Chapter 3 - The Photograph Damian Couldn’t Explain
Lily slapped him.
The sound cracked through the apartment.
Adrian moved instinctively.
Damian raised one hand.
“Stay back.”
Lily’s palm burned.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
Damian looked at her.
“Three years.”
She slapped him again.
This time he didn’t move at all.
“Three years?”
“I didn’t know his real name.”
“Stop lying.”
“I’m not.”
Damian took a slow breath.
“Three years ago, a man using the name Daniel Cross approached my organization with information about Marcus Voss.”
“Evan.”
“Yes.”
“You saw him.”
“Twice.”
“And you never bothered discovering who he was?”
“I did. Every identity led nowhere.”
Lily turned away.
Her brother had been alive.
Eleven birthdays.
Eleven Christmases.
Their mother had died believing her son was dead.
Lily had stood beside an empty grave.
“He could have contacted me.”
Damian’s expression softened.
“He may have been protecting you.”
“Don’t defend him.”
“I’m not.”
She turned.
“Where is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re supposed to know everything.”
“No one knows everything.”
“Marcus seems to.”
Damian’s eyes hardened.
That landed.
For the next several hours, they worked.
Lily finally admitted that she still possessed the photographs from eleven years ago.
Not originals.
Copies.
Evan had insisted she hide them.
She had never understood why.
Until now.
The files were stored on an encrypted drive in a safe-deposit box.
“What’s in them?” Damian asked.
“Politicians. Businessmen. Donors.”
“Marcus?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone from my organization?”
Lily hesitated.
“One.”
“Who?”
“I need the photographs.”
Damian studied her.
“You remember.”
“I remember faces. I don’t necessarily know names.”
“Describe him.”
Lily did.
Older.
Silver hair.
Distinctive scar beside his ear.
Damian’s expression changed.
“Impossible.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
Lily stared.
Damian walked toward the window.
“My father died eight years ago.”
“Maybe he attended the fundraiser.”
“He hated Marcus.”
“Apparently not enough to stay away.”
Damian turned.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The card you found contains transaction records.”
“So?”
“The money wasn’t being stolen from me.”
“Where was it going?”
Damian looked at her.
“To people Marcus had supposedly killed.”
Lily understood slowly.
“Witnesses.”
“Yes.”
“Someone inside your organization has been helping them disappear.”
“Yes.”
“And Marcus thinks that person is betraying him?”
Damian nodded.
Lily thought about Evan.
Perhaps he had not simply survived.
Perhaps someone had helped him survive.
“What if your father wasn’t working with Marcus?” she asked.
Damian looked at her.
“What if he was doing what someone in your organization is doing now?”
Helping people escape.
The possibility settled heavily.
Then Adrian entered.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“The safe-deposit box.”
Lily stood.
“What about it?”
“Someone accessed it forty minutes ago.”
Her stomach dropped.
“That’s impossible.”
“Apparently not.”
“Who?”
Adrian held out a surveillance photograph.
A woman stood at the bank counter.
Baseball cap.
Dark glasses.
Gray hair visible beneath the cap.
Lily stared.
She knew that posture.
That handbag.
That profile.
“No.”
Damian stepped closer.
“Who is she?”
Lily couldn’t speak.
Because the woman in the photograph had been buried six years ago.
May you like
Her mother.
And she was holding Lily’s encrypted drive.
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