Victoria did not lower the toxicology report.
“My father asked you to close the investigation into his own death?”
James Rourke stood beside the black vehicle with his hands visible.
“Not his death.”
“Choose your next words carefully.”
“Thomas came to me six days before the crash.”
Victoria stared.
“He knew something was going to happen?”
“He believed it might.”
“What did he ask you to do?”
Rourke glanced at Mercer’s gun.
“Can we move somewhere less exposed?”
“No.”
“Victoria—”
“Answer.”
Rourke exhaled.
“He gave me instructions. If he died under suspicious circumstances, I was to prevent a full internal investigation.”
Daniel frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“It did to Thomas.”
“Why?”
“Because he believed the killer would monitor the investigation.”
Victoria felt a cold recognition.
Her father had done what she herself had been doing.
Restrict information.
Watch who reacted.
Use the response as evidence.
“What did he want instead?”
“A false closure.”
Rourke nodded toward the report in Victoria’s hand.
“That.”
“You classified the sedative as irrelevant.”
“Yes.”
“Knowing it wasn’t.”
“Yes.”
“And then?”
“I preserved the original samples.”
Victoria stared.
“Where?”
Rourke hesitated.
Mercer raised his weapon another inch.
“Don’t.”
Rourke looked at him.
“Nathan Crane.”
Mercer’s face tightened.
“You know me?”
“I knew Samuel.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I have followed your career.”
“Why?”
“Because your father asked Thomas to protect you.”
Mercer’s expression changed.
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Victoria looked between them.
“How many promises did these men leave behind?”
“Too many,” Eleanor said.
Victoria returned her attention to Rourke.
“The samples.”
“Thomas arranged for them to be stored outside department custody.”
“Where?”
“Federal evidence archive.”
“Under what case?”
Rourke looked directly at her.
“Samuel Crane.”
Mercer lowered the gun slightly.
“My father’s case?”
“Thomas believed the deaths would eventually have to be examined together.”
“But Crane died two years earlier.”
“Yes.”
“And Thomas suspected the same person.”
“Yes.”
Victoria folded the report.
“What else did my father give you?”
Rourke did not answer.
“James.”
“A key.”
“To what?”
“I never knew.”
“Where is it?”
“I gave it to you.”
Victoria’s face went still.
“When?”
“At your father’s funeral.”
She searched her memory.
Hundreds of details from that day had blurred together: rain against black umbrellas, wet grass, people speaking too softly, her mother gripping Victoria’s hand until their knuckles hurt.
Rourke had approached after the burial.
He had handed Victoria a small wooden box containing her father’s watch.
“The watch.”
Rourke nodded.
Victoria almost laughed from disbelief.
“That watch has been in my storage unit for twenty years.”
“Thomas said you would understand when you were ready.”
“I was nineteen.”
“He knew.”
“Knew what?”
“That you would eventually become an investigator.”
Victoria stared at him.
“He couldn’t know that.”
Rourke’s expression softened.
“He knew you.”
The words hurt more than she expected.
Victoria looked away.
Eleanor spoke.
“Thomas never wanted you involved.”
“That appears to have failed.”
“He wanted you alive.”
“So he left me a key to a conspiracy?”
“No,” Rourke said.
“He left you a choice.”
Victoria turned back.
“You seem to know a great deal for someone who claims he was following instructions.”
“I know pieces.”
“Did you know Eleanor was alive?”
“No.”
“Did you know Voss was corrupt?”
“I suspected.”
“You assigned me to investigate his division.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because complaints started repeating patterns Thomas described.”
Victoria’s anger returned.
“You used me.”
“I assigned the best investigator I had.”
“You knew my father died investigating the same network.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was trying to determine whether Northstar had resurfaced.”
“It never disappeared.”
Rourke looked toward the street.
“I know that now.”
Daniel stepped between them.
“Sarah.”
Everyone fell silent.
“We can dissect twenty years of secrets later. Sarah is at the courthouse.”
Eleanor nodded.
“We go now.”
Rourke shook his head.
“That’s exactly what whoever took her wants.”
Daniel stepped toward him.
“I don’t care.”
“You should.”
“I’ve spent three months tied to chairs and moved between rooms because all of you cared more about protecting information than people.”
No one contradicted him.
Daniel looked at Victoria.
“You came into that warehouse because evidence could be copied and people couldn’t.”
Victoria remembered saying it.
Daniel pointed toward the city.
“Prove you meant it.”
Victoria took out her phone.
“Mercer, verify the courthouse.”
He made the call.
Rourke lowered his hands.
“Marianne’s credentials were used there twenty-six minutes ago.”
“Does that prove she was present?”
