CHAPTER 9: THE SECOND HOLLOWAY HEIR
The biometric drive pulsed inside my clutch.
SIGNATURE TWO DETECTED NEARBY.
I turned slowly.
Special Agent Daniel Mercer stood directly behind me.
His weapon remained pointed at Elias, but his eyes were fixed on the drive.
“Who are you?” I asked.
Mercer lowered the gun.
“My legal name is Daniel Mercer.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Grant stirred on the stretcher across the gallery.
When his eyes found Mercer, his expression changed.
Not recognition.
Fear.
“No,” Grant whispered.
Mercer looked at him.
“Hello, little brother.”
Every voice in the gallery vanished.
Grant pushed himself upright despite the paramedic trying to stop him.
“My brother died before I was born.”
“That is what Gideon wanted you to believe.”
Mercer removed a chain from beneath his shirt.
A small gold ring hung from it.
The Holloway family crest was engraved into the surface.
Grant stared at it.
“My mother had that ring.”
“Our mother,” Mercer corrected.
Grant’s breathing became shallow.
Evelyn Holloway had not disappeared after Grant’s birth.
She had disappeared because Gideon discovered she had secretly given their first son to federal witnesses after learning what Meridian had become.
Daniel had been raised under another name.
He had spent the last fifteen years investigating the family that erased him.
“You came here to arrest Mara,” Grant said.
“I came here to keep the ledger from disappearing.”
Mercer looked toward me.
“The warrant against you was created by a compromised federal prosecutor. We suspected Meridian had infiltrated the Justice Department, but we didn’t know how deeply.”
“Then why point a weapon at Elias?”
“Because Elias interfered with an undercover operation.”
Elias remained in front of me.
“Your operation placed Mara inside a sealed building with armed criminals.”
“And yours placed two hundred witnesses on top of an explosive vehicle.”
Neither man moved.
My mother stepped between them.
“This argument can wait.”
She pointed toward the biometric drive.
“The ledger is searching for the third bloodline.”
Vale had been confirmed through me.
Holloway had been confirmed through Mercer.
Only Hawthorne remained.
Rebecca Shaw was missing.
Samuel Hawthorne had escaped.
One of them possessed the final biological signature.
Mercer reached for the drive.
Elias blocked him.
“No one touches it.”
Mercer’s jaw tightened.
“That evidence belongs to the federal government.”
“It belongs to the people whose lives were destroyed,” I said.
I removed the drive from my clutch.
The green light moved across my fingers, scanning my skin again.
SIGNATURE ONE CONFIRMED.
SIGNATURE TWO CONFIRMED.
AWAITING HAWTHORNE AUTHORIZATION.
“Rebecca is Hawthorne’s daughter,” Mercer said.
My mother looked at him sharply.
“You knew?”
“DNA confirmed it three months ago.”
Grant laughed bitterly from the stretcher.
“Does anyone in this building know who their real family is?”
Mercer ignored him.
“Thomas Shaw raised Rebecca, but Samuel Hawthorne was her biological father. She joined the investigation to expose him.”
“Why did she take the detonator?” I asked.
“Because her loyalty changed.”
“To whom?”
“That is what we were trying to determine.”
A security officer called from the control station.
“We have movement in the underground restoration room.”
The central screen activated.
Rebecca stood inside the damaged laboratory.
Samuel Hawthorne was beside her.
He held a gun against her ribs.
The room behind them was partially collapsed, but the original biometric vault remained intact.
Samuel looked into the camera.
“Mara, bring the drive downstairs.”
Mercer stepped toward the screen.
“Release Agent Shaw.”
Samuel smiled.
“Agent?”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
Samuel’s expression darkened.
“You told me you were trying to avenge Thomas.”
“I was.”
“You used me.”
“You helped murder the man who raised me.”
Samuel pressed the weapon harder against her.
“I did what was necessary to protect this institution.”
“No,” Rebecca replied. “You protected yourself.”
Samuel looked into the camera again.
“Bring me the ledger or I will kill her.”
“There are federal agents surrounding the museum,” I said.
“They cannot enter the restoration level without collapsing the vault.”
He was right.
The explosion had damaged the support system.
A violent breach could bury Rebecca beneath several tons of stone.
Samuel held up a small remote switch.
“I also control the emergency charges placed around the lower collection.”
My mother stared at him.
“You would destroy your own museum.”
“It stopped being mine when Arthur sold it.”
“You sold it.”
“Because Arthur promised the Meridian investigation would end.”
Samuel’s eyes moved toward me.
“Your father lied to both of us.”
I glanced toward Arthur’s image on the screen.
He was no longer there.
The officers inside his study were gone.
The chair was empty.
“Where is my father?” I asked.
No one answered.
A guard checked the feed from Vale Manor.
“The connection has been cut.”
Mercer spoke into his radio.
“Confirm Arthur Vale’s custody status.”
Only static responded.
Someone had removed my father before federal agents could secure him.
Samuel began counting.
“Ten minutes, Mara.”
I looked at the damaged staircase leading underground.
Mercer moved beside me.
“I’m coming.”
“So am I,” Elias said.
“No,” my mother replied. “Too many people will destabilize the passage.”
Grant pulled the medical lines from his arm.
“Then take me.”
“You can barely stand,” I said.
“I know how Samuel thinks.”
“You don’t know Samuel.”
Grant looked toward the screen.
“He visited our house every month when I was a child.”
Samuel’s face tightened.
Grant continued.
“He taught me how to recognize counterfeit paintings. He taught me how to open the old Hawthorne vault.”
“Why would he teach you that?” I asked.
Grant looked at his father’s oldest partner.
“Because Samuel once believed I was his son.”
The biometric drive vibrated again.
A new message appeared.
HAWTHORNE SIGNATURE DETECTED.
May you like
It was not coming from the laboratory.
It was coming from Grant.
