Chapter 8
Nobody believed Dad at first.
Michael Parker would have been seventy-two.
Dad had attended his funeral when he was sixteen.
Heart attack.
Closed casket.
Death certificate.
Burial.
But by sunrise, police had learned something impossible.
The death certificate was fake.
The physician who signed it had worked for a Cumberland-owned clinic.
The funeral home had closed three months later.
The cemetery record listed a coffin.
No record proved there was a body inside.
Mom stared at Dad.
“You lost your father the same way Ethan lost you.”
Dad looked at me.
The comparison hurt both of us.
Reed searched the memory card for Michael Parker.
They found one reference.
Not a death.
A payment.
June 1990.
TRANSFER MP TO SITE 12.
Dad leaned toward the screen.
“What is Site 12?”
Morales searched old Cumberland property records.
Nothing.
Then Charlotte, resting upstairs, overheard the question.
“Site Twelve.”
Morales turned.
“You know it?”
Charlotte nodded.
“Ryan said it.”
“When?”
“When he talked to Chief Harris.”
“What did he say?”
Charlotte thought.
“He said, ‘The old man is still at Twelve.’”
Dad stood so quickly the chair fell.
“The old man.”
Could be anyone.
But he believed.
I could see it.
For the first time since finding us, Dad looked like a son.
Not a fugitive.
Not a witness.
A child who wanted his father back.
Police questioned Ryan after surgery.
The bullet had missed his heart.
He was weak but alive.
Dad entered the room.
Ryan laughed faintly.
“You always were hard to kill.”
“Where is Site Twelve?”
Ryan looked at the ceiling.
“Should’ve let me die.”
“Where is it?”
“Wallace will kill everybody there.”
“Then help us beat him.”
Ryan closed his eyes.
Dad leaned closer.
“You watched my family for years.”
“Yes.”
“You moved into their house.”
“Yes.”
“You hurt Sarah.”
Ryan’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
“I should hate you.”
“You do.”
“I do.”
Dad took a breath.
“But you warned me about the bomb.”
Ryan looked at him.
“Doesn’t erase anything.”
“No.”
That surprised Ryan.
Dad continued.
“You don’t get forgiveness because you did one decent thing.”
Ryan looked away.
“But you can still save people.”
Ryan whispered an address.
An abandoned juvenile psychiatric facility ninety miles east.
Closed since 2002.
Cumberland bought the land through a shell company.
Site Twelve.
“What’s there?”
Ryan answered:
“People who were supposed to disappear.”
Dad went pale.
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“Children?”
“Sometimes.”
“What about Michael Parker?”
Ryan swallowed.
“When I joined, they talked about an old man who never broke.”
Dad gripped the bedrail.
“Did you see him?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“What did he look like?”
Ryan described a scar near the eyebrow.
Dad backed away.
It was him.
Grandpa.
Alive.
Maybe.
Morales immediately planned a raid.
But Ryan stopped her.
“Wallace knows the site is compromised.”
“How?”
“He knows Daniel has the card.”
“So?”
“He’ll burn Twelve.”
Dad grabbed him.
“What does that mean?”
Ryan stared straight at him.
“Literally.”
They had used fire before.
Charlotte and Noah’s parents.
Other witnesses.
Buildings destroyed.
Records gone.
People listed as accidental deaths.
Morales called local fire departments to stage nearby without sirens.
Tactical teams moved.
Dad wasn’t allowed to go this time.
Neither were we.
He fought the decision.
Mom supported Morales.
“You promised to come back.”
“I did.”
“Then stay back long enough to keep that promise.”
Dad looked at her.
Then nodded.
For three hours, we waited.
Lucy woke up and asked for cereal.
That ordinary request almost made Mom cry.
A nurse brought a tiny box.
Lucy ate while federal agents discussed hidden prisons.
I watched her swing her legs under the chair.
I wondered how children like Charlotte and Noah had eaten.
If they had cereal.
If they got breakfast at all.
At 9:11 a.m., teams reached Site Twelve.
The facility looked abandoned.
Broken windows.
Weeds.
Faded sign.
No vehicles.
Thermal cameras showed heat underground.
Police entered.
Empty offices.
Rotting furniture.
Then they found a service elevator.
The power was off.
They forced it open.
A shaft descended four floors.
Underground.
Firefighters entered with them.
At the lowest level, police found cells.
Twelve.
Most empty.
Three occupied.
A woman missing since 2018.
