Samuel laughed softly.
“You still assume everyone in that hospital wants Rosie to live.”
Ben rushed toward the tunnel.
“I have to go back.”
“That’s what he wants,” Daniel said.
“My wife and children are there.”
“Then we leave together.”
A metallic clang sounded above us.
They were entering the boathouse.
Evelyn pulled the food shelves aside, revealing a narrow passage.
Daniel handed me a revolver.
“Do you know how to use it?”
“No.”
“Point. Keep your finger off the trigger until you intend to fire.”
We entered the tunnel.
Ben went first. I followed. Evelyn came behind me, Daniel last.
The passage was low and damp. Emergency lights glowed red along the floor.
Behind us, the bunker door crashed open.
Voices echoed.
We moved faster.
Halfway through, Evelyn stopped.
“What?”
She pressed one hand against the wall.
“The tunnel alarm.”
A green light had turned yellow.
“Someone opened the north exit,” she said.
“They’re waiting at both ends,” Daniel muttered.
We were trapped underground.
Samuel’s voice came through another speaker.
“You were always predictable, Evelyn.”
Daniel examined the tunnel.
“Any ventilation shafts?”
“One.”
“Where?”
“Thirty feet ahead.”
We reached a narrow ladder leading upward.
Daniel climbed first and pushed against the grate.
“It opens into the forest.”
“Can we fit?” Ben asked.
“Barely.”
Daniel went through, then helped me. Ben followed. Evelyn emerged last.
We crawled into wet brush as footsteps thundered inside the tunnel below.
Daniel pointed north.
“Run.”
We moved through the trees.
A shot rang out.
Evelyn stumbled.
Blood appeared on her upper arm.
I caught her.
“I’m fine,” she gasped.
Ben and Daniel returned fire toward the tunnel entrance.
We reached the shoreline.
No boat waited there.
Evelyn stared at the empty dock.
“There should be one.”
Graham Voss stepped from behind a tree.
He held a pistol aimed at my chest.
He was in his late sixties, broad-shouldered despite his age, with a white mustache and eyes that showed no fear.
Daniel raised his gun.
Graham pressed the barrel beneath my chin.
“Drop it.”
Daniel did.
Ben lowered the flare gun.
Evelyn clutched her bleeding arm.
“You sold us out,” she said.
Graham smiled.
“I sold everyone out. That’s why I’m still alive.”
Samuel emerged from the trees behind him.
Up close, he looked less like the man from my childhood and more like a carefully preserved ghost.
He studied my face.
“Laura’s eyes,” he said.
I wanted to spit at him.
“You murdered her.”
“She betrayed me.”
“She tried to stop you.”
“She lacked vision.”
He touched my cheek.
I recoiled.
“You belong to me, Claire.”
“No.”
“Your genetic inheritance is remarkable. Your mother was resistant longer than any subject except Rosie.”
“She died.”
“Because Richard interfered before I could complete treatment.”
A strange calm settled over me.
Men like Samuel survived because everyone around them reacted to their madness.
Rosie did not react.
She observed.
She planned.
She hid keys inside broken promises.
I looked at Graham.
“You’ve been taking payments from Richard for seventeen years.”
He smirked.
“Among others.”
“Then you know where his money is.”
“What?”
“Rosie found the accounts.”
His expression flickered.
“She copied everything,” I continued. “Payments to you. Offshore transfers. Property deeds.”
Samuel looked at him.
Graham’s grip tightened.
“You’re lying.”
“Am I? Why do you think she married a forensic accountant?”
Ben understood immediately.
He lifted his chin.
“The files automatically transferred to federal investigators this morning.”
That part was almost certainly false.
Graham looked at Samuel.
Samuel’s face changed.
Just slightly.
Suspicion.
It was enough.
“You said the girl had no proof,” Graham snapped.
“She doesn’t.”
“Her husband just said—”
“He is buying time.”
“And you’re willing to risk my life on that?”
Samuel’s voice sharpened. “Keep the weapon on Claire.”
Evelyn stepped forward.
“Graham, Samuel will kill you when this is over.”
“He’s had seventeen years.”
“Because I held evidence. Now Rosie has it. He no longer needs you.”
Samuel reached inside his coat.
Graham turned.
The gun beneath my chin shifted.
I dropped.
Samuel fired.
The bullet struck Graham in the chest.
Daniel dove for his weapon.
Ben fired the flare gun into Samuel’s coat.
Flame erupted across his shoulder.
He screamed and stumbled backward.
Graham collapsed beside me.
Evelyn kicked his pistol away.
Daniel tackled Samuel onto the wet ground and extinguished the fire with his jacket.
For several seconds, the forest filled with shouting, rain, and the ragged sound of Graham trying to breathe.
Then sirens rose across the lake.
Evelyn looked at me.
“How?”
Ben held up a tiny locator beacon.
“Rosie sewed it inside my jacket.”
I stared at him.
“When?”
“Before surgery.”
A smile broke through his terror.
“She told me I lose everything when I panic.”
Boats appeared through the rain.
State police.
Federal agents.
And in the first boat, handcuffed to a metal rail but very much present, sat Richard Hale.