“No.”
“Then we assume nothing.”
Eleanor looked impatient.
“Sarah may not have twenty-six minutes.”
Victoria faced her.
“Then tell me everything about that sublevel.”
Eleanor described it from memory.
The original Northstar operations room had been built beneath the courthouse records annex, accessible through two secured stairwells and an old evidence-transfer tunnel connecting to the adjacent government garage. Official floor plans showed only storage rooms.
“How many exits?”
“Three when we used it.”
“When?”
“2003.”
“Could they have changed?”
“Of course.”
Mercer ended his call.
“Courthouse security says the building is empty.”
Victoria looked at him.
“Do they know about the sublevel?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Rourke frowned.
“Why good?”
“Because whoever is down there may believe the same thing.”
They separated their approach.
Rourke remained outside under Mercer’s supervision while a federal team established a perimeter without alerting ordinary courthouse security. Eleanor guided Victoria and Daniel through the old evidence-transfer tunnel.
Victoria had argued that Daniel should remain behind.
Daniel had ignored her.
The tunnel entrance lay behind a rusted service gate in the government garage.
Eleanor entered a six-digit code.
The lock opened.
Daniel looked at her.
“Twelve years dead and your code still works?”
“That concerns me too.”
They descended.
The air became colder.
Old fluorescent strips flickered awake automatically.
Victoria drew her weapon.
At the end of the tunnel stood a steel door.
Northstar’s symbol was etched faintly beside the handle.
Daniel touched it.
“This is the same mark from the ledger.”
Eleanor nodded.
Victoria examined the lock.
Recently used.
“Someone maintains this place.”
“Yes.”
Eleanor’s voice had become quiet.
She opened the door.
The room beyond looked nothing like an abandoned operations center.
Computers glowed along one wall.
Modern servers hummed behind glass.
A digital map covered a large central screen.
Small points of light marked police stations, courthouses, contractor offices and government buildings throughout the region.
Daniel stared.
“Northstar never shut down.”
Victoria walked toward a desk.
Fresh coffee.
Warm.
Someone had been there minutes earlier.
Eleanor moved toward another workstation.
“No.”
Victoria turned.
Eleanor was staring at the screen.
A list of names filled it.
Some were green.
Others yellow.
Several red.
Victoria recognized Adrian Voss.
Red.
Harold Keene.
Red.
Martin Shaw.
Yellow.
Marianne Vale.
Yellow.
James Rourke.
Yellow.
Nathan Mercer.
Yellow.
Then Victoria saw her own name.
HALE, VICTORIA — ACTIVE REVIEW.
Below it:
LEVERAGE: NONE CONFIRMED.
Daniel found his name.
CROSS, DANIEL — TERMINATE.
He stepped backward.
Victoria moved to the next line.
BENNETT, SARAH — RECOVERED.
Eleanor gripped the desk.
“Recovered.”
Daniel looked around wildly.
“Where?”
A door opened at the far end.
Marianne Vale stepped through.
Her hands were empty.
“Don’t shoot.”
Victoria aimed at her.
“Where is Sarah?”
Vale stopped.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel surged forward.
Eleanor caught him.
Vale raised both hands.
“I came because someone sent me the same message they sent Eleanor.”
Victoria’s eyes narrowed.
“How do you know Eleanor received one?”
Vale looked at her.
“Because Northstar sent one to every surviving member.”
The central screen changed.
All the names vanished.
A live video feed appeared.
Sarah Bennett sat in a chair.
Her hands were free.
She looked exhausted but uninjured.
Behind her was a blank concrete wall.
Daniel moved toward the screen.
“Sarah.”
She could not hear him.
A timer appeared beneath the image.
09:59.
09:58.
09:57.
Victoria looked at Vale.
“What happens when that reaches zero?”
“I don’t know.”
A speaker above them crackled.
Then a distorted voice filled the room.
“Thomas Hale understood the purpose of Northstar.”
Victoria looked upward.
The voice continued.
“He also understood why it could never be dismantled.”
The screen split.
Sarah remained on one side.
On the other appeared a scanned document.
Victoria recognized her father’s signature.
THOMAS HALE.
The distorted voice spoke again.
“Your father did not die trying to destroy Northstar, Victoria.”
A highlighted sentence appeared beneath the signature.
“He died trying to choose its next guardian.”
Click here to continue reading: PART 12: Thomas Hale’s Final File Forced Victoria to Question His Motives, While Sarah Used One Tiny Detail to Expose Where Her Captor Had Taken Her
The Officers Chose a Woman Driving Alone, Never Realizing She Had Spent Months Studying Their Unit
Part 11 of 28
