Chapter 15 - THE BOY WHO REFUSED TO HIDEDominic attempted to send Caleb to Switzerland.
Caleb refused.
Dominic attempted to order him.
Caleb refused more loudly.
I watched from the kitchen.
“I’m not leaving.”
“You are fourteen.”
“You keep mentioning that like I forgot.”
“You're going somewhere safe.”
“This is my home.”
“Exactly.”
Caleb stopped.
The word carried history.
Rebecca had died because enemies used family as leverage.
I had taken three bullets because someone aimed at Caleb.
Dominic's greatest fear had never disappeared.
It had simply learned to wear nicer clothes.
Caleb understood.
His voice softened.
“Dad, I'm scared too.”
Dominic looked away.
“But sending me away doesn't make you less scared.”
No answer.
“It just means you're scared somewhere I'm not.”
That sounded so much like something I might have said that Dominic looked accusingly at me.
I shrugged.
Caleb remained at Blackthorne.
Security doubled.
School became remote temporarily.
He complained until Alexander offered to teach mathematics.
Caleb immediately requested professional tutors.
Meanwhile, we searched for Evelyn.
The call originated from a burner routed through several networks.
One clue survived.
A church bell.
Four chimes in the background.
Alexander identified possible locations based on timing.
Thirty-seven.
Then Lydia remembered something.
“My mother loved lighthouses.”
Dominic stared.
“That narrows it to approximately every coastline on Earth.”
“She used to tell me if we ever got separated, I should look for the light.”
I understood.
Not poetry.
Instruction.
Evelyn had been leaving clues for her daughter long before Lydia knew she needed them.
We mapped lighthouses near the possible phone origin.
Three matched.
One was adjacent to an abandoned rehabilitation center owned through a Northstar Meridian subsidiary.
Maine.
We flew that night.
Dominic wanted Lydia behind us.
She walked first.
The building appeared abandoned.
It wasn't.
Fresh tire tracks crossed the gravel.
Inside, we found food.
Medication.
A bed.
And photographs.
Hundreds.
Nathaniel.
Vincent.
Rebecca.
Julian.
Me.
Caleb.
Some photographs of Caleb had been taken within the previous month.
Dominic became frighteningly quiet.
Then Lydia found a photograph of herself as a child.
On the back:
I NEVER LEFT YOU WILLINGLY. — MOM
She cried.
I held her.
Dominic searched the adjoining room.
“Eleanor.”
Something in his voice made me move.
A wall map covered the room.
Ports.
Warehouses.
Companies.
Northstar assets.
At the center was Blackthorne House.
Circled.
Beside it:
OCTOBER 18.
Tomorrow.
My phone rang.
Caleb.
“Mom?”
He had started calling me that years ago.
Never casually.
My blood froze.
“What happened?”
“There are police at the gate.”
Dominic grabbed his phone.
“Do not let them inside.”
“They have a warrant.”
“For what?”
Caleb read from the document.
“Murder.”
Silence.
“Whose murder?”
Caleb swallowed.
“Julian Cross.”
Dominic and I stared at each other.
Julian was alive in federal custody.
Or he had been.
Caleb continued.
“They say he died this morning.”
My stomach dropped.
May you like
Then came the part designed specifically to destroy us.
“They say Dad ordered it.”
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