Chapter 11 - THE MISSING PASSENGER
Everett stared at the photograph.
“I was alone.”
Marcus shook his head.
“Not according to this.”
Traffic-camera footage showed the Bentley leaving downtown eleven minutes before the crash.
A shadow occupied the passenger seat.
Willa leaned closer.
“Can you enhance it?”
“Already did.”
Marcus placed another photograph down.
A woman.
Dark hair.
Everett’s face changed.
“Claire.”
Willa looked at him.
“Who’s Claire?”
“My sister.”
Silence.
Everett had never mentioned a sister.
“She died ten years ago.”
Marcus shook his head.
“Apparently not.”
Everett stood too quickly and grabbed the table.
Willa steadied him.
“How?”
Everett’s voice turned distant.
“Claire disappeared when she was twenty-two. Everyone said she overdosed.”
“No body?”
“No.”
Marcus handed him a file.
The woman in the footage had been identified through facial recognition.
Claire Kane.
Alive.
Living under another name in Indiana.
They drove there the following morning.
The house was small.
Blue shutters.
Children’s bicycles on the lawn.
Everett stood at the door for a long time before knocking.
A woman answered.
She looked older than the photo.
But Everett knew her instantly.
“Claire.”
Her face collapsed.
“Oh God.”
Everett stepped back as if struck.
“You’re alive.”
Claire started crying.
“I’m sorry.”
He said nothing.
“You let me bury you.”
“I had to disappear.”
“For ten years?”
“Our father was going to kill me.”
Everett froze.
Willa remained silent.
Claire invited them inside.
The truth came slowly.
Their father, Vincent Kane, had been far more violent than Everett ever knew.
Claire discovered that Vincent had ordered several murders.
When she threatened to go to the police, he staged her overdose and sent her away.
“Why were you in Everett’s car?”
Willa asked.
Claire looked at her brother.
“Because I came back to warn him.”
“About Sterling?”
“No.”
“Whitfield?”
“No.”
Everett’s jaw tightened.
“Then who?”
Claire whispered, “Uncle Raymond.”
Everett frowned.
“He died before my crash.”
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
The room went still.
“He faked his death.”
Everett stared.
Claire continued.
“Sterling, Whitfield, Allison—they were working for him.”
Everett’s hands curled.
“Why?”
“Because Raymond wanted the Kane empire back.”
Everett stood.
“My father left it to me.”
“And Raymond never accepted that.”
Claire wiped her eyes.
“The night of your crash, I told you everything. We were going to the FBI.”
Everett pressed his fingers to his temple.
Fragments flashed.
Rain.
Claire yelling.
Headlights.
Brakes failing.
Then—
A black SUV.
He looked up.
“Raymond was there.”
Claire nodded.
“He watched your car go over the barrier.”
Willa felt a chill.
“Where is he now?”
Claire’s face went pale.
“I don’t know.”
Then a bullet punched through the living-room window.
Glass exploded.
Willa hit the floor.
Everett dragged Claire behind the couch.
A second shot struck the wall.
Everett looked outside.
A black SUV was speeding away.
His expression turned murderous.
“Now we know.”
Willa stared at him.
“Know what?”
Everett rose slowly.
May you like
“Raymond knows I’m coming.”
Cliffhanger: The conspiracy hadn’t been run by Sterling at all—it had been built by a dead man who was very much alive.
