Chapter 12 - NOAH DISAPPEARS
Harper called Chen back immediately.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Gabriel took the phone from her.
"Stop."
"He has her."
"We do not know that."
"We heard him."
"We heard Rourke tell her to step away from a computer."
"That is not better."
Gabriel looked at Elias.
"Can you reach anyone inside headquarters?"
"Two people."
"Use both."
Elias left the room.
Harper paced despite the pain in her ribs.
"We cannot keep hiding while everyone who helps us gets hurt."
Gabriel's expression hardened.
"You think I like this?"
"I think you are used to controlling the board."
"There is no board."
His voice rose for the first time.
"My brother is dead."
"My father may have helped kill him."
"The man I trusted for fourteen years sold my people to an enemy."
Gabriel pressed a hand against his wound.
"And the woman who raised half this house has apparently hidden my family history from me since I was a child."
Morrison flinched.
Gabriel lowered his voice.
"Believe me, Harper, I do not feel in control."
The room went quiet.
Harper regretted pushing him, but not enough to apologize for the point.
"Then we need something they cannot predict."
"Such as?"
"Me."
Gabriel's eyes narrowed.
"Absolutely not."
"They think I am scared."
"You are."
"Yes."
Harper stepped closer.
"That is why they will believe me if I act like it."
Gabriel understood before she explained.
"You want to contact Derek."
"He wants the evidence."
"He wants you."
"Then let him believe he can have both."
"No."
"You do not get to decide."
"I get to refuse to participate."
"Fine."
Harper folded her arms.
"I will do it without you."
Gabriel stared at her.
"That is not negotiation."
"I learned from difficult men."
Morrison looked between them.
"Harper may be right."
Gabriel turned.
"You have used your daily allowance of secrets and opinions."
Morrison accepted the blow without reacting.
"Derek believes control is the same as intelligence."
She looked at Harper.
"Men like that make mistakes when someone appears to surrender."
Harper nodded.
Gabriel looked at both women.
"I hate this plan."
"We do not have a plan yet," Harper said.
"I hate the concept."
Before they could continue, Elias returned.
"Chen is alive."
Harper exhaled.
"Where?"
"Suspended."
"For what?"
"Unauthorized database access."
Gabriel almost smiled.
"Better than dead."
"For now."
Elias looked at Morrison.
"Rourke took her badge and phone."
Harper frowned.
"Then how do we know?"
"Chen left a message with one of my contacts before they escorted her out."
"What message?"
Elias handed Gabriel a slip of paper.
There were only four words.
CHECK ST. BRIGID'S BASEMENT.
Morrison went rigid.
Harper noticed.
"You know it."
"St. Brigid's was a clinic in East Boston."
"Was?"
"It closed twelve years ago."
Gabriel looked at her.
"Why does that name bother you?"
Morrison swallowed.
"Because Adrian used the basement for meetings when we were young."
"Meetings about what?"
"Business no one wrote down."
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
"Apparently our family traditions are consistent."
Harper looked at the note.
"Why would Chen point us there?"
Elias answered.
"Maybe she found a link in the bank transfers."
Gabriel stood.
"We find out."
This time Harper did not argue when he said she and Noah would remain behind.
She had another idea.
Before sending Derek the message, Harper wrote three versions and deleted all of them.
The first sounded angry.
Derek would distrust anger because he believed fear was her natural language.
The second sounded too frightened.
He knew exactly how she sounded when panic became real.
The third sounded exhausted.
That one felt true enough to use.
Morrison watched from across the kitchen table.
"You know him well."
Harper stared at the phone.
"That used to embarrass me."
"Why?"
"Because knowing his moods felt like evidence that I had adapted to them."
"You had."
Morrison's answer was gentle but direct.
"Adaptation is not agreement."
Harper looked at her.
"Sometimes I could tell what kind of night it would be from the sound of his keys."
"Sometimes I knew whether to hide Noah's headphones before Derek even opened the door."
"That sounds insane when I say it out loud."
"It sounds observant."
"It kept you alive."
Harper's mouth tightened.
