Chapter 10 - The Man Behind My Father's Will
Everything happened in two seconds.
Price reached inside his jacket.
Grant drew.
Mason slammed me behind the metal console.
Agent Cole shouted.
"Hands!"
Price threw something onto the floor.
White smoke exploded through the command vehicle.
People coughed.
Someone hit me.
Not a fist.
A body.
I heard three shots.
Then the rear door crashed open.
Cold air swept through the smoke.
By the time visibility returned, Samuel Price was gone.
Grant was bleeding from his shoulder.
Agent Cole was on the floor.
Alive.
Mason raced outside with security.
I dropped beside Grant.
"Talk to me."
"Through and through."
I pressed cloth against the wound.
"Who was that?"
Grant gritted his teeth.
"Not Price."
"I got that."
"The real Samuel Price died seven months ago."
"What?"
"Car accident in Maryland."
"I spoke to him after that."
"I know."
"Then who have I been talking to?"
Grant looked sick.
"His name is Evan Rourke."
I froze.
"Northstar?"
"One of Voss's best."
My father had trusted Samuel Price.
Someone had replaced him.
Copied his mannerisms.
Accessed legal records.
Walked into my engagement party.
Entered a secure coordination area.
And we had welcomed him.
"How did nobody know?"
"Rourke specializes in identity construction."
Grant coughed.
"He doesn't become people. He becomes what people expect to see."
Mason returned.
"He's gone. Vehicle was waiting."
"Inside help?"
"Possibly."
I thought about the stolen folder.
"He took Dad's documents."
Grant nodded weakly.
"Then Voss has almost everything."
"Almost?"
"The second key."
"Who has it?"
Grant looked at Mom.
She still held the necklace.
Then at me.
"Your father hid it somewhere only you would understand."
I stared at him.
"You said he gave it to someone."
"I lied."
"What?"
"Because Price was in the room."
Despite bleeding, Grant smiled faintly.
"Andrew told me never to reveal the hiding place in front of an attorney."
That sounded exactly like Dad.
I almost laughed.
"Then where?"
Grant reached into his pocket.
He pulled out an old Army challenge coin.
Dad's command coin.
I recognized it immediately.
The front showed an eagle.
The back carried Dad's motto.
STAND WHEN OTHERS BEND.
Grant handed it to me.
"Your father said you'd know."
"I don't."
"Think."
The words.
Stand when others bend.
Dad used to say them when teaching me chess.
Not about bravery.
About the board.
When everyone watched the king...
look at the piece that refused to move.
I closed my eyes.
"His chess set."
Grant nodded.
"Where is it?"
Mom answered.
"Storage."
I looked at her.
"What storage?"
"The house was too painful after he died. I packed his office."
"Where?"
She gave an address.
Mason checked his watch.
"Twenty-two minutes away."
Agent Cole grabbed her jacket.
"We go now."
Grant tried to stand.
"No."
I pressed him back.
"You go to the hospital."
"Olivia—"
"That's an order."
He smiled weakly.
"Your father hated when you did that."
"My father taught me."
We moved.
The storage building was locked when we arrived.
Manager nowhere in sight.
CID opened the unit under emergency authority.
Dad's life sat inside cardboard boxes.
Forty-one years of service reduced to labels.
BOOKS.
AWARDS.
UNIFORMS.
OFFICE.
I found the chess set under a folded American flag.
Walnut board.
Hand-carved pieces.
Dad and I had played hundreds of games on it.
My fingers trembled.
"Stand when others bend."
I examined the pieces.
One was fixed tighter than the others.
The white knight.
I twisted it.
Nothing.
Then I remembered.
Dad always played black.
Always.
I turned the black rook.
Click.
The base opened.
Inside was a tiny black key.
Mom started crying.
"Oh, Andrew."
I picked it up.
My phone rang.
Voss.
I answered.
"You found it."
I stopped.
"How do you know?"
He chuckled.
"Because you're exactly like him."
My eyes moved around the storage unit.
Camera?
Tracker?
Informant?
"What happens now?"
"Now you bring me both keys."
"I want Sienna."
"You'll have her."
"Alive."
"If you're smart."
"Where?"
He gave an address.
An abandoned industrial facility near the river.
Mason wrote it down.
Voss continued.
"One hour."
"You're not getting the list."
"I'm not interested in the list anymore."
I frowned.
"What?"
"I'm interested in you."
The line went silent for half a second.
"Your father spent sixteen years keeping you away from me, Olivia."
My stomach turned.
"Why?"
"Because you were never just his daughter."
May you like
Then Voss said something impossible.
"You were his insurance policy."
