Chapter 10 - NATHAN’S REAL PLAN
Karen refused to believe Nathan had betrayed them.
Then she found the second note.
It had been hidden beneath Lily’s message.
This one was written in Nathan’s handwriting.
Do not involve the police.
The Circle still has people inside Hale Meridian.
Meet me at Saint Gabriel Hospital.
Come alone.
Karen contacted Grant instead.
He had been discharged against medical advice.
When she showed him the footage, he studied Nathan’s expression.
“He wanted you to see him.”
“Why?”
“To make the Circle think he betrayed you.”
Karen considered the possibility.
Nathan might be protecting Lily through deception.
Or Grant might be offering hope because the alternative was unbearable.
Karen went to Saint Gabriel Hospital.
She did not tell Rebecca or Evelyn.
Grant followed from a distance.
The hospital had closed eight years earlier, but its emergency power still operated.
Karen entered through the ambulance bay.
Nathan waited in the old surgical wing.
Lily sat beside him unharmed.
Karen crossed the room and pulled her daughter close.
“You told me not to follow.”
“I knew you would.”
“What were you thinking?”
“Nathan found something about Dad.”
Daniel Price, the man who raised Lily, had died during a sailing accident twelve years earlier.
His body was recovered two days later.
Karen had never questioned the investigation.
Nathan opened a file.
Daniel had worked as a financial investigator before marrying Karen.
He discovered Robert’s hidden network.
Robert did not trust him.
According to the archive, Robert arranged the boating accident to frighten Daniel into silence.
The plan was not supposed to kill him.
Again, a Hale operation had ended with a death no one officially intended.
Karen sat down.
“My father killed your father.”
Lily looked toward the floor.
“Daniel survived the first accident,” Nathan said.
“What?”
“He reached the shore.”
Nathan showed her hospital intake records.
Daniel had been admitted under a false name at Saint Gabriel.
He suffered hypothermia but was expected to recover.
Six hours later, he disappeared.
The attending physician was Dr. Malcolm Trent.
The same nonexistent doctor Julian named during the custody hearing.
“He exists,” Karen said.
“Just not under that name.”
Nathan traced Trent’s identity to Senator David Crane, one of the Crown Circle’s directors.
Crane personally removed Daniel from the hospital.
“What happened to him?” Lily asked.
Nathan looked at Karen.
“They held him for three days.”
“Then what?”
“They killed another man and placed Daniel’s identification on the body.”
Karen felt the room move beneath her.
“Daniel may be alive.”
Lily began crying.
Nathan found recent financial transfers to a protected medical facility in Vermont.
A patient had been held there for twelve years under the name Michael Reed.
The photographs resembled an older Daniel.
Karen wanted to leave immediately.
Nathan stopped her.
“The Circle is watching the facility.”
“Then why bring Lily here?”
“Because Julian knows about Daniel.”
Julian’s message to Lily had been genuine.
He scheduled it to send if he was arrested.
He wanted Lily to find her father before the Circle moved him.
“Why help us?” Karen asked Nathan.
“Because Robert destroyed all of us differently.”
“That is not enough.”
“No.”
Nathan looked at Lily.
“But she should not inherit our hatred.”
Grant entered the room.
“We have movement outside.”
Men were surrounding the hospital.
Nathan shut off the lights.
They escaped through a tunnel connecting Saint Gabriel to an old psychiatric facility.
Karen called Rebecca and told her everything.
Rebecca obtained a federal warrant for the Vermont location.
They traveled overnight in separate vehicles.
The facility stood in a forest near the Canadian border.
Federal agents entered at sunrise.
Most rooms were empty.
Medical records had been burned.
One patient remained in a locked basement ward.
Karen approached the bed.
The man was thin and heavily scarred.
Gray touched his beard.
But she recognized him.
“Daniel?”
His eyes opened.
He looked toward Lily.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he whispered the childhood nickname only he had used for her.
“Little Star.”
Lily collapsed beside him.
“Dad.”
Daniel raised a trembling hand and touched her hair.
Karen stood frozen.
The husband she had buried was alive.
He looked at her.
“You married him.”
Karen understood who he meant.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Julian knew.”
Daniel tried to sit up.
“He came here every year.”
“Why?”
“To ask where Robert hid the Crown Ledger.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“What is the Crown Ledger?”
Daniel looked toward the doorway.
“The only record that identifies every current member of the Circle.”
“Where is it?” Karen asked.
Daniel’s eyes moved to Lily.
“Robert hid it inside the trust created for her.”
Before he could explain further, alarms sounded throughout the facility.
A nurse ran into the room.
“The federal agents outside are shooting at each other.”
The Circle had infiltrated the rescue team.
Grant barricaded the door.
Daniel gripped Karen’s arm.
“If they take Lily, they control the ledger.”
The lights died.
A voice came through the hospital speakers.
“Give us Robert Hale’s granddaughter.”
May you like
Karen recognized Senator Crane.
“And everyone else leaves alive”:
