I looked at Nathan.
He did not answer.
May you like
CUT.
