CHAPTER 17 — THE FIRE IN THE ARCHIVES
The fire began in the detention center’s records wing.
It was designed as a diversion.
During the evacuation, two officers wearing stolen uniforms attempted to remove Gavin.
They worked for Sterling Protective Services.
Charles was eliminating the son he had created.
Real officers stopped them in the parking garage.
One attacker was killed.
The other surrendered.
Gavin survived.
For the first time, he agreed to cooperate.
He gave prosecutors access codes to Charles’s private archive beneath Sterling Tower.
The archive contained decades of blackmail material.
Politicians.
Doctors.
Judges.
Executives.
Charles had recorded everyone.
“He never trusted loyalty,” Gavin said. “Only fear.”
Federal agents entered the archive.
I went with them.
Rows of locked cabinets filled an underground room beneath the company headquarters.
One cabinet was labeled with Sarah’s initials.
Inside were her medical files, intercepted letters and photographs taken without her knowledge.
Another cabinet carried my name.
It contained records of every private mistake I had made since college.
Charles had been preparing to control me long before I inherited anything.
At the back of the archive, we found a sealed room.
The walls were lined with patient files from the fertility program.
Thousands of women.
Thousands of stolen samples.
The size of the crime was difficult to comprehend.
Morales stood beside me.
“This could become one of the largest medical consent cases in the country.”
A monitor activated automatically.
Charles appeared on the screen.
He had recorded the message recently.
“If you are watching this, Richard has chosen sentiment over survival.”
He spoke calmly about the company.
About economic necessity.
About protecting the family name.
He never mentioned the women as people.
Only liabilities.
Then he addressed me.
“You will be tempted to release these records. Before you do, understand that many of the children created through this program do not know the truth.”
I looked at the cabinets.
Public exposure could destroy thousands of families.
Silence would continue the crime.
Charles had built one final trap.
Morales understood.
“We can seal identities while prosecuting the program.”
“It won’t stay sealed forever.”
“No.”
I thought of Maya.
Truth could free her.
It could also become another weapon used against her.
We turned the evidence over under court protection.
That evening, Charles disappeared from Hawthorne House.
A staff member had helped him leave through a medical transport entrance.
Beatrice was missing too.
At first, police assumed Charles had taken her.
Then a camera showed Beatrice entering the vehicle willingly.
My grandmother had chosen him again.
Or so I believed.
At midnight, Beatrice called me.
Her voice was calm.
“Charles is taking me to the original clinic.”
“Where?”
“The Sterling Reproductive Research Center.”
“It closed twenty-five years ago.”
“Only officially.”
“Why are you helping him?”
“I’m not.”
In the background, Charles ordered her to end the call.
Beatrice lowered her voice.
“There is one final witness inside that building.”
“Who?”
“The doctor who performed Maya’s embryo transfer.”
The line went dead.
Seconds later, Morales received an emergency alert.
The abandoned clinic’s fire system had activated.
May you like
Charles was not going there to retrieve the doctor.
He was going there to burn the last living witness with the evidence.