"I am tired of praising things only because they kept me alive."
Morrison nodded.
"Then use the skill for something else."
Harper looked at the drafted message.
"Like manipulating him."
"Like predicting him."
"There is a difference."
"Is there?"
"Intent."
Morrison leaned forward.
"Derek studied you to narrow your choices."
"You are studying Derek to create one."
Harper considered that.
Then she pressed send.
The phone rang almost immediately.
Before answering, Harper turned on the recorder function of another device and placed it near her elbow.
"If he confesses to anything, we keep it," she said.
Morrison nodded.
"And if he suspects?"
Harper looked at the dark screen before answering.
"Then I stop."
"No matter what information he offers?"
"No matter what."
The answer mattered.
Derek had spent years convincing Harper that leaving a dangerous conversation was weakness.
This time, before the call even began, she decided the exit belonged to her.
After Gabriel and Elias left with four men, Harper sat at the kitchen table with Morrison.
Noah was in the chapel drawing.
Harper opened a prepaid phone Elias had given her.
"I need Derek's number."
Morrison looked at her.
"Gabriel said no."
"Gabriel is not my husband."
"That is not what I meant."
"I know."
Harper found Derek's number from memory and typed a message.
I HAVE THE LOCKET.
She stared at the screen.
Then added.
I WANT OUT.
The reply came in twelve seconds.
OUT OF WHAT?
Harper typed.
ASHFORD'S HOUSE.
A minute passed.
Then the phone rang.
Harper answered.
"Hello?"
"You sound tired."
Derek.
She made herself sound smaller.
"I am."
"Did he hurt you?"
The hypocrisy nearly made her laugh.
Instead, she whispered.
"He is using me."
Morrison watched her carefully.
Derek softened his voice into the tone he used after hurting her.
"I told you he would."
Harper closed her eyes and let the old fear enter her voice.
It was not difficult.
"I found something in Mom's necklace."
Silence.
"What?"
"A black strip."
Derek's breathing changed.
"Where is it?"
"With me."
"Good girl."
Harper nearly broke character.
Morrison's hand tightened around the edge of the table.
"I want Noah safe."
"Of course."
"And I want you to stop."
"Stop what?"
"All of it."
Derek sighed as if she were the difficult one.
"Harper, bring me the strip and the recorder."
"Then what?"
"Then we go home."
Her stomach turned.
"I am not going back to that house."
A pause.
"Fine."
The easy answer frightened her.
"We start somewhere else."
Harper forced her voice to shake.
"Promise?"
"I promise."
The same word he had used at their wedding.
The same word he used the morning after the first time he broke her rib.
Harper stared at Morrison and said,
"Where?"
Derek gave an address near the harbor.
An old fish-processing warehouse.
"Midnight."
"Alone?"
"Do not insult me."
Harper swallowed.
"Derek, I need to hear Noah's voice first."
Silence.
Then Derek laughed.
"Noah is with you."
Harper's blood went cold.
"I know."
"Then why-"
"Because if you are trying to prove you can protect him, you should know where he is."
The line disconnected.
Harper stared at the phone.
Morrison stood.
"We need to move Noah."
"Now."
They ran toward the chapel.
The room was empty.
Noah's crayons were scattered across the floor.
One side door stood open.
Harper's heart stopped.
"Noah!"
She ran into the courtyard.
No one.
Morrison shouted for the two guards Gabriel had left behind.
Neither answered.
Harper found one near the rear gate, unconscious but breathing.
The other was gone.
On the ground beside the open gate lay Noah's drawing.
It showed Harper, Noah, and a tall dark-haired man standing in front of a house.
Across the bottom, written in a different hand, were five words.
MIDNIGHT.
BRING EVERYTHING.
COME ALONE.
Harper's phone rang.
She answered with a shaking hand.
Noah was crying on the other end.
"Harper?"
"Noah."
"I am sorry."
"You did nothing wrong."
"The man said-"
The phone was taken from him.
May you like
Derek's voice replaced his.
"Now you have a reason to keep your promise."
