The storage door was only twenty feet away, but suddenly that distance felt impossible.
“What’s inside?” I asked.
The agent’s face tightened.
“Enough to explain why your father needed an empty coffin.”
Then my phone began to ring.
My mother again.
The agent looked at the screen, then back at me.
“Do not answer that,” she said.
And behind her, inside Unit 17, something started to beep.
The room became silent.
Even the agent watched.
“Listen carefully. I am not dead.”
My heart stopped.
“I staged my death because it was the only way to disappear.”
He leaned forward.
“If your mother knows where you are, leave immediately.”
I felt sick.
The video continued.
“For years I believed Eleanor was stealing from me.”
My mother’s name.
“Then I learned something worse.”
He swallowed hard.
“I was wrong.”
The FBI agent froze.
I noticed it instantly.
She wasn’t expecting this.
My father’s eyes darkened.
“Eleanor isn’t the threat.”
The agent slowly stood.
My stomach tightened.
On the screen, my father pointed directly toward the camera.
“The threat is Agent Karen Holt.”
The woman beside me.
The FBI agent.
Her face drained of color.
My father continued.
“If she’s standing next to you right now, run.”
Everything happened at once.
The agent lunged toward the laptop.
I grabbed it first.
