Chapter 8 - The Missing Minutes
Maya heard Gabriel before she saw him.
His cane struck concrete.
Tap.
Tap.
Tap.
The warehouse door opened.
Gabriel entered alone.
At least he appeared alone.
Maya shook her head desperately.
“No.”
A masked man stepped from behind a pillar.
“Files.”
Gabriel lifted the case.
“Release her.”
“Files first.”
Gabriel threw the case across the floor.
The man opened it.
Maya watched his eyes scan the pages.
Then he swore.
“These are copies.”
“Of course.”
Gabriel smiled.
“You tried to murder me. Did you expect originals?”
A second man emerged.
Then a third.
Gabriel counted them.
“Where’s Adrian?”
Nobody answered.
Interesting.
One man approached Gabriel.
“You think because you can stand again, you’re untouchable?”
“No.”
Gabriel looked toward Maya.
“I learned the opposite.”
Sirens sounded.
The kidnappers froze.
Police crashed through two entrances.
The confrontation ended in less than a minute.
Two men surrendered.
The third ran.
Gabriel moved toward Maya.
He knelt awkwardly beside her chair.
“Maya.”
“I told you not to come.”
“And I ignored you.”
“You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve heard.”
His hands shook as he untied her.
She noticed.
“You’re scared.”
“Terrified.”
“For me?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“For both of us.”
Maya’s expression softened.
Police arrested the kidnappers.
One agreed to talk.
He had been paid through an intermediary.
Name?
Adrian Cole.
But Adrian had disappeared.
So had Richard.
Vanessa remained missing.
The conspiracy was unraveling.
Yet one mystery remained.
Gabriel’s missing memory.
Specifically, eleven minutes between leaving the hotel and picking up Maya.
Maya had assumed Gabriel left the meeting and went directly to the garage.
He had not.
Hotel access records showed his key card opening Room 904.
Gabriel stared at the number.
“Who was in 904?”
The hotel checked.
The room had been booked under a false name.
But a surviving lobby photograph showed the guest.
Gabriel recognized her.
“Mother?”
Impossible.
His mother had died two years earlier.
Then Eleanor saw the photograph.
“That isn’t your mother.”
Gabriel looked closer.
The resemblance was extraordinary.
“Who is she?”
Eleanor sat.
“Her sister.”
Gabriel stared.
“My mother didn’t have a sister.”
“Yes, she did.”
Another family secret.
Her name was Lydia Hart.
Gabriel’s mother and Lydia had become estranged decades earlier.
Why?
Because Lydia had once been engaged to Richard Vale.
Gabriel felt the room close around him.
“What did she tell me?”
Nobody knew.
But Room 904 contained an old hotel voicemail archive.
One message had survived.
Gabriel pressed play.
Lydia’s voice filled the room.
“Gabriel, if you’re hearing this, Richard knows I spoke to you.”
Pause.
“Your father’s death was not what you were told.”
Gabriel stopped breathing.
His father had died twenty years earlier.
A boating accident.
Lydia continued.
“Richard has been stealing from your family for decades. Harbor Point isn’t the beginning. It’s the end.”
Then:
“Your father discovered him too.”
The recording stopped.
Gabriel stared at the machine.
Maya whispered, “Gabriel…”
He could barely speak.
“Richard killed my father.”
They did not yet have proof.
But now the story had become larger than one crash.
Larger than Harbor Point.
Gabriel looked toward Eleanor.
She was crying.
“You knew about Lydia.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know about my father?”
“No.”
He believed her.
For once, he believed immediately.
Then Maya noticed something attached to the voicemail transcript.
Coordinates.
Gabriel entered them into a map.
A location appeared.
A small coastal cemetery.
His father’s grave.
May you like
Underneath the coordinates Lydia had written:
ASK WHAT THEY BURIED WITH HIM.
