The darkness swallowed the terminal so completely that for a second I could not tell whether my eyes were open.
Someone grabbed my wrist.
I almost screamed, but a familiar voice whispered beside me.
“It's Harris.”
I pulled my arm free.
“Where's Natalie?”
“We're finding her.”
A second gunshot echoed through the building.
People shouted somewhere behind us. Emergency lights flickered along the walls, casting weak red strips across the floor. Agents moved quickly, weapons raised, calling to one another in short commands.
Then I heard Derek again.
“Claire.”
He sounded calm.
Too calm.
I turned toward the voice.
A figure moved at the end of the corridor.
I could barely see him.
Tall.
Dark coat.
One hand raised.
“Natalie is with me,” he said.
“Let her go.”
“You know I can't.”
“Then what do you want?”
“You already know.”
Harris stepped in front of me.
Derek laughed.
“You always did need someone to protect you.”
The words struck something deep inside me.
For two years, I had believed Derek had been the person who protected me.
He had been the man I called when the car broke down, when my mother was sick, when I couldn't sleep.
Now he was standing in a dark airport threatening my sister.
I realized how completely he had rewritten my understanding of him.
“Show me Natalie.”
A figure appeared behind him.
Natalie.
Her hands were tied.
There was blood near her temple, but she was standing.
“Claire, don't come closer.”
Derek pressed something against her side.
I couldn't see whether it was a gun.
Harris whispered, “Stay where you are.”
Derek looked directly toward him.
“I know you're there, Detective.”
Harris didn't answer.
“You have my records,” Derek said.
“We have enough to put you away for the rest of your life.”
“Maybe.”
“You're finished.”
Derek smiled.
“No. I'm leaving.”
He moved backward, pulling Natalie with him.
I followed one step.
“Claire.”
His voice stopped me.
“You want your sister alive?”
“Yes.”
“Then come with me.”
Harris caught my shoulder.
“Don't.”
I looked at Natalie.
She shook her head violently.
“No.”
Derek's grip tightened.
“Your choice.”
I understood the trap.
If I followed him, he could use me as leverage.
If I stayed, Natalie might die.
There was no clean answer.
Then I remembered the notebook.
My name.
Tomorrow.
He had planned this long before tonight.
The airport confrontation wasn't improvised.
It was another stage.
I looked at Harris.
He seemed to understand what I was thinking.
“Keep him talking,” he whispered.
I nodded.
I faced Derek.
“You always thought you knew me.”
“I did.”
“No.”
I took another step.
“You knew what I was worth.”
His expression changed.
Only slightly.
But I saw it.
“You knew about my father's assets. You knew about the house. You knew about the trust. You knew how to make me look unstable.”
“Claire—”
“You never knew me.”
His jaw tightened.
That was the first time I had seen him lose control.
Behind him, Natalie suddenly dropped her weight.
Derek stumbled.
An agent rushed from the side corridor.
Everything happened at once.
Natalie fell.
Derek fired.
The bullet struck the wall.
Agents shouted.
I dropped to the floor.
Harris pulled me behind a concrete pillar.
Another shot rang out.
Then silence.
When I looked up, Natalie was crawling toward us.
“Claire!”
I ran to her.
She collapsed into my arms.
“He's gone,” she whispered.
Harris immediately moved after Derek.
Agents spread through the terminal.
But Derek knew the building better than we did.
He disappeared through a service corridor.
Natalie was shaking.
“He told me you would come.”
“I had to.”
“He knew you would.”
I helped her sit against the wall.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.”
She hesitated.
“Not much.”
“What does that mean?”
“He wanted information.”
“About what?”
“You.”
I stared at her.
“What about me?”
“He wanted to know where the original ledger was.”
I looked at Harris.
“The ledger is already in police custody.”
Natalie shook her head.
“Not that one.”
My stomach tightened.
“What other ledger?”
“The one Dad kept before he died.”
I remembered the metal box.
The ledger we had found.
“The one we found?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“That was a copy.”
The realization hit hard.
My father had left two records.
One designed to explain what had happened.
Another containing the actual names and transactions.
“Where is the original?”
Natalie looked toward the corridor Derek had used.
“He told me you knew.”
“I don't.”
She closed her eyes.
“Think about Dad.”
I tried.
My father had loved routines.
He hid important things in places that had meaning.
The grandfather clock.
The cookbook.
The old house.
Then I remembered something else.
A wooden music box.
He had given it to me when I was ten.
After his death, it had been packed away.
I had never opened it.
I told Harris.
Within an hour, investigators were back at my house.
The music box sat in an old storage container.
Harris opened the bottom.
Nothing.
Then Natalie noticed a loose hinge.
She touched it.
The entire wooden panel lifted.
Inside was a thin black ledger.
I stared at it.
My father had hidden the truth inside something I had carried from childhood.
Harris photographed every page before removing it.
The names were extensive.
Politicians.
Business owners.
Insurance executives.
Lawyers.
Doctors.
And beside several names were coded payments.
Then we saw Derek's name.
Not as a beneficiary.
As a handler.
I looked at Natalie.
“What does that mean?”
She shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Harris turned another page.
At the bottom was a name none of us expected.
Dr. Evans.
Beside it was a date.
The same date Derek had first begun paying him.
Years before my marriage.
The therapist had not been recruited after Derek's disappearance.
He had been part of the network from the beginning.
Then Harris found something else.
A notation in my father's handwriting.
If Derek ever disappears, look for the woman who survived the fire.
I stared at the sentence.
“What fire?”
Natalie went pale.
“I know that one.”
“Tell me.”
She swallowed.
“Dad told me about it once.”
“What happened?”
She looked at the ledger.
“There was a woman who tried to expose them.”
“Who?”
Natalie shook her head.
“I don't know her name.”
Before she could say more, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Derek.
I answered.
“Where are you?”
His breathing was quiet.
“Somewhere you can't reach.”
“You failed.”
“No.”
“You lost Natalie.”
“I never needed her.”
“Then what did you need?”
He paused.
“You.”
“Why?”
“Because your father trusted you with something he never trusted me with.”
“What?”
“His conscience.”
I frowned.
“You're insane.”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“You're the only person who can finish what he started.”
The call ended.
I stared at the phone.
Harris asked what he said.
I told him.
He looked at the black ledger.
Then at me.
“We need to know what your father meant.”
I nodded.
But before anyone could answer, Natalie whispered something.
“Claire.”
I turned.
She was staring at the last page.
“Look.”
At the bottom of the page was another handwritten sentence.
If Claire is reading this, Derek has already found her.
And beneath it was a second line.
He will come back for the key.
I looked at the key from the metal box.
It was still in my pocket.
For the first time, I understood that Derek had never been chasing the ledger.
He had been chasing whatever the key opened.
And my father had hidden that answer from everyone except me.
Click here to continue reading: PART 10: The Key My Father Hid for Me Opened a Place Derek Had Never Been Able to Find, and Inside Was Proof of His Most Dangerous Secret
At 2:14 PM, My Neighbor Heard a Woman Crying Inside the House I Had Sworn Was Completely Empty
Part 9 of 20
