Chapter 6 - They Came for Isabelle Again
I ran before anyone could stop me.
Up the stairs.
Through darkness.
Toward Isabelle's screams.
Behind me Damian shouted my name.
“Clara!”
I didn't slow down.
Emergency lights flickered on along the hallway.
Red.
Dim.
Enough to see shadows.
Isabelle's bedroom door was open.
Dr. Feld lay on the floor.
Conscious.
Dazed.
“Window,” she gasped.
I rushed inside.
Cold air poured through broken glass.
Curtains whipped wildly.
Isabelle stood inside her crib, screaming.
A man in black was halfway through the window.
One leg inside.
One outside.
He saw me.
I saw him.
For one second, neither of us moved.
Then I grabbed the nearest thing within reach.
A ceramic lamp.
I threw it.
Not at his head.
At the window frame.
The lamp exploded against the wall.
He flinched.
That was enough.
I reached the crib and pulled Isabelle against me.
The man came forward.
Then Damian appeared.
He did not shout.
He moved with terrifying speed.
He stepped between us and struck the intruder hard enough to send him backward into the wall.
Marcus arrived two seconds later with security.
The man was restrained.
Damian turned.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
He wasn't looking at me.
He was looking at Isabelle.
She was crying into my neck.
Damian approached slowly.
Then stopped.
“Bella.”
She looked at him.
He opened his arms.
This time, Isabelle reached.
I handed her over.
She clung to his coat.
Something inside Damian broke.
He pressed his face against her hair and closed his eyes.
For a moment, the feared Damian Vale vanished.
There was only a father who had almost lost his daughter twice.
Then he looked at me.
“Thank you.”
I nodded.
We didn't have time for anything else.
The captured intruder carried no identification.
But Marcus recognized him.
His name was Nolan Price.
He worked for Vale Protective Services.
Damian's own company.
Another insider.
Damian questioned him downstairs.
I stayed outside the room.
I could hear almost nothing.
No screaming.
No threats.
That somehow made it worse.
Twenty minutes later, Damian walked out.
“Nolan won't talk.”
“Maybe because he's afraid of you.”
“He's afraid of someone else.”
“Victor?”
“No.”
Damian looked toward the closed door.
“He said one sentence.”
“What?”
“Victor is only the messenger.”
I stared at him.
“Messenger for whom?”
“He wouldn't say.”
Marcus approached holding an evidence bag.
Inside was a photograph.
He handed it to Damian.
Damian looked.
Then handed it to me.
My knees nearly gave way.
The picture showed me.
Age eleven.
Standing outside the Brennan foster home.
Beside me was Evelyn Vale.
Damian's mother.
On the back, written in blue ink:
CLARA — IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, SHE IS THE ONLY SAFE PLACE LEFT.
My hands began shaking.
“I don't understand.”
Neither did Damian.
But I saw something on his face I hadn't seen before.
Fear.
Not for Isabelle.
For the past.
“My mother died in a boating accident,” he said.
I looked at him.
“You don't believe that anymore.”
“No.”
Marcus said quietly, “Sir, there is another photograph.”
He handed Damian a second image.
This one showed Evelyn outside a bank.
Beside her stood a young man.
Same dark hair as Damian.
Same eyes.
But younger.
I recognized him from news photographs.
Damian's father.
Anthony Vale.
Except the date printed on the bottom was three days after Anthony had supposedly died of a heart attack.
Damian sat down.
“What the hell is this?”
Marcus looked pale.
“We need to verify.”
Damian stared at the picture.
“My father was buried.”
“Closed casket,” Marcus said.
I watched Damian's world reorganize itself.
His mother dead in an accident.
His father dead of a heart attack.
Both facts had apparently built his life.
Now neither looked certain.
I looked at the key.
“What if this opens something at that bank?”
Damian's eyes lifted.
“Which bank?”
Marcus flipped the photograph.
A logo appeared above the door.
Midwest Continental Trust.
The bank had closed twelve years earlier.
But its safe deposit operations had been transferred.
Marcus checked.
“Union Federal.”
Damian stood.
“We're going.”
I looked at Isabelle.
“No.”
He turned.
“You stay here.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Clara.”
“That key was given to me.”
He stared.
“You think I'm letting you walk into a bank after two attempts on my daughter?”
“I think your entire security network has holes in it.”
Marcus looked offended.
I pointed toward the broken window upstairs.
“Am I wrong?”
He said nothing.
Damian rubbed a hand across his jaw.
“Fine.”
We went at seven that evening.
Union Federal occupied an old stone building downtown.
The manager met us after hours.
The key matched a dormant private vault transferred from Midwest Continental.
Box 417.
Registered not to Evelyn Vale.
Not to Clara Hayes.
To a nonprofit foundation that no longer existed.
The manager placed the box on a table.
Then left.
I inserted the key.
My hand shook.
Damian stood beside me.
“Ready?”
“No.”
I turned it anyway.
Inside was no money.
No jewelry.
No weapon.
Only three objects.
A sealed envelope with my name.
A cassette tape.
And a birth certificate.
I unfolded the certificate first.
My vision blurred.
NAME OF CHILD:
CLARA ANNE MERCER.
Mother:
REBECCA MERCER.
Father:
Blank.
Except someone had written a name beside it by hand.
A name I recognized.
Anthony Vale.
Damian's father.
I stared at Damian.
He stared at me.
Neither of us spoke.
If the document was real—
May you like
the man standing beside me was not a stranger.
He was my brother.
