Chapter 27 - The Mirror with Two Faces
"That’s not me," I whispered, staring down at the photographs. The room felt violently untethered, spinning on an axis of pure paranoia. "Look at the left wrist in the photo! He isn't wearing a watch! I've worn my father’s Omega Speedmaster every single day for twenty years! The clasp broke ten years ago and I had it welded—it doesn't come off!"
Agent Vane didn't even look down at the photo. "Good try, David. A man laundering thirty million dollars can take his father’s watch off for ten minutes to avoid identification."
"Look at the scar on his right hand!" I yelled, lifting my bound wrists as high as the zip ties would allow. "I cut my palm on a circular saw when I was twenty-one! I have an four-inch keloid scar across my thumb pad! Look at his hand on the lighter—his palm is completely clear!"
Vane’s eyes finally flickered down to my hands. For a split second, a hairline crack formed in his seasoned composure. He reached down, grabbed my right hand roughly by the fingers, and inspected the thick, jagged scar running across the base of my thumb.
He pulled a magnifying loupe from his waistcoat and scrutinized the surveillance photograph.
Silence fell over the cavernous dry dock. The only sound was the steady drip of condensation falling eighty feet from the iron rafters into the dark river water below.
The second investigator, a younger woman with short-cropped black hair, stepped forward, glancing over Vane’s shoulder. "Sir... the resolution on the surveillance still is 4K. There’s no surgical scar on the subject’s right hand."
"Then who the hell is in this photograph?" Vane muttered under his breath, dropping my hand.
"A body double," I said, the realization hitting me with the force of an avalanche. "The same way there was a body double on that steel table at the morgue! The same way someone had pediatric titanium wiring in their spine! Vanessa didn't invent this operation. Marcus Hale didn't have the brains to construct an identity swap like this! Someone has been running two parallel lives from the beginning!"
"And who would have access to your personal handwriting samples, your biometric data, and your home crawlspace?" the female agent asked.
Before I could answer, the red emergency klaxon mounted to the concrete wall began to spin, its harsh amber strobe bathing the room in pulses of blood-red light.
A radio technician at the far end of the dock ripped off his headset, his face stark white. "Agent Vane! We have a perimeter breach at Safe House Delta in Albany!"
My heart stopped. *Lily.*
"What kind of breach?" Vane shouted, drawing his sidearm.
"The transport convoy was intercepted four miles outside the field office," the technician yelled over the blaring siren. "Tactical team is down! The girl wasn't taken, but the boy—Noah—he commandeered one of the tactical SUVs!"
"He what?" Vane roared.
"The kid had an encrypted bypass key on his wristband!" the tech shouted, staring at his monitor. "He plugged it directly into our secure terminal before he took off! He wiped our local server and left a GPS beacon tracking an old industrial slip at Pier 9!"
Pier 9.
May you like
The place where this nightmare had supposedly ended. The place where Claire’s burner phone had been recovered from the rusted shipping container.
"He didn't run away," I yelled at Vane, throwing myself forward against the steel table. "He’s going to meet her! Noah knew that bracelet wasn't empty! He lied to me on the dock! Cut these zip ties, Vane, or your men are going to walk right into an ambush!"
