Chapter 9 - THE THIRD PLAYER
Chaos exploded.
Sophie screamed.
Gunfire ripped through the dark.
Rachel pushed Adrian behind a steel column.
“Stay down!”
“No!”
“Sophie is twenty feet away!”
“Exactly!”
Adrian crawled along the concrete.
A muzzle flashed above him.
Rachel fired back.
Someone fell from the catwalk.
Adrian reached Sophie.
He cut the zip ties with a piece of broken metal.
“Daddy!”
“I’m here.”
She threw herself into his arms.
A bullet struck the chair beside them.
Adrian covered Sophie with his body.
“Run when I say run.”
“Daddy—”
“Trust me.”
Rachel shouted from the dark.
“Back exit!”
Adrian grabbed Sophie.
They ran.
Behind them, Lucas coughed violently.
“Adrian…”
Adrian stopped.
Lucas lay on the floor clutching his chest.
For one second, Adrian wanted to leave him there.
Then Sophie whispered, “He’s hurt.”
Damn it.
Adrian went back.
He grabbed Lucas under one arm.
Rachel helped with the other.
They dragged him outside as sirens approached.
In the parking lot, Lucas struggled to breathe.
“Vanessa…”
Adrian knelt beside him.
“What?”
“She’s not… running this.”
“We know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Blood touched Lucas’s lips.
“Who is?”
Lucas laughed weakly.
“Dad.”
Adrian froze.
“What did you say?”
“Dad started it.”
Their father, Richard Cole, had died seven years earlier.
At least that was what Adrian believed.
Lucas grabbed his jacket.
“Dad didn’t die in Switzerland.”
Adrian stared at him.
“He had a heart attack.”
“No.”
“Lucas.”
“He disappeared.”
Rachel crouched closer.
“Why?”
Lucas’s eyes rolled slightly.
“Fraud investigation. Federal charges. He used us.”
“Used you how?”
“Shell companies. Fake vendors.”
Adrian shook his head.
“No.”
Lucas squeezed his arm.
“Vanessa worked for him first.”
Adrian remembered Vanessa saying Lucas was terrified of someone.
Now he understood.
“My father is alive?”
Lucas nodded weakly.
Then his hand fell.
Paramedics rushed over.
Adrian stood motionless.
Sophie grabbed his hand.
Rachel looked at him.
“This changes everything.”
The next morning, Lucas survived surgery.
Barely.
Derek Voss was dead.
Two gunmen were arrested.
One escaped.
And there was still no trace of Richard Cole.
Until Rachel received an encrypted email.
No sender.
One attachment.
A photograph.
Adrian opened it.
His father stood on a balcony overlooking the ocean.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakably alive.
Next to him stood Vanessa.
The photo had been taken that morning.
Below it was a message.
BRING THE KEY TO MONTEREY.
Adrian frowned.
“The key?”
Rachel looked at him.
“The safe key?”
“No.”
He reached into his pocket.
The brass key to box 317 was still there.
He turned it over.
For the first time, he noticed something.
The bottom edge had a second set of numbers.
Not 317.
Another sequence.
Coordinates.
Rachel typed them into a map.
Her face changed.
“What?”
She turned the laptop toward Adrian.
The coordinates pointed to a property outside Monterey.
A private estate.
Owned by a company Adrian had never heard of.
Rachel opened the ownership records.
The company had been created seven years ago.
The same week Richard Cole supposedly died.
And the registered owner was someone named Robert Hale.
Adrian stared.
“Hale?”
Rachel nodded.
May you like
The same last name as the bank manager.
Margaret Hale.
