Chapter 9 - THE NAME IN THE FILE
Federal agents flooded the underground ward.
Doctors took Evelyn away for emergency treatment.
Noah refused to leave her side until she made him.
“Stay with Lily,” she said.
“But—”
“I survived this long for both of you.”
She kissed his forehead.
“Go.”
Noah watched her disappear behind hospital doors.
Lily held his hand.
David was placed in handcuffs.
Noah stared at him.
His father didn’t resist.
Agent Carmen Reyes approached.
“You’re Noah?”
He nodded.
“Your mother gave us enough evidence to begin arrests.”
“Begin?”
Reyes looked toward the underground facility.
“This is bigger than one family.”
Noah thought of Thomas’s last words.
“Who else survived a funeral?”
Reyes’s expression changed.
“How do you know about that?”
“He said it.”
She hesitated.
Then took them to a secure room upstairs.
Margaret joined them.
Reyes placed an old folder on the table.
BENNETT, SARAH — DECEASED.
Noah frowned.
“Who’s Sarah?”
David, from the doorway, answered.
“My sister.”
Noah looked up.
“You had a sister?”
“She died when I was nineteen.”
Margaret laughed bitterly.
“No. She disappeared.”
David looked at her.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
Reyes opened the file.
Inside was a recent photograph.
A woman in her late forties.
Dark hair.
Sharp eyes.
Standing outside a research facility.
Alive.
David sank into a chair.
“Oh God.”
Noah stared.
“What happened to her?”
Reyes answered.
“Sarah Bennett was one of the first test subjects.”
Lily whispered, “Her own father did that?”
No one answered.
The silence said enough.
Reyes continued.
“After she survived, she disappeared into the program.”
“Where is she now?” Noah asked.
“We don’t know.”
A phone rang.
Reyes answered.
Her face changed immediately.
“When?”
She stood.
“Lock down the hospital.”
Noah’s heart jumped.
“What happened?”
Reyes looked at him.
“Your mother’s ambulance never arrived.”
“What?”
“The vehicle was intercepted.”
Noah’s chair crashed backward.
“By who?”
Reyes turned the phone so they could see a security image.
A woman stood beside the stolen ambulance.
Dark hair.
Sharp eyes.
Sarah Bennett.
Noah stared.
“Why would she take Mom?”
David closed his eyes.
“Because Sarah doesn’t want the program exposed.”
Margaret shook her head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
Margaret stared at the image.
“She wants something else.”
“What?”
Margaret’s voice dropped.
“Revenge.”
Then Noah’s phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One text.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT YOUR MOTHER BACK.
May you like
Under it was an address.
And a photograph of Evelyn tied to a chair.
