Chapter 5 - THE ACCIDENT THAT WASN’T
Maya remembered rain.
That was what stayed with her.
Not the hospital.
Not the funeral.
Rain.
Her mother had been driving home when her car crossed the median.
The police called it an accident.
Her father blamed the weather.
Maya blamed herself because she had called her mother twenty minutes before the crash and asked her to hurry home.
For fourteen years, she had carried that guilt.
Now Ethan was telling her the crash had not been an accident.
Her father grabbed him.
“You better be very careful.”
“I wish I were lying.”
“You knew?”
“Not then.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
Maya stared at Ethan.
“You knew for a year?”
“I suspected.”
“And said nothing?”
“I needed proof.”
Maya’s father looked ready to tear him apart.
Cole stepped between them.
“We need File 43 opened.”
The technician connected the new recorder.
It required a password.
Ethan knew it.
“M-1107.”
Maya froze.
November seventh.
Her mother’s birthday.
“You used her birthday?”
“Victor did.”
The encryption opened.
A folder appeared.
Inside were photographs.
Maya’s mother leaving a restaurant.
Entering her car.
Driving through an intersection.
A photograph of a mechanic standing beside her vehicle.
Then a payment record.
$25,000.
Maya’s father sat down.
He looked suddenly old.
“No.”
Maya touched his shoulder.
He didn’t seem to feel her.
Cole opened the next file.
An audio recording began.
Victor’s voice.
“She found the account.”
Daniel answered.
“How much does she know?”
“Enough.”
“What does Ethan say?”
“He hasn’t met the daughter yet.”
Maya’s father looked up sharply.
The recording continued.
“Then handle the mother.”
Maya covered her mouth.
Her father walked away.
He pressed both hands against the wall.
For fourteen years, he had believed his wife died because of rain.
Now he knew someone had ordered her death because she discovered an account.
Maya looked at Ethan.
“What account?”
Ethan’s voice was barely audible.
“The original Northbridge fund.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred and forty million.”
Cole stared.
“Dirty money?”
“Some.”
“Some?”
“Blackmail payments.”
“Bribes?”
“Yes.”
“Extortion?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
Ethan looked at the girls.
Maya immediately understood.
“Take them downstairs.”
Her father shook his head.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Dad.”
He looked at her.
She whispered.
“Please.”
He finally took the girls away.
Ethan waited until they were gone.
Then he said it.
“Identity trafficking.”
Maya felt sick.
Not strangers being physically moved.
Identities.
Birth certificates.
Custody records.
Adoption files.
Medical histories.
Children legally erased from one family and inserted into another.
File 42 contained one of those cases.
Cole opened the catalog.
Forty-three numbered entries appeared.
Maya pointed at 42.
“Open it.”
The technician did.
A photograph filled the screen.
Maya stopped breathing.
It showed the older girl standing outside her school.
Taken six months earlier.
Another photograph appeared.
The younger girl sleeping inside Maya’s own house.
Maya whispered.
“No.”
Ethan looked away.
Cole scrolled lower.
A document appeared.
TRANSFER AUTHORIZATION.
May you like
Beneath it was a scheduled date.
Tomorrow.
