Chapter 8 - Subject Nine
Evan saw the picture and stopped breathing.
His son, Caleb, was sixteen.
He had been at a friend's house in Hyde Park.
Evan called him.
Straight to voicemail.
He called the friend's mother.
She answered crying.
Two men had shown up with police badges and said Caleb's father had been injured.
They took him twenty minutes earlier.
"This is my fault," Evan said.
"No," I told him. "It's theirs."
He looked at me with hatred anyway.
I deserved part of it.
My last name had built the machine now swallowing his child.
Vanessa paced.
"Subject Nine means they already moved beyond Lily."
"Why Caleb?" Claire asked.
"Because Evan treated you. He is a witness. His son is leverage."
I called Aaron.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Then a text arrived from his number.
DON'T COME TO THE HOUSE.
DAD HAS MY PHONE.
I stared at it.
Another message followed.
CHECK YOUR EMAIL. 2011 AUDIT.
I opened my work account.
A file had been sent from Aaron twenty seconds earlier.
The attachment contained scanned medical invoices from 2011.
One name appeared repeatedly.
EMILY HAYES.
But the patient ID did not say Subject Two.
It said CONSULTANT E.H.
Claire leaned over my shoulder.
"Consultant?"
I scrolled.
Payments from the Hayes Foundation had gone to Emily for "behavioral compliance design" and "family stabilization protocols."
My dead sister had not just been a victim.
She had helped build the system.
Vanessa whispered, "No."
I kept reading.
In 2013, the payments stopped.
In 2014, Emily was listed as Subject Two.
She had become part of the machine she designed.
"She tried to leave," Claire said.
"Or she tried to take control," Vanessa replied.
I looked at her.
"You knew this?"
"I suspected. Patricia's records mentioned a young female consultant."
Lily sat beside Claire, coloring on a prescription pad Evan had given her.
She looked up.
"Is Aunt Emily bad?"
I had no answer.
Evan grabbed his car keys.
"I am going to my son."
I blocked the door.
"They want you emotional."
"They have my child."
"I know."
"Then move."
Claire stepped between us.
"We go together. But not to Blackthorn."
Vanessa understood first.
"Santa Fe."
Claire nodded.
"If Richard wants the key, the archive is what matters. The archive is leverage."
Evan looked ready to break something.
"My son is leverage."
"Exactly," Claire said. "So we need better leverage."
An hour later we were on a charter flight west.
I spent the entire trip staring at the 2011 audit.
Halfway over Missouri, I found one line Aaron had highlighted in yellow.
AUTHORIZATION: D. HAYES.
My initials.
My digital signature.
I had been twenty-six in 2011.
And according to the record, I had personally approved payments that funded my sister's containment program.
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