A former Cumberland accountant missing since 2016.
And an elderly man.
Dad stopped breathing.
The tactical officer’s camera moved closer.
White hair.
Thin face.
Long beard.
Scar over the eyebrow.
Dad whispered, “Dad.”
Michael Parker looked up.
For a second, he seemed confused.
Then he saw the camera.
“Who’s watching?”
The officer said, “Your son.”
Michael stared.
“Daniel?”
Dad grabbed the microphone.
“Dad.”
Michael’s face collapsed.
“My boy?”
Dad began sobbing.
I had never heard a grown man cry that way.
Not quietly.
Not politely.
Like something inside him had finally torn open.
“I’m here.”
Michael reached toward the officer’s camera.
“You got out.”
“Yes.”
“Sarah?”
“Alive.”
“The children?”
Dad looked at us.
“Right here.”
I leaned toward the camera.
“Grandpa?”
Michael froze.
His eyes found me through the screen.
“Ethan?”
I didn’t know how he knew.
Dad laughed through tears.
“You remembered his name.”
“I remembered everything.”
Then alarms screamed at Site Twelve.
Ryan had been right.
Fire.
Smoke filled the underground corridor.
Someone had remotely triggered an incendiary system.
Officers dragged the prisoners out.
A metal security door dropped between the cells and elevator.
They were trapped.
Firefighters attacked it.
Michael pointed toward another corridor.
“Tunnel!”
Officers followed.
Smoke thickened.
The woman collapsed.
They carried her.
Michael refused help until everyone else moved.
“You haven’t changed,” Dad whispered.
Michael apparently heard him.
“Neither have you.”
The tunnel climbed toward a drainage ditch half a mile away.
They emerged seconds before flames blew through the upper floor.
All three prisoners survived.
At the hospital, Michael and Dad reunited.
No cameras.
No agents.
Just family.
Dad hugged his father for almost a full minute.
Then Michael looked at me.
I didn’t know what to do.
He solved it.
He opened his arms.
I walked into them.
He smelled like hospital soap and smoke.
“You look like Daniel did at eight.”
“That’s what everyone says.”
Lucy stepped forward.
“I’m Lucy.”
Michael smiled.
“I know.”
She frowned.
“How?”
His smile disappeared.
“Because they showed me pictures.”
Mom stiffened.
“Who?”
“Wallace.”
The room went silent.
Michael explained that Wallace visited him twice a year.
Sometimes more.
He showed photographs of Dad.
Mom.
Us.
He wanted the location of old evidence Michael had hidden decades earlier.
“Did you tell him?”
Michael smiled.
“No.”
Dad laughed softly.
“Where is it?”
Michael looked at me.
“I gave it to you.”
I stared.
“What?”
“When you were born.”
“I never met you.”
“Not directly.”
Michael looked at Mom.
“The wooden train.”
Mom went pale.
Dad remembered.
When I was born, a package arrived without a return address.
Inside was a handmade wooden train.
Mom thought it came from one of Dad’s old relatives.
It had sat in my bedroom for years.
Ryan had thrown it away.
My heart sank.
“It’s gone.”
Michael’s face tightened.
“When?”
“A few months ago.”
Dad stood.
“Ryan.”
They rushed to question him.
Ryan closed his eyes when Dad mentioned the train.
“I didn’t throw it away.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave it to Wallace.”
Dad cursed.
“But he couldn’t open it.”
Michael smiled.
“He wouldn’t know how.”
“What’s inside?”
“The original ledger.”
Dad frowned.
“I have the master ledger.”
“No.”
Michael shook his head.
“You have the first generation.”
He looked at Reed.
“The original ledger contains the names of the people who founded the network.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-three.”
“Still alive?”
“Some.”
“Wallace?”
Michael’s expression changed.
“Wallace wasn’t a founder.”
Dad stared.
“Then who is above him?”
Michael looked toward the closed door.
“Someone your family already knows.”
Mom went still.
“Who?”
Before Michael could answer, a nurse entered.
She held an envelope.
“This was delivered for Ethan.”
Dad grabbed it.
No return address.
Inside was a photograph.
Me.
At three years old.
Sitting on a woman’s lap.
I recognized her.
Mom did too.
Her face went white.
“No.”
I stared at the woman.
“Grandma?”
Mom’s mother.
Margaret Hayes.
She had supposedly died two years before Dad disappeared.
May you like
Michael whispered:
“That’s the founder.”
