Chapter 8 - The Man Everyone Wanted Dead
The bullet struck Warren below the collarbone.
Not immediately fatal.
Professional placement would have killed him.
The shooter had missed.
Or wanted him alive.
I dragged Lily behind the counter while Ward returned fire toward a treeline.
Marcus pressed his hands over his father’s wound.
“You’re okay. Dad. Look at me.”
Interesting how quickly betrayal disappears when blood appears.
Warren stared up at his son.
“I’m sorry.”
Marcus’s face hardened.
“Save it.”
But he did not remove his hands.
The shooter escaped.
Kane County deputies arrived eight minutes later.
Too quickly.
Ward disappeared before they entered.
Officially, he was dead.
Having him explain himself would create questions nobody wanted.
We moved Warren to the hospital under police guard.
Then I called the only person whose name had appeared at the center of too many ghosts.
Sarah Kincaid.
She answered.
“Claire.”
No surprise.
“You knew I’d call.”
“I hoped you wouldn’t.”
“Is Nadia alive?”
Silence.
“Sarah.”
“Yes.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
Marcus heard.
So did Rachel.
Warren closed his eyes from the hospital bed.
Everyone knew except Marcus.
Again.
“Where?”
“Not Vermont.”
“Then who is Nora?”
Kincaid exhaled.
“Nora Keswick is an identity we created for Nadia.”
“Why?”
“To protect her from Warren.”
Warren laughed weakly.
“Of course.”
Kincaid continued.
After Anne’s crash, federal operatives extracted her before local responders arrived.
The body in the vehicle belonged to another woman.
I felt sick.
“That makes no sense.”
“It wasn’t supposed to survive scrutiny. It was supposed to survive one news cycle.”
“Why fake her death?”
“Because Warren had sold access to Blackridge personnel.”
I turned toward him.
Marcus stared at his father.
Warren’s face gave him away.
The reason Ward’s helicopter had gone down.
The reason operators had been compromised.
Warren had been selling identities.
“You killed Elias’s team,” I said.
“No.”
“You gave someone the route.”
“I sold information. I didn’t know what they’d do.”
Marcus stood.
“That’s your defense?”
Warren looked at his son.
“People pay for information because they plan to use it.”
“So you knew.”
Warren said nothing.
Then Kincaid gave me the next blow.
“Nadia has been alive all these years because she agreed to help us identify everyone Warren compromised.”
“Why send letters to Rachel?”
“She didn’t.”
I looked at the Blackridge mark.
“Then who did?”
“Kincaid.”
My voice sharpened.
“Claire, I haven’t used that authentication mark in ten years.”
Someone else had written the letters.
Someone wanted Rachel manipulating me.
Someone wanted Marcus provoking me.
Someone wanted Ward resurfacing.
A lot of people had been dragged from hiding in one afternoon.
Then Lily said quietly:
“Mom?”
She was looking at Warren.
His heart monitor had accelerated.
Not because of the wound.
Because a woman had just appeared in the doorway.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
A familiar pair of eyes.
Marcus stood completely still.
“Mom?”
Anne Caldwell looked at her son.
Then at Warren.
May you like
And said:
“You should have died years ago.”
