Chapter 11 - The Night Everything Burned
Lena and Jack reached the motel.
Room 217 looked exactly as before.
“What are we looking for?”
“My father said the real evidence is here.”
They tore the room apart.
Nothing.
Then Lena remembered the wall.
Behind the landscape.
She reached into the opening.
This time she felt deeper.
Her fingers touched metal.
A second compartment.
Inside was a hard drive.
And a note.
Claire's insurance policy.
Lena smiled through tears.
Her mother.
Again.
The drive contained video from the night Daniel supposedly died.
Lena watched.
Her father entered a warehouse.
Vale's men followed.
Then Claire appeared.
She wasn't supposed to be there.
She carried documents.
Vale himself confronted them.
The camera captured his voice.
Threats.
Names.
Orders.
Then fire erupted.
Lena realized the “highway accident” story had hidden something far worse.
Vale had tried to burn Daniel alive.
Jack had pulled him out through a rear door.
Claire had escaped separately.
The footage proved attempted murder.
More importantly, Vale spoke about previous killings.
Names.
Dates.
Everything.
“This ends him,” Jack whispered.
A smell reached Lena.
Smoke.
Jack looked toward the door.
Flames appeared beneath it.
Someone had set the motel on fire.
History repeating itself.
Jack smashed the bathroom window.
Lena clutched the drive.
They climbed out as flames consumed Room 217.
Outside, a figure waited.
Curtis.
His wounded shoulder was bandaged.
He held a gun.
Jack stepped in front of Lena.
Curtis lowered the weapon.
“I’m not here for her.”
“Then why?”
Curtis looked at the burning motel.
“Vale ordered me to make sure she stayed inside.”
Lena stared.
“But you didn't.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Curtis's face hardened.
“Because I'm tired of burying people for him.”
He gave them car keys.
“Go.”
“What about you?”
“I'll tell them you died.”
Jack studied him.
“Why should we trust you?”
“You shouldn't.”
Curtis looked at Lena.
“But somebody once gave Mercer a chance to stop being the man Vale made him.”
Jack understood.
Daniel had saved Jack by trusting him.
Now Jack had to decide whether to extend the same mercy.
He took the keys.
They drove away as the motel burned.
Lena looked back.
Curtis stood alone before the flames.
For seventeen years, fear had protected Vale.
May you like
Now people were beginning to choose something else.
And powerful men become most dangerous when fear stops working.
