Chapter 6 - THIRTY SECONDS
"What happens in thirty seconds?"
I asked.
Frank grabbed the files from the table.
"Nothing good."
Emily was already moving toward the door.
"Take Ava's recorder."
I shoved it into my coat pocket.
Frank swept the seven trial files into a canvas storage bag.
The disposable phone changed from thirty to twenty-nine.
Not a message anymore.
A timer.
"Move," Frank said.
We ran into the corridor.
The greenhouse stairs were behind us to the left.
Frank looked at the footprints leading the opposite direction.
"If somebody set a trap in that room, they expect us to go back the way we came."
"You want to run deeper underground?"
Emily asked.
"I want to stay unpredictable."
The timer showed twenty-two.
I followed him right.
We sprinted beneath low pipes while our flashlights bounced across wet concrete.
A heavy metallic click sounded somewhere behind us.
Emily looked back.
"That was not thirty seconds."
"Keep moving."
The corridor split.
Frank took the left branch without hesitating.
I noticed.
"You know this tunnel."
"Later."
"You keep saying that."
"Then survive long enough to hate me for it."
The phone reached ten.
A steel door appeared ahead.
Frank hit it with his shoulder.
It did not move.
"Locked."
Emily pointed above the frame.
"Manual latch."
Frank reached up, found the rusted release, and pulled.
The door opened inward.
Cold dawn air hit us.
We spilled into a stone storage shed behind the cliffs east of the mansion.
The timer reached zero.
For half a second, nothing happened.
Then the ground jumped.
A deep impact rolled beneath our feet.
Dust burst from the tunnel behind us.
The steel door slammed shut on its own.
Glass shattered somewhere uphill.
I turned toward the mansion.
A plume of gray dust rose from beneath the greenhouse.
"They destroyed the room," Emily said.
Frank looked at the canvas bag in his hand.
"Not all of it."
My phone rang.
Hospital.
My heart stopped before I answered.
"Carter."
The PICU physician spoke quickly.
"Your son is stable."
My lungs worked again.
"Then why are you calling?"
"One of the monitors lost remote connection for approximately twenty seconds."
I looked at Frank.
"Was anyone in his room?"
"No."
"Did anyone enter the unit?"
"No."
"Do not let anyone touch him without two staff members present."
"We already implemented that."
I ended the call.
Emily watched me.
"Noah?"
"Stable."
Her shoulders lowered.
Frank held up the disposable phone.
The screen had gone black.
"Rachel knew about the trap."
"Or set it," I said.
His eyes hardened.
"She warned us."
"After keeping a burner phone in a room used to watch my son."
"You do not know that phone was hers."
"It called you Dad."
Frank said nothing.
The storage shed opened onto an old service road leading toward the boathouse.
A security SUV was racing toward us from the mansion.
Frank raised one hand.
Then Emily caught his arm.
"Wait."
The SUV did not slow.
Frank's hand moved to his gun.
"Behind the wall."
We stepped behind a low stone barrier.
The vehicle skidded to a stop twenty yards away.
Two men in Carter security jackets jumped out.
I recognized neither of them.
That meant nothing anymore.
"Mr. Carter," one shouted.
"We were sent to extract you."
Frank called back.
"By who?"
"Chief Dawson."
Frank looked at me.
Chief Dawson had been unconscious since the first attack.
I drew the pistol Frank had given me before entering the tunnel.
The two men saw it.
One reached inside his jacket.
Frank fired first.
The shot struck the SUV's front fender beside the man's hand.
"Do not."
The man froze.
Emily crouched lower.
"They are wearing the wrong radio harnesses."
The second man looked at her.
Recognition crossed his face.
"Parker."
He raised his weapon.
Frank fired twice.
The man dropped behind the SUV.
The first returned fire.
Stone chips exploded near my shoulder.
I pulled Emily down.
Frank moved along the wall and fired toward the vehicle's rear tire.
The attacker ducked.
From the direction of the mansion, real security sirens approached.
The first man jumped back into the SUV.
The engine roared.
The vehicle reversed down the service road.
Frank fired again but missed.
Within seconds, it vanished between the trees.
I looked at Emily.
"He knew your name."
"Apparently everyone does now."
"No."
Frank reloaded.
"He recognized her before Michael spoke."
Emily stared at the empty road.
"Harrow knows I survived."
"You said Claire was the whistleblower," I said.
"She was."
"Then why does he care about you seven years later?"
Emily looked at me.
"Because Claire gave me something besides the locker key."
I waited.
She reached beneath the waistband of the borrowed scrubs and pulled out a narrow strip of waterproof fabric sewn into the inside seam.
A tiny folded paper packet was hidden there.
Frank stared at her.
"You have been carrying that in my house for eight months?"
"I have been carrying it for seven years."
