Chapter 13 - What My Father Forgot
Dad read the message three times.
He didn't speak.
I couldn't either.
The photograph trembled in my hand.
I looked younger than I remembered.
Maybe five.
Maybe six.
I was smiling.
Dad wasn't.
Richard Vale wasn't.
There was another person in the background.
A woman.
Her face had been cut out.
I pointed.
“Who is that?”
Dad took the photograph.
“I don't know.”
“You're lying again.”
“I don't know.”
“You're my father.”
“And that's why I need you to believe me when I say I don't know.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead I looked at Richard's handwritten message again.
You were not rescued from them, Michael.
You were recruited to deliver her.
“Who was ‘them’?”
Dad sat down heavily on the porch.
“I don't know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because twelve years ago I was not the man you think I was.”
I stared.
“What does that mean?”
He looked at his hands.
“I had just returned from an overseas operation.”
“You were a general.”
“I was a soldier before I was your father.”
“You're always both.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
His voice cracked.
“Sometimes being a soldier meant I failed at being your father.”
I sat beside him.
“Tell me.”
He looked out at the trees.
“There was a program.”
“What kind?”
“Protective relocation.”
“Witness protection?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then what?”
“Military families. Intelligence personnel. Children of people who knew too much.”
“Why would I be in it?”
“Because someone believed you were at risk.”
“From whom?”
“We were never told.”
“That's convenient.”
“It wasn't convenience.”
His jaw tightened.
“It was compartmentalization.”
I stared at him.
“You're telling me the government moved children around without telling their parents why?”
“Sometimes.”
“Did you move me?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don't remember.”
I felt tears rise.
“How do you not remember where your daughter lived?”
He looked away.
“Because after the operation, I was hospitalized.”
“Head injury?”
“Yes.”
“Memory loss?”
“Some.”
“How much?”
He hesitated.
“Enough.”
I looked down.
A memory surfaced.
A red hallway.
A humming fluorescent light.
A woman's hand.
A voice saying, Don't tell Daddy.
I gasped.
Dad turned.
“What?”
“I remember something.”
He waited.
“There was a woman.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“What did she look like?”
“I can't see her face.”
“Anything else?”
“She had a ring.”
“What kind?”
“Silver.”
Dad's expression changed.
“What?”
He stood.
“Show me.”
“I don't know what it looked like.”
“You said silver.”
“With a black stone.”
Dad went still.
“Dad?”
He reached into his jacket.
His hand shook.
He pulled out a small photograph.
It showed Richard Vale sitting at a desk.
On his hand was a ring.
Silver.
Black stone.
My breath caught.
“That.”
Dad stared at it.
“I thought that ring belonged to a colleague.”
“Who?”
He didn't answer.
“Dad!”
“Colonel Nathan Reed.”
“Is he alive?”
“No.”
“How did he die?”
“Heart attack.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
I stared.
“Then why was he in the records?”
Dad frowned.
“What records?”
“The database.”
He took my phone.
We opened the files.
The investigator had copied everything into a secure drive.
There it was.
Nathan Reed.
Status: deceased.
Access level: BLACK.
Next to his name was a code.
C-12.
Dad's hand tightened.
“C-12.”
“What?”
He looked at me.
“That was the designation for protected minors.”
“Protected from what?”
He didn't answer.
Ethan entered the room.
“Camila.”
I turned.
“Did you know about this?”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“Your mother did.”
“She knew about everything.”
“Not this.”
He stopped.
“What?”
“She knew enough to target me.”
He sat down.
“Do you think she knew about C-12?”
“I don't know.”
Robert came outside.
“I found something.”
He held a folder.
“Where?”
“In the warehouse.”
Dad took it.
Inside were bank transfers.
Dozens.
All routed through Carter Ridge.
But one recipient caught my eye.
V-12 Holdings.
I stared.
“Voss.”
Robert nodded.
“We tracked the company.”
“Who owns it?”
He looked at Dad.
“That's the problem.”
“Who?”
“General Richard Vale.”
My stomach turned.
“But he's supposedly dead.”
Robert nodded.
“Exactly.”
Ethan stepped back.
“This is insane.”
“No,” Dad said quietly.
“This is organized.”
He turned a page.
The company had existed for eleven years.
One year before my memories became fragmented.
I pointed to another line.
“What's this?”
A recurring payment.
Eleven years.
Same amount.
Every month.
Recipient:
C. Moretti.
I stared.
“That's me.”
Dad looked at the transfer.
“You've been receiving money.”
“I never saw it.”
“Then someone was paying on your behalf.”
“For what?”
Nobody spoke.
Robert flipped another page.
A notation was attached.
SUBJECT MAINTENANCE.
I felt sick.
“I am not a subject.”
Dad closed the folder.
“No.”
His voice was firm.
“You are my daughter.”
I looked at him.
“Then prove it.”
He stared.
I swallowed.
“Not emotionally.”
I touched the photograph.
“Biologically.”
Dad's face changed.
“You think you're not my daughter?”
“I don't know what to think.”
He took a breath.
“Then we'll test it.”
Ethan looked between us.
“I'll get a lab.”
Dad shook his head.
“No outside lab.”
“Why?”
“Because if someone has been altering Camila's records for twelve years, we don't know who has access.”
He looked at Daniel.
“Find the most secure independent facility in the country.”
Daniel nodded.
I held Noah closer.
Then I remembered the message about his blood.
I looked at Ethan.
“We test Noah too.”
His face drained.
“Camila.”
“If someone changed my records, I need to know whether they changed his.”
He nodded slowly.
“I'll do it.”
Dad looked at me.
“You shouldn't have to.”
“No.”
I stood.
“But I do.”
That night, while everyone slept in different rooms, I opened the photograph again.
The girl in the picture smiled at the camera.
I looked closer.
Around her wrist was a bracelet.
I had never seen it before.
A tiny metal plate.
Three engraved numbers.
C-12.
I zoomed the image.
On the metal plate, beneath the code, were two initials.
C.M.
My initials.
Then I noticed something behind the girl.
A door.
And beside that door was a symbol I recognized.
The same symbol engraved on the silver key Robert had given me.
The first door.
There was another one.
I followed the hallway on the photograph until I found a handwritten note taped beneath the enlarged image.
May you like
The note had only four words.
SHE REMEMBERED BEFORE MICHAEL.
