Chapter 8 - THE FATHER IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Molly took the photograph with both hands.
Patrick Lane stood outside a gas station.
Older.
Thinner.
A scar crossed the right side of his face.
But it was him.
Her father.
There was no question.
“Where was this taken?”
“West Virginia,” Sarah said.
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
Molly looked at the timestamp.
“You said seven years after the crash.”
“Yes.”
“That means he was alive four years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Is he alive now?”
Sarah hesitated.
Molly stepped closer.
“Do not hesitate.”
“I don’t know.”
The answer hurt almost as much as certainty.
“What happened the night of the crash?”
Sarah looked toward the federal agents securing Victor, Conrad, and their men.
“This isn’t the place.”
“It is for me.”
Dylan remained beside Molly.
Sarah studied him.
“Patrick told me never to trust a Burroughs.”
Molly almost laughed through tears.
“He left an exception.”
Sarah’s expression changed.
“The river question?”
Dylan nodded.
“I answered it.”
Sarah looked genuinely surprised.
“Then he was right about you.”
Victor shouted from where agents were handcuffing him.
“This is absurd! You have no jurisdiction to—”
Sarah turned.
“Victor Kemp, you are being detained pending federal charges including conspiracy, witness intimidation, trafficking, racketeering, attempted murder, and obstruction.”
Libby stared.
“Daddy?”
Victor looked at her with disgust.
“Be quiet.”
Libby’s face collapsed.
Molly saw something then.
Libby had believed she was protected because she was loved.
She was about to learn those were not the same thing.
Conrad pointed at Dylan.
“He belongs in cuffs too.”
Sarah looked at Dylan.
“He may be.”
Molly turned.
Dylan didn’t seem surprised.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“You could be arrested.”
“Yes.”
“And you still brought us here.”
“Yes.”
Sarah approached.
“Mr. Burroughs has been quietly supplying information to a federal investigation for fourteen months.”
Molly stared.
Dylan looked annoyed.
“That was classified.”
“You may survive.”
Sarah turned back to Molly.
“Your father began it.”
Molly’s chest tightened.
“When?”
“The night of the crash.”
Sarah looked toward Mill Creek.
“Patrick was taking Rebecca to a safe location. I was an undercover state investigator then. I was meeting them outside Harrow Falls.”
“But you were in the car.”
“Because the first safe house had been compromised.”
“Conrad chased you.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“The first vehicle struck us near Highway Nine. Patrick kept control. The second pushed us through a barrier.”
Molly saw it in her mind.
“He survived.”
“Both of us did.”
“And Rebecca?”
“She wasn’t in the car by then. Patrick had moved her to another vehicle minutes earlier.”
Molly closed her eyes.
Her father had saved Rebecca.
“Why fake his death?”
“Because Victor believed Patrick was dead.”
“So he left me?”
Sarah’s voice softened.
“He believed staying dead was the only way to keep you alive.”
Molly’s anger came fast.
“He was wrong.”
“Yes.”
The simple agreement broke something.
No excuses.
No romanticizing sacrifice.
Sarah continued.
“He planned to return after we had enough evidence.”
“But years passed.”
“Every time we got close, witnesses disappeared.”
“Then why didn’t he at least contact me?”
“He did.”
Molly stared.
“What?”
“Letters.”
“I never got letters.”
Sarah looked toward the federal vehicles.
“We sent six through Raymond Cole.”
Molly stopped breathing.
Raymond.
Of course.
“He destroyed them.”
“We believe so.”
Molly turned away.
Her father had written.
She had spent birthdays believing he was in the ground.
And Raymond had stood beside her pretending to grieve.
“Where is Raymond?”
Dylan asked.
Sarah’s expression hardened.
“Missing.”
Libby heard.
“He’ll run.”
Everyone looked at her.
She laughed nervously.
“You think my father trusted Raymond?”
Victor snapped, “Libby.”
She ignored him.
“All these years you treated me like decoration. Maybe I’m done protecting you.”
Victor’s expression went cold.
Libby flinched.
Molly recognized that look.
Fear learned over years.
Libby had been cruel.
Violent.
Complicit.
But she was also terrified of her father.
Both things could be true.
Sarah approached her.
“Where will Raymond go?”
Libby looked at Molly.
“Blackwoods.”
“Why?”
“There’s a second office.”
Molly frowned.
“The basement?”
“No.”
Libby smiled bitterly.
“Everyone keeps looking underground.”
“Where is it?”
“Above the ballroom.”
Molly remembered an unused fourth floor.
Raymond always claimed it contained ventilation equipment.
Libby continued.
“My father stored contingency files there. Passports. Cash.”
“Patrick?” Molly asked.
Libby looked at her.
“I saw a file with his name.”
Molly’s heart hammered.
“Recently?”
“Two months ago.”
Sarah immediately ordered agents to Blackwoods.
Molly started toward Dylan’s vehicle.
Sarah blocked her.
“You’re not going.”
“Yes, I am.”
“This is now a federal operation.”
“It was my father before it was your operation.”
“Molly.”
“No.”
