Chapter 11 - THE DEAD MAN
The highway became a battlefield.
Thomas abandoned the vehicle near an old gas station.
We escaped through a drainage ditch.
Daniel Ross was waiting inside the abandoned building.
He looked exactly as I remembered.
Older.
Scarred.
Alive.
I stared at him.
"You died."
He smiled.
"That was the idea."
Mom approached him.
"Daniel."
He hugged her.
Dad didn't.
They stared at each other.
"You knew," Dad said.
Daniel answered:
"I knew enough."
I demanded answers.
Daniel explained that his disappearance had been staged after he discovered Kane's operation.
But he had made one mistake.
He trusted Vanessa.
I looked at my sister.
Daniel continued.
"Vanessa contacted Kane because she believed she could trade the archive for your parents' safety."
Vanessa started crying.
"I thought I could."
Daniel nodded.
"That's why I came back."
He gave me a file.
Inside was the original Winter House report.
I read it carefully.
Then I found something unexpected.
My name wasn't listed as an asset.
It was listed as a witness.
The archive contained evidence of a massacre that had happened fourteen years earlier.
I remembered the black car.
My father arguing.
Victor Kane.
And someone else.
Then it came back.
A gunshot.
A man falling.
My father shouting:
"Michael, run!"
I staggered backward.
"I remember."
Everyone went silent.
I remembered the man's face.
The man Kane had killed.
He wasn't a stranger.
He was Sheriff Miller's predecessor.
And he had been carrying evidence against Kane.
But there was more.
Someone had been filming the entire event.
I remembered a small red camera.
Mounted inside the garage.
My father had hidden it.
I looked at him.
"You recorded it."
Dad nodded.
"The footage is in the archive."
Daniel shook his head.
"No."
"What?"
"The footage was removed."
"By whom?"
Daniel looked at Mom.
She whispered:
"Me."
I couldn't breathe.
"Why?"
"Because the footage showed something that would destroy more than Kane."
"What?"
Mom looked at Dad.
Then at me.
"It showed your father pulling the trigger."
I stared at Dad.
He closed his eyes.
"I had no choice."
The room became silent.
Then Daniel said:
"You don't know the full story."
May you like
A loud explosion shook the building.
Kane had found us.
