Chapter 9 - ROOM 417
The Hale Foundation building had been abandoned for twelve years.
Room 417 didn't appear on the official floor plan.
Coleman found it anyway.
Behind a false wall.
Inside were filing cabinets.
Hundreds of them.
Each contained records of children.
Foster children.
Runaways.
Teenagers without stable families.
Kids like the ones I worked with every day.
My stomach turned.
Victor had used the Hale Foundation's youth programs to create false identities.
Bank accounts.
Shell charities.
Money laundering channels.
Children who had no powerful families asking questions were perfect cover.
Suddenly, my career didn't feel accidental.
I had spent my adult life helping the same kind of children Victor had exploited.
Caroline had known.
That was why she had hidden the evidence.
Coleman opened another cabinet.
Inside were photographs.
One showed Caroline.
Another showed Rose.
Another showed Richard.
Then Travis.
Not adult Travis.
A child.
Maybe six years old.
I looked at him.
"What is this?"
He went pale.
"I don't know."
Behind the photograph was a document.
Daniel Cole had enrolled Travis in one of Victor's identity programs.
His original birth certificate had been replaced.
Travis stared at the paper.
"My father lied to me too."
I almost laughed at the cruelty of it.
Apparently every parent in our lives had built something out of secrets.
Then Coleman found another file.
CAROLINE HALE.
Status:
ACTIVE.
Updated six days ago.
Someone had accessed the room recently.
We heard footsteps outside.
Coleman drew her weapon.
"Police!"
Silence.
Then smoke began pouring beneath the door.
"Fire!"
Someone had locked us inside.
Flames raced along the hallway.
Travis grabbed a metal chair and smashed the window.
Four stories down.
Too high.
Coleman tried the door again.
No movement.
Smoke thickened.
Then a voice came through the building's old speaker system.
Victor.
"Emily."
I looked up.
"You should have left buried things buried."
"Where is Caroline?"
He laughed.
"Closer than you think."
The ceiling above us cracked.
Travis pulled me backward.
A burning beam crashed down.
Then the door suddenly opened.
A woman stood through the smoke.
Thin.
Gray streaks in dark hair.
A scar along her forehead.
The woman from the photograph.
She looked directly at me.
"Emily."
My body stopped moving.
She reached for me.
May you like
"I'm Caroline."
Then the ceiling collapsed between us.
