Chapter 8 - The House in the Rain
Adrian and Thomas reached the safehouse in eleven minutes.
The front door hung open.
One window was shattered.
Furniture had been overturned.
Adrian ran toward the bedroom.
Empty.
He searched the kitchen.
Empty.
Then he saw three drops of blood near the back steps.
His heart stopped.
“Lily!”
No answer.
Thomas checked the basement.
Adrian opened the garage.
A hand grabbed his sleeve from behind a storage cabinet.
He spun.
Grace covered her mouth.
“Quiet.”
Emma was behind her.
Lily was strapped against Grace’s chest beneath a coat.
All three were alive.
Adrian exhaled for the first time in what felt like hours.
Grace pointed through the wall.
“Two men are still outside.”
Thomas moved toward the side window.
“I recognize their car.”
A dark SUV waited across the alley.
Owen Pike stepped from the passenger side.
Adrian’s face went cold.
Pike looked toward the garage.
Then his phone rang.
He answered.
Thomas moved closer to the cracked window.
Pike spoke quietly.
“No.”
“We haven’t found the baby.”
A pause.
Then Pike said one word.
“Marcus.”
Grace closed her eyes.
There was no longer any doubt.
Adrian quietly moved everyone through a hidden basement exit leading into the neighboring building.
He did not attack Pike.
Not yet.
Marcus still believed Adrian lacked complete proof.
That mistake was useful.
By morning, Grace, Emma, Lily, and Thomas were inside a secure property owned under an old family name.
Only Adrian knew the address.
Thomas placed another item on the table.
Evelyn’s silver necklace.
Adrian stared at it.
The police had claimed the necklace was found on her body.
“How do you have that?”
“I removed it before she died.”
Thomas opened the small pendant.
Inside was a micro-memory card.
“Evelyn gave it to me.”
Adrian inserted it into a computer.
A video appeared.
Evelyn sat alone inside her studio.
The timestamp was two days before the crash.
“If something happens to me…”
She looked directly into the camera.
“…Adrian needs to know Marcus Reed is not the man he believes he is.”
Adrian’s face became stone.
May you like
Then Evelyn said something even worse.
“Marcus told me Adrian was supposed to die first.”
