Chapter 1 - THE NUMBER THAT SHOULDN’T EXIST
The phone rang again behind the closed hallway door.
Nobody moved.
Cole stared at the black recorder in his gloved hand.
Maya stared at the door.
Her father immediately shifted in front of her and the two girls.
Ethan said nothing.
That was what frightened Maya most.
Only minutes earlier, he had been furious.
Arrogant.
Certain that everyone in the room was beneath him.
Now all the color had drained from his face.
Cole noticed it too.
He turned the recorder over.
A tiny serial number had been scratched into the back.
7-19-42.
Cole looked at the red evidence folder.
Then at the warrant photograph.
The device recovered in the original investigation had been marked 7-19-41.
One number apart.
Two recorders.
Two files.
Two operations.
Cole slowly raised his eyes.
“What is 42?”
Ethan swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
The phone stopped ringing.
Silence swallowed the hallway.
Cole stepped closer.
“You carried a concealed recorder matching evidence from an active warrant.”
“I said I don’t know.”
“And somebody is calling a phone behind a locked door the second we discover it.”
Ethan pulled against Cole’s grip.
“Then answer the damn phone.”
Maya’s father looked back at her.
“Stay here.”
“No.”
“Maya.”
“I’m not staying behind while everyone else decides what I’m allowed to know.”
Her father’s jaw tightened.
He knew that tone.
He had heard it when Maya was sixteen.
He had heard it when she refused to leave the hospital after her mother died.
He had heard it again when she finally admitted what Ethan had been doing behind closed doors.
There would be no changing her mind.
Cole approached the hallway door.
It was locked.
He knocked once.
“Investigator Cole.”
No answer.
He knocked harder.
“Open the door.”
Nothing.
Cole reached for the handle.
Ethan suddenly lunged.
It happened so quickly Maya barely understood what she was seeing.
Ethan twisted away and slammed his shoulder into Cole.
“Dad!”
Maya’s father grabbed Ethan before he made it three feet.
Cole recovered immediately.
He forced Ethan against the wall and restrained him.
“Don’t move.”
Ethan’s breathing turned ragged.
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
Cole stared at him.
“That sounded less like a warning and more like fear.”
The phone began ringing again.
Maya looked at Ethan.
His eyes went straight to the hallway door.
Not the recorder.
Not Cole.
The door.
Maya understood.
“Someone’s in there.”
Ethan shook his head.
“No.”
“You looked at the door.”
“I looked because the phone is ringing.”
Maya stepped closer.
“You knew someone would call.”
“Maya, stop.”
That frightened her more than anything.
He had said her name softly.
Almost desperately.
The Ethan she knew never begged.
He threatened.
He manipulated.
He smiled while other people panicked.
But right now he looked terrified.
Cole pulled a small tool from his evidence kit.
Thirty seconds later, the lock clicked.
Maya’s father moved in front again.
Cole opened the door.
The room beyond it was empty.
A narrow table stood against the wall.
Nothing else.
Except a phone.
An old black cell phone was vibrating against the wooden surface.
Cole approached it.
The screen showed no name.
Only a number.
Maya leaned around her father.
Her heart stopped.
She knew the last four digits.
She had seen them before.
Years ago.
On a piece of paper Ethan had told her to burn.
Cole looked back.
“You recognize it?”
Maya could barely speak.
“Yes.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
Maya stared at him.
“You told me that number belonged to your dead brother.”
Ethan slowly opened his eyes.
The phone stopped ringing.
Then a message appeared.
Cole read it aloud.
“FILE 42 COMPROMISED.”
A second message arrived.
“MOVE THE GIRLS.”
Maya’s blood turned cold.
Her arms tightened around the children.
Cole looked at Ethan.
But Ethan wasn’t looking at him.
He was staring at the two girls.
May you like
And for the first time, Maya realized the second encrypted file might not have been about Ethan.
It might have been about them.
