The figure at the end of the tunnel did not move.
Mara stood frozen with the phone against her ear. Nina's breathing continued on the other end, shallow and uneven.
“Who is there?” Mara asked.
The figure lifted the watch.
A thin beam of light caught the scratched crystal.
Mara knew that watch. Her father had worn it every day for nearly thirty years. The leather strap had cracked near the buckle, and a faint crescent-shaped scratch ran across the back. She had polished that scratch with her thumb when she was a child.
Jonas whispered, “Mara, don't go toward him.”
She ignored him.
The figure stepped into the light.
It was a woman.
Gray coat. Dark hair pulled tightly behind her head. Pale face.
Mara's breath stopped.
The woman looked older than Nina had in Mara's memories, but the eyes were unmistakable.
“Mara.”
The phone nearly slipped from her hand.
“Nina?”
The woman nodded.
Rivera raised his weapon.
Jonas caught his wrist.
“Wait.”
Rivera shook him off.
“How do we know that's her?”
Nina looked directly at Mara.
“Because she still has the scar on her left thumb from the broken blue vase.”
Mara stared at her hand.
The scar was tiny, barely visible.
She had never told Jonas about it.
She had never told Rivera.
She had never mentioned it to anyone in years.
The voice on the phone went silent.
Mara slowly lowered the phone.
The woman took another step.
“I told you not to trust either of them.”
Mara looked at Jonas.
He was staring at Nina as if he had seen a ghost.
“You said she died,” Mara whispered.
Jonas swallowed.
“She was supposed to.”
Nina stopped.
“What does that mean?”
Jonas's face tightened.
“It means your death was part of the operation.”
Nina gave a bitter smile.
“That's one way to describe it.”
Rivera lowered his weapon slightly.
“Nina Carter?”
“Yes.”
“You were declared dead?”
“Eight years ago.”
“Why?”
Nina looked at Mara.
“Because someone needed Adrian Shaw to believe he had finished cleaning up your father's investigation.”
Mara stepped forward.
“What did my father know about you?”
“Everything.”
“And you knew about the ledger?”
“I helped him build it.”
Mara's eyes moved to the watch.
“Then why did you send me that message?”
Nina's expression changed.
“I didn't.”
Mara looked at her phone.
The message remained on the screen.
Don't trust Jonas Reed.
Nina shook her head.
“I didn't send that.”
The room went quiet.
Jonas turned toward the tunnel.
“Someone cloned her number.”
Nina nodded.
“And they wanted you to think I was warning you away from him.”
Mara looked at Jonas.
“Were you?”
“No.”
“Then tell me why your name appears in my father's records.”
Jonas hesitated.
“Because I was his courier.”
“For the operation?”
“Yes.”
“Were you paid?”
“Sometimes.”
“Was Rivera?”
Jonas looked at the officer.
“No.”
Rivera's jaw tightened.
“Then why is my name in that book?”
Nina answered.
“Because your identity was used to move evidence.”
Rivera stared at her.
“Without my knowledge?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Someone inside the department had access to your personnel records.”
Mara suddenly understood the payment entry.
The account in Rivera's name wasn't proof that he had taken money.
It was proof that someone had wanted his name attached to a transaction.
A shield.
A false trail.
Nina walked toward them.
“My father—”
Mara stopped herself.
“My father left the final evidence with you.”
Nina shook her head.
“Not with me.”
She held up the watch.
“With this.”
Mara frowned.
“What is inside it?”
“Not inside.”
Nina turned the watch over.
She pressed a fingernail against the back plate.
It clicked.
The plate opened.
A tiny strip of black material sat beneath the mechanism.
Mara leaned closer.
“A memory chip?”
Nina nodded.
“Your father knew paper could be stolen. He needed something that could disappear in plain sight.”
Rivera looked toward the tunnel.
“How do we read it?”
“We don't.”
Mara frowned.
“Why?”
“Because the information isn't stored as ordinary files.”
Nina looked at Jonas.
“He knows what it is.”
Jonas said nothing.
Mara stepped toward him.
“What is on it?”
“A list.”
“Of what?”
“Every person who helped your father move the investigation forward.”
“That sounds harmless.”
“It isn't.”
Jonas glanced at Rivera.
“Some of those people don't know they're involved.”
Mara understood.
“Their names were used.”
“Exactly.”
“And some do know.”
Jonas nodded.
“Some of them were paid.”
“By Shaw?”
“Not directly.”
“Then who?”
Nina answered.
“The foundation.”
Mara's stomach tightened.
“The Ellison Family Trust?”
Nina nodded.
“But your father wasn't stealing money.”
“Then what was the trust?”
“A trap.”
Mara looked confused.
Nina continued.
“Your father needed a place where corrupt officials could send money without realizing the account was being monitored.”
Rivera stared at the watch.
“So the payments were evidence.”
“Some were.”
“And the others?”
Nina looked at Mara.
“The others were bait.”
A distant door slammed.
Everyone turned.
Nina's expression sharpened.
“They found us.”
Jonas moved toward the opposite end of the tunnel.
“How long?”
“Minutes.”
Mara closed her hand around the watch.
“Where do we go?”
Nina looked at her.
“There is one place Shaw won't search.”
“Where?”
“Your father's house.”
Mara shook her head.
“He searched it already.”
“Not completely.”
“How do you know?”
Nina's eyes held hers.
“Because I was there yesterday.”
Mara's pulse quickened.
“Why?”
Nina hesitated.
“To find out whether your father left something for you.”
“What did you find?”
Nina looked at the watch.
“Nothing.”
The answer was too quick.
Mara caught it.
“You're lying.”
Nina looked away.
“I found a photograph.”
“Of what?”
“Your father and Adrian Shaw.”
Mara waited.
Nina finally said, “Taken the night before your father died.”
The footsteps above them grew louder.
Mara's mind raced.
“What was strange about it?”
Nina looked back at her.
“Your father wasn't sick.”
The tunnel seemed to contract around them.
Mara remembered the hospital.
The oxygen tube.
The weak voice.
The doctor's explanation.
The funeral.
Everything she had believed about her father's final week suddenly had a crack running through it.
“He was dying,” Mara said.
Nina shook her head.
“He was pretending.”
A door crashed open somewhere behind them.
Nina grabbed Mara's arm.
“Now you know why they arrested you.”
Mara looked at her.
“They weren't trying to silence me.”
“No.”
“They were trying to make me believe my father died before he could finish.”
Nina nodded.
“And they needed the watch before you discovered what it contained.”
The emergency lights flickered.
A voice echoed through the tunnel.
“Mara!”
Shaw.
Nina pulled open a hidden panel.
“Move.”
They ran.
Mara looked back once.
Jonas was covering the entrance.
Rivera stood beside him.
Then the lights went out.
And somewhere behind them, Adrian Shaw shouted a name Mara had never heard before.
Her father's.
“Daniel, if she's with you, you know what happens next.”
Mara stopped.
Nina pulled her forward.
“Don't listen.”
But Mara had already heard the words.
Shaw wasn't speaking to her.
He was speaking to someone who might still be alive.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: Mara Returned to the House She Had Avoided for Six Years and Found a Room Her Father Had Hidden in Plain Sight
The Arrest Was Supposed to End in Minutes, Until the Woman Asked One Question That Changed Everything
Part 5 of 20