She unfolded the paper carefully.
Inside was a string of numbers and letters written in faded ink.
"What is it?"
"Claire called it a recovery key."
"For what?"
"I never knew."
Frank studied it.
"Encryption key."
Emily nodded.
"That is what Ava thought."
"And Harrow wants it."
"Maybe."
I looked toward the greenhouse.
"Then the room was not a trap to kill us."
Frank understood immediately.
"It was meant to force us out."
"Into the open."
Emily looked toward the trees where the fake SUV had disappeared.
"For them to take me."
The real security team arrived three minutes later.
This time Frank verified every man's identity face-to-face.
We returned to the mansion through the west entrance.
Police technicians were already sealing the greenhouse.
The blast had collapsed most of the underground room without damaging the main structure.
That precision bothered me.
Whoever planned it knew the building.
In the library, Frank locked the recovered files inside a fireproof case.
I closed the doors.
"Now you tell me about Rachel."
He stood at the window.
For a long time, he said nothing.
Then he spoke without turning.
"Rachel was born before I met your father."
"Her mother and I never married."
"I was twenty-two and stupid."
"By the time Thomas hired me, Rachel was five."
I sat on the edge of the desk.
"Why did I never know?"
"Because your father knew everything about everyone and taught me the value of keeping one thing for myself."
"You kept a daughter from me for twenty years."
"I kept her from Thomas."
Frank turned around.
"That was different."
Emily stood by the fireplace listening.
Frank continued.
"Rachel became a teacher."
"She married young."
"Lucas was her first child."
His voice changed when he said the boy's name.
"He had a rare immune disorder."
"Northreach offered a trial."
"They told Rachel it was experimental but promising."
"They did not tell her that children in an earlier phase had already suffered severe reactions."
Emily looked at the bag of files.
"Lucas was number four."
Frank nodded.
"He died after his second treatment."
I looked at him.
"And you knew my father owned the clinic."
"Not before Lucas died."
"After?"
Frank's silence answered.
"What did you do?"
"I confronted Thomas."
"And?"
"He told me Northreach was bigger than one child."
Emily's face twisted in disgust.
Frank saw it.
"I wanted to kill him."
"But you did not," she said.
"No."
"Why?"
Frank looked at me.
"Because Thomas showed me evidence that Rachel had stolen trial medication and threatened a physician."
"He said he could send her to prison for twenty years."
"He offered a deal."
My stomach tightened.
"You helped bury Lucas's death."
Frank's eyes lowered.
"Yes."
Emily stepped away from the fireplace.
"You protected the man who killed your grandson."
"I protected my daughter."
"By helping him erase her son."
Frank's face sharpened.
"You think I do not know what I did?"
The force in his voice shook the room.
"I have known every morning for eight years."
Silence followed.
Then I asked the only question that mattered.
"When did you last speak to Rachel?"
Frank stared at me.
"Four months ago."
I stood.
"Four months."
"She called from an unknown number."
"What did she want?"
"Information about Vantage."
"Did you give it to her?"
"Some."
My anger returned.
"How much?"
"Enough to prove Harrow was restarting old research."
"Did you tell her about Noah?"
Frank's mouth tightened.
"She already knew."
Emily stepped closer.
"Did she threaten him?"
Frank did not answer fast enough.
I crossed the room and grabbed his jacket.
"Did she threaten my son?"
"She said Thomas Carter took her child and someday a Carter would understand what that felt like."
The room went silent.
I released him slowly.
"And you said nothing."
"I did not believe she would hurt a baby."
"You believed wrong."
"We do not know she did this."
"She knew the tunnel was rigged."
"She warned us."
"She had access to Vantage information because you gave it to her."
Frank stepped toward me.
"If Rachel wanted Noah dead, she would not warn me away from evidence that could expose her."
Emily interrupted.
"Unless she wanted you to save the files."
We both looked at her.
She pointed toward the canvas bag.
"The room was destroyed, but the trial files were left where we could grab them."
"The timer gave us enough warning to escape."
"The fake security team went after me, not the files."
Frank frowned.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning whoever set the trap wanted those records in Michael's hands."
A knock came at the library door.
One of my real guards entered.
"Sir, we found something near the old boathouse."
He held up a torn piece of beige fabric inside an evidence bag.
Margaret's uniform.
"Blood on it," he said.
"And a phone."
He placed a cracked smartphone on the desk.
The screen was still active.
One unsent voice recording remained open.
I pressed play.
Margaret's whisper filled the room.
"Michael, if they find me, Frank will tell you Rachel did this."
Frank went rigid.
Margaret's breathing sounded ragged.
"Do not believe him."
A noise interrupted the recording.
Then Margaret whispered four more words.
May you like
"Rachel was trying to stop it."
