Chapter 6 - THE GIRL IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
St. Matthew’s Church had been abandoned after a fire twelve years earlier.
Its stone walls rose from a field of dead grass outside Richmond. The roof had partially collapsed, and black stains surrounded the broken windows.
Maren and Nora watched from a wooded hill across the road.
Two vehicles stood behind the church.
One belonged to Daniel Voss.
The other was Celeste’s.
“You should call the police,” Nora said.
“And tell them what? That my sister kidnapped a person who may be a criminal ledger?”
“Tell them armed men shot at us outside a bank.”
“Adrian may have people inside law enforcement.”
“That is becoming your answer to everything.”
“Because it keeps being true.”
Nora looked through binoculars.
“I see one guard outside. Possibly another near the rear.”
Maren opened Marcus’s envelope again.
Along with the photograph and address, it contained a small memory card. They had not yet examined it.
“We need a computer.”
“We need reinforcements.”
Maren called Eleanor from a secure phone.
Her mother answered immediately.
“Where are you?”
“Near Richmond.”
Silence.
“You left the estate.”
“Yes.”
“With Nora?”
“Yes.”
“Maren, Voss has disappeared. Marcus claims he works for Adrian.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because Marcus found me.”
Eleanor’s breath sharpened.
“Is he alive?”
“I don’t know. He was shot at outside Commonwealth Bank.”
“What were you doing at the bank?”
“Following Dad’s instructions.”
Another silence.
“You found a message from Charles.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“He told me not to trust you with the ledger.”
“That sounds like him.”
The answer surprised Maren.
“You’re not angry?”
“I am furious. But Charles never trusted anyone completely, including me.”
Maren looked toward the church.
“Voss and Celeste took someone from the deposit box.”
“What?”
“The ledger is a person.”
Eleanor said nothing.
“Mom?”
“There was a girl.”
Maren’s skin chilled.
“What girl?”
“When Eden Laboratories was exposed, one trafficking shipment was intercepted before it left the country. Inside a medical transport container, authorities found a fourteen-year-old girl.”
“Who was she?”
“She refused to give her real name. Charles called her Anna.”
Anna Vale.
“The bank identity.”
“Yes.”
“What happened to her?”
“Your father hid her. She had seen the network’s leaders. She knew routes, locations, names.”
“She became the ledger.”
“More than that. Eden’s tracking program had been embedded inside an experimental neural implant.”
Maren stared at the church.
“They put information inside her body?”
“The implant stored encrypted location records. It was designed for covert transport. Anna was the only surviving test subject.”
“Where has she been for thirty years?”
“I believed she died.”
“Everyone in this family seems to.”
Eleanor ignored the bitterness.
“Do not enter that church. I’m sending a team.”
“No Voss.”
“Voss is no longer in command.”
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes.”
Maren ended the call.
Nora looked at her.
“We wait.”
A scream came from inside the church.
Maren’s hands tightened.
“No.”
“Maren.”
“They may not have twenty minutes.”
Nora swore under her breath.
They moved through the woods toward the rear of the property. Nora carried a tire iron. Maren used a lightweight power-assisted chair taken from the van.
At the back wall, a broken doorway led into what had once been the church kitchen.
The air smelled of mildew and ash.
Voices echoed beyond a narrow corridor.
Celeste was crying.
“I did what you asked.”
Daniel Voss answered.
“You brought the wrong drive.”
“It was the only thing in the box.”
“Then she moved the data.”
“I don’t know where.”
A woman groaned.
Maren and Nora reached a cracked doorway overlooking the sanctuary.
Celeste stood near the altar wearing jeans and a dark coat. Her face was pale. Voss held a pistol.
An older woman sat tied to a chair beneath the broken cross.
She had white hair and a thin scar running from her temple to her jaw.
Maren recognized the scar from the bank authorization photograph.
Anna Vale.
“Where is the code?” Voss demanded.
Anna smiled through a split lip.
“Charles was right about Adrian. He always mistakes cruelty for intelligence.”
Voss struck her.
Celeste recoiled.
“Stop.”
“You wanted your sister’s fortune,” Voss said. “This is the cost.”
“I never agreed to torture anyone.”
“You agreed to murder Maren.”
Celeste looked sick.
“That was Reed’s plan.”
“You poured the oil.”
Maren felt the words like a blade.
She had known Celeste was involved.
Hearing the details made it real.
Voss moved closer to Anna.
“The implant contains account records. Give me the decryption phrase.”
Anna looked past him.
Her eyes found Maren in the doorway.
She showed no surprise.
Instead, she said, “The dead always bring company.”
Voss turned.
Nora threw the tire iron.
It struck his wrist. The gun fired into the ceiling.
Maren drove her chair forward and rammed his knees. He fell against a pew.
Celeste screamed.
Nora tackled Voss before he could recover the weapon.
Maren reached Anna and began pulling at the ropes.
“You’re Charles’s daughter,” Anna said.
“Yes.”
“You have his eyes.”
A second man emerged from the shadows behind the altar.
He grabbed Celeste and pressed a knife to her throat.
“Stop!”
Everyone froze.
The man pulled Celeste toward the side exit.
Voss shoved Nora away and reached for his gun.
A shot cracked through the sanctuary.
Voss dropped.
The bullet had struck his shoulder.
Eleanor stood in the rear entrance with two security officers.
“Release Celeste,” she ordered.
The knife moved closer to Celeste’s skin.
“Back away.”
Maren freed Anna’s hands.
Anna moved faster than anyone expected. She pulled a metal pin from beneath her sleeve and drove it into the attacker’s thigh.
He screamed.
Celeste broke free.
Eleanor’s team subdued him.
Voss lay bleeding beside the pew, glaring at Eleanor.
“You have no idea what Adrian will do.”
Eleanor approached him.
“I know exactly what he does. I watched him destroy my family.”
Voss laughed weakly.
“He didn’t destroy it. You did. Every lie, every disappearance, every secret—you built the cracks. Adrian only widened them.”
The words struck home.
Celeste stood near the altar, shaking.
Maren looked at her.
“You poured the oil.”
Celeste’s eyes filled.
“Maren—”
“You watched me choke.”
“I thought Reed would give you the injection after you signed the transfer.”
“There was no document.”
“He lied to me.”
“You laughed.”
Celeste covered her mouth.
“I was terrified.”
“No. You were jealous.”
“I was both.”
Maren turned away.
Eleanor ordered the team to take Voss and the other attacker outside.
Anna stood slowly.
“We cannot remain here.”
“Why?” Nora asked.
“Because Voss was not the only one tracking me.”
A low mechanical sound began above them.
Maren looked through the broken roof.
A drone hovered over the church.
Its underside carried a small blinking device.
“Move!” Anna shouted.
Eleanor’s team rushed toward the exits.
The device dropped.
It struck the sanctuary floor and rolled beneath a pew.
Maren saw the red light.
Nora grabbed the back of her chair.
The explosion tore through the church.
Glass, dust, and fire filled the air.
The floor collapsed beneath Maren’s wheels.
She felt herself falling.
Then a hand caught her wrist.
Celeste lay at the edge of the broken floor, one arm wrapped around a beam, the other gripping Maren.
Below them, flames spread through the basement.
Maren looked up into her sister’s terrified face.
“Don’t let go,” Celeste cried.
For the first time since the dinner, there was no mockery in her voice.
Only desperation.
The beam began to crack.
And Maren realized that Celeste now had a choice.
May you like
Save the sister she had tried to kill—
or release her into the fire and inherit everything after all.
