Chapter 9 - The Signature I Couldn't Remember
I did not sleep on the flight.
I searched old calendars, email backups, bank records, anything that could explain my signature on the 2011 authorization.
The problem was that the signature was real.
Not copied.
Not pasted.
My old digital certificate.
My password.
My device ID.
"I signed this," I said.
Claire sat across from me.
"Do you remember?"
"No."
Vanessa looked out the window.
"Richard used to give you documents in batches."
I turned.
"How would you know?"
"Claire told me."
Claire nodded reluctantly.
"You complained about it."
I remembered.
My father would send hundreds of pages at once and demand signatures before midnight. Vendor approvals. Insurance renewals. Foundation grants.
I had been proud that he trusted me.
Maybe trust was never the point.
Maybe volume was camouflage.
We landed in Santa Fe before sunrise.
The address Vanessa gave us belonged to a low adobe house on the edge of the city.
No fence.
No cameras visible.
Too quiet.
We entered through the garage.
Inside, the house looked ordinary except for one detail.
Every interior door opened outward.
Vanessa noticed me noticing.
"Harder to barricade from inside."
My stomach turned.
We found the room beneath the kitchen.
Another steel door.
Another keypad.
Vanessa's wafer unlocked it.
The chamber beyond had been emptied.
No bed.
No medicine.
Only shelves filled with old videotapes and a server rack humming in the corner.
Claire whispered, "The archive."
Vanessa inserted the wafer.
Files populated the monitor.
Nine subjects.
Patricia Vale.
Emily Hayes.
Four names I didn't know.
Claire Morgan Hayes.
Lily Hayes.
Caleb Brooks.
Subject Eight and Nine.
Lily had a file after all.
I opened it.
Observation notes began when she was four.
School routes.
Allergies.
Friends.
The name of her pediatrician.
The exact window she slept beside at Blackthorn House.
I had to step away from the screen.
Claire put a hand over her mouth.
Vanessa whispered, "Richard."
I opened the administrator logs.
The account that created Lily's file was not my father's.
It was E.H.
Emily Hayes.
My sister.
Then one of the old monitors flickered on by itself.
A woman appeared in grainy video.
Older than the sister I remembered.
Same eyes.
Same crooked smile.
Emily.
She looked directly into the camera as if she knew we were watching.
"Daniel," the recording said, "if you found this, Dad has already lost control."
I leaned closer.
Emily's expression hardened.
"That does not mean you are safe from me."
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