Chapter 7 - The Price Franklin Put on My Daughter’s Life

I wanted to tell Yates I would find him and break every bone in his hands.

Instead, I said, “Where?”

Sera grabbed my wrist.

I ignored her.

Yates answered calmly.

“Not yet. You’ll receive instructions.”

“If Blythe’s unit warms—”

“It won’t.”

“You expect me to believe you?”

“No. I expect you to understand leverage.”

The line went dead.

I stood in the rented house holding the phone while every instinct I had spent twenty years sharpening demanded violence.

Elena watched me.

“That is what Genevieve was afraid of.”

I turned.

“What?”

“You becoming predictable when someone threatened your family.”

“She was right.”

“No. She was afraid someone would use it.”

Sera sat at the kitchen table.

“The data key is probably more valuable to Franklin than the cord unit.”

“Why?”

“Because it may contain the unedited trial records. If regulators or prosecutors get those files, Halcyon becomes impossible to bury.”

Prescott folded his arms.

“Then we make copies.”

“We can’t,” Elena said. “Most files are encrypted.”

Sera nodded.

“The wafer may be only half the key.”

I looked at her.

“Half?”

“Genevieve believed in redundancy. If she hid one piece in the necklace, she likely separated the decryption credential.”

“Where?”

Sera gave a humorless smile.

“If I knew, I wouldn’t have spent five years pretending to be dead.”

We drove back to Chicago with Sera under protection.

At Lakeshore, Dr. Chen had already stopped every medication connected to Yates’s protocol.

Jonah’s fever had fallen.

Blythe’s had not.

I entered her room wearing a gown and mask.

She opened her eyes.

“Daddy?”

“I’m here.”

“Where did the wet lady go?”

I almost smiled.

“Elena?”

“She was wet when she came to our house.”

“Yes.”

“Is she Mommy’s friend?”

“She was.”

Blythe thought about that.

“Then I like her.”

Her hand was almost weightless in mine.

“Daddy?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t look scared.”

I had negotiated with men holding guns under tables.

I had stood over bodies.

I had watched buildings burn because someone thought fear could buy obedience.

My six-year-old daughter saw through me in three seconds.

“I’m not scared.”

She gave me a tired look that was pure Genevieve.

“Liar.”

I laughed.

Then had to turn my face because the laugh became something else.

Outside the room, Elena waited.

“She likes you.”

Elena’s eyes filled.

“I don’t deserve that.”

“Neither do I.”

She looked at me.

For once, neither of us argued.

Prescott approached.

“We found something on Yates.”

He handed me a folder.

Franklin had not acted alone financially. For twelve years, Halcyon-related payments had moved through a foundation controlled by Adrian Mercer.

My uncle.

My father’s brother.

The man photographed with Yates after he fled my estate.

“Adrian’s office?” I asked.

“Empty.”

“Home?”

“Empty.”

“Family?”

“His wife flew to Zurich yesterday.”

Elena read the transaction list.

“These payments continued after Victor died.”

“Yes.”

“So Adrian inherited Halcyon.”

Prescott nodded.

A nurse hurried toward us.

“Mr. Mercer, Dr. Chen needs you.”

We ran.

Blythe’s blood pressure had fallen.

Chen stood over the bed issuing orders.

I stayed behind the line she gave me, useless again.

Elena stood beside me.

Thirty minutes later, Blythe stabilized.

Chen came out looking exhausted.

“The counter-agent could help,” she said. “Sera believes she can synthesize a version, but it will take at least forty-eight hours.”

“We may not have forty-eight.”

“I know.”

“What about the cord blood unit still in storage?”

“We can retrieve it for Jonah.”

“And Blythe?”

“Without her own unit, we need another plan.”

The words turned the floor beneath me into water.

My phone vibrated.

Yates.

A location appeared.

An underground parking structure near Navy Pier.

Midnight.

ALONE. BRING THE WAFER.

Prescott read it.

“No.”

“I’m going.”

“Then I’m going too.”

“He said alone.”

Elena looked at me.

“You cannot trade the only evidence Genevieve left without copying whatever we can first.”

“We don’t have time.”

“We have until midnight.”

I stared at her.

“What are you suggesting?”

“Genevieve used patterns when she was scared. Dates. Anniversaries. Things she knew you would remember even if everyone else forgot.”

I thought of the encrypted files.

Passwords.

Credentials.

Then I remembered something from the recording.

“I separated the evidence.”

Elena nodded.

“Exactly.”

I looked down at the necklace.

Our first anniversary.

The blue stone.

The place I bought it.

A jewelry shop on Oak Street that had closed years ago.

Prescott was already searching.

His phone chimed.

“The owner still has a private vault.”

I looked at the time.

Seven hours until midnight.

“Open it.”

“He won’t without a warrant or key.”

“What key?”

Prescott looked at the necklace in Elena’s hand.

“A physical one.”

Elena turned the pendant over.

The tiny blue stone suddenly looked less like memory and more like a map.

Then my phone vibrated again.

A second message from Yates.

This one contained a live photograph of Blythe’s cryogenic container beside a digital thermometer.

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