Dylan spoke quietly.
“She’ll find a way.”
Sarah looked at him.
“That is not helping.”
“It is accurate.”
Twenty minutes later, Molly was riding toward Blackwoods with federal agents.
Atlas was banned from coming.
Kessler personally took his leash.
The dog complained loudly.
“You have been poisoned, shot at, and dragged through two criminal conspiracies in twenty-four hours,” Kessler told him. “You are staying.”
Molly kissed Atlas’s head.
“For once, listen.”
Atlas sneezed on her.
The fourth floor of Blackwoods was hidden behind a locked service elevator.
Agents forced it open.
Inside was not an equipment level.
It was an archive.
Filing cabinets.
Computers.
Boxes.
Fake passports.
Cash.
Photographs.
Raymond had already been there.
Several drawers were open.
A shredder was still warm.
“He left recently,” Sarah said.
Molly searched.
P.
Patrick.
Nothing.
Then she noticed a narrow cabinet behind Raymond’s desk.
Locked.
Dylan broke it with a crowbar.
Inside were six envelopes.
Each addressed in familiar handwriting.
MOLLY LANE.
Her father’s letters.
Molly sat down.
Eleven years disappeared.
She opened the oldest.
Molls,
I have started this letter twenty times and torn up nineteen.
You turned eighteen last month.
I watched from across the street when your mother brought the cake home.
I know that sounds cruel.
Maybe it was.
Molly cried silently.
Another letter.
I saw you graduate.
You tripped walking off the stage and pretended you meant to.
Still you.
Another.
I heard your mother died.
I wanted to come home so badly I drove halfway to Harrow Falls before Sarah stopped me.
I hate her for being right.
I hate myself more.
And the most recent.
Four years ago.
Molly,
I am sick.
Nothing dramatic. Years of bad food, worse sleep, and apparently inherited heart trouble.
Sarah wants me to stop running.
Maybe I will.
There is a cabin outside Boone, North Carolina, where I used to take you when you were too young to remember.
If the case collapses and I have to disappear again, that is where I’ll go.
Molly stood so quickly the chair fell.
“Boone.”
Sarah looked over.
“What?”
“He went to Boone.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He says it.”
Sarah took the letter.
“That was four years ago.”
“He could still be there.”
“Molly—”
“No.”
She grabbed her coat.
“I lost eleven years.”
Dylan stopped her.
“Then we don’t lose another hour.”
Sarah sighed.
“You two are impossible.”
“Probably.”
They left for North Carolina before sunset.
No armored convoy.
No army.
Just Molly, Dylan, Sarah, and two federal agents.
Atlas remained behind.
Six hours later they reached a cabin road deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Molly’s hands shook.
The cabin appeared beyond the trees.
One light burned inside.
She stopped breathing.
Smoke rose from the chimney.
Someone was there.
Molly opened the car door.
Dylan caught her wrist.
“Wait.”
“No.”
“There could be danger.”
“That’s my father’s house.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know.”
She walked toward the porch.
Each step felt impossible.
She reached the door.
Raised her hand.
Before she could knock, it opened.
An older man stood there.
Gray beard.
Deep scar.
Blue eyes exactly like hers.
Patrick Lane stared at his daughter.
Neither moved.
Then his face collapsed.
“Molly?”
Her knees almost gave out.
He reached toward her.
Stopped.
As if he knew he had no right.
Molly slapped him.
The sound cracked across the porch.
Dylan looked away.
Sarah closed her eyes.
Patrick nodded slowly.
“I deserved that.”
Molly hit his chest with both fists.
“You were alive.”
“I know.”
“You were alive!”
“I know.”
“I buried you!”
Patrick began crying.
“I know.”
“You let me bury you.”
“I’m sorry.”
She struck him again.
Then her arms stopped working.
Patrick caught her as she collapsed.
Molly buried her face against the coat of the father she had mourned for eleven years.
And for several minutes, anger lost the fight against love.
Then Patrick whispered something into her hair.
“We can’t stay.”
Molly pulled back.
“What?”
His eyes moved toward the dark road.
“Raymond found me yesterday.”
Dylan reached for his weapon.
Patrick continued.
“And he isn’t working for Victor anymore.”
“Then who?” Molly asked.
Patrick looked at Dylan.
“The one person none of us suspected.”
A gunshot shattered the cabin window.
Sarah shouted.
Everyone dropped.
Patrick dragged Molly behind the porch wall.
Dylan fired toward the trees.
Another shot.
Then another.
Patrick looked at his daughter.
“Molly, listen to me.”
“What?”
“The person behind Raymond has been inside Dylan’s organization from the beginning.”
Dylan turned.
“Who?”
Patrick’s answer made him lower his gun in disbelief.
“Your security chief.”
Molly stared.
“The man protecting Atlas?”
Patrick nodded.
“Marcus Hale.”
May you like
Back in Harrow Falls, the man Dylan trusted with every door, camera, vehicle, and guard was standing alone inside Kessler’s veterinary clinic.
And he had just unplugged Atlas’s heart monitor.
