Chapter 10 - THE SAFE HOUSE
Federal agents arrived before dawn.
The case was no longer a wedding scandal.
It was a federal investigation.
Fraud.
Attempted murder.
Witness intimidation.
Kidnapping.
Possible corruption.
And a dead woman who might not be dead.
An FBI agent named Marcus Hale took Lucas aside.
“We found Sarah Quinn.”
Lucas stared at him.
“Alive?”
Hale nodded.
“Where?”
“West Virginia.”
Lucas’s heart slammed.
“And Rachel?”
Hale’s expression gave nothing away.
“She wants to speak with you.”
“Rachel?”
“Sarah.”
Lucas swallowed his disappointment.
He left Emma with Grace under federal protection and traveled with agents.
Sarah Quinn lived under another name in a small mountain town.
When Lucas entered the safe house, a silver-haired woman stood by the window.
She looked at him for a long time.
“You look older.”
Lucas almost laughed.
“My wife supposedly died four years ago.”
Sarah nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
“Is she alive?”
Sarah didn’t answer quickly enough.
Lucas felt it.
“Was she alive after the crash?”
“Yes.”
His eyes burned.
“How long?”
“Eleven months.”
Lucas stepped backward.
The room tilted.
“She was alive for almost a year?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody told me?”
“She couldn’t.”
“That’s garbage.”
“Lucas—”
“She had a husband. A daughter.”
Sarah’s voice sharpened.
“And people trying to kill both of you.”
Lucas went silent.
Sarah explained.
Rachel had discovered Charles Mercer’s criminal network went far beyond foundation fraud.
Money laundering.
Bribery.
Medical kickbacks.
Political donations.
Rachel agreed to cooperate with federal investigators.
Before she could enter formal protection, Charles learned about it.
The crash happened the next night.
Rachel escaped with Emma.
Sarah reached her before Charles’s men.
“Why leave Emma?”
“Rachel believed they would keep looking if Emma disappeared too.”
“So she left my three-year-old beside a road?”
“She made the hardest decision of her life.”
Lucas turned away.
“What happened eleven months later?”
Sarah’s face changed.
“Rachel testified before a sealed grand jury.”
Lucas slowly turned back.
“Then?”
“Our operation was compromised.”
“By who?”
“We didn’t know.”
Sarah walked to a safe.
She removed a photograph.
Rachel.
Alive.
Thin.
Short hair.
Standing outside a small house.
Lucas touched the photo.
“When was this?”
“Six weeks before she died.”
Lucas’s eyes filled.
“How?”
“Poison.”
He looked up.
“Someone inside witness protection reached her.”
Sarah nodded.
“She died in a hospital under another identity.”
Lucas couldn’t speak.
Sarah handed him an envelope.
“She wrote this for you.”
His name was on the front.
Lucas opened it.
The first sentence destroyed him.
Lucas, I’m sorry I had to let you believe I was dead.
He sat down.
Rachel explained everything.
Her fear.
Her guilt.
Her love for Emma.
Her hope that Lucas would someday understand.
At the bottom was one final warning.
If Vanessa Cole ever gets close to you, Sarah is compromised.
Lucas slowly looked up.
Sarah had gone pale.
Then a gun clicked behind him.
May you like
Sarah whispered,
“Lucas, don’t move.”
