The tunnel smelled of wet stone and rust.
Victoria descended behind Elena while Miriam sealed the hidden door above them.
Gunfire did not follow.
That worried Victoria more than if Rennick's team had forced entry immediately.
He wanted something inside.
Probably the drives.
Possibly Peter.
The stairs ended in an old service tunnel beneath the lighthouse.
Daniel switched on a flashlight.
"Peter?"
Nobody answered.
Water moved somewhere beyond the stone wall.
They continued.
The tunnel opened into a circular chamber built around the lighthouse foundation.
A single battery-powered lamp stood on a table.
Beside it sat a man.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
Weathered hands.
Victoria recognized him from the photograph.
Peter Vale.
Rebecca Shaw stopped walking.
Peter looked at her first.
Fourteen years passed across both their faces without either speaking.
Then Peter turned toward Victoria.
"You ignored the instruction not to find me."
Victoria stared.
"You told me you were waiting below."
"That wasn't me."
Everyone froze.
Victoria took out the phone.
"You didn't send the message?"
"No."
Elena raised her weapon slightly.
"Then who did?"
Peter stood.
"The Custodian."
"Who is that?"
"If I knew, we wouldn't be here."
Victoria's patience vanished.
"Enough riddles."
Peter almost smiled.
"That's fair."
He looked toward Shaw.
"Hello, Rebecca."
Shaw's voice broke.
"I thought you were dead."
"I needed you to."
"You could have told me."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because Richard watched you for years."
Shaw looked down.
Peter's expression softened only slightly.
"I knew about Michael."
She looked up.
"You knew?"
"Eventually."
"Then why didn't you contact me?"
"Because knowing why you betrayed me didn't make you safe."
Shaw absorbed that quietly.
Victoria stepped between them.
"Rennick is upstairs."
Peter's attention sharpened.
"Paul Rennick?"
"Yes."
"Then the current Custodian is making a move."
"Why?"
"Because Rennick was never supposed to know this location."
Victoria stared.
"Who knew?"
"Three people."
"Miriam?"
"Yes."
"You?"
"Yes."
"And?"
Peter looked at Daniel.
"Laura Mendes."
Daniel frowned.
"The journalist who died seven years ago."
"Yes."
"Then how did Rennick find us?"
Peter's face darkened.
"That's what concerns me."
A heavy sound echoed from above.
They were breaching the cottage.
Elena looked toward the tunnel.
"We need to move."
Peter picked up a waterproof case.
"Agreed."
They followed the tunnel toward the shoreline.
Victoria walked beside Peter.
"Richard says you ran Meridian."
"I did."
"People were harmed."
"Yes."
"You knew."
"Sometimes."
No excuses.
That surprised her.
"Did you order violence?"
"No."
"Did you knowingly enable people who did?"
Peter looked at her.
"Yes."
Victoria appreciated the answer even as she despised what it meant.
"Then you're not a witness."
"No."
"What are you?"
"A participant who kept records."
"You expect immunity?"
Peter laughed quietly.
"No."
They reached another steel door.
Peter opened it.
Cold sea air rushed inside.
A narrow path ran beneath the cliffs toward a concealed boathouse.
Elena checked ahead.
Clear.
They moved quickly.
Inside the boathouse waited an old utility vehicle.
Peter opened the rear compartment.
Several sealed cases sat inside.
Daniel stared.
"Volume B?"
"Some of it."
Victoria stopped.
"You already had B."
"Yes."
"Miriam sent us toward coordinates."
"Because I needed to know whether you could follow the trail without exposing it."
Victoria's anger sharpened.
"You tested us."
"I tested you."
"While armed officers followed us."
"I didn't know Rennick would appear."
"Convenient."
Peter met her stare.
"I won't ask you to trust me."
"Good."
They entered the vehicle.
Miriam drove.
Peter directed her onto a narrow service road.
No headlights.
Behind them, distant beams appeared near the lighthouse.
Rennick had discovered the tunnel.
They reached an abandoned maintenance building twenty minutes later.
Inside, Peter finally opened the waterproof case.
Paper files.
Hard drives.
Photographs.
Audio recordings.
Daniel whispered, "How much?"
"Fourteen years."
Victoria looked at Peter.
"You could have delivered this to federal prosecutors."
"I tried."
"When?"
"Nine years ago."
"What happened?"
"The prosecutor I contacted informed Richard within six hours."
"Who?"
"Martin Keene."
Victoria recognized the name.
Former federal prosecutor.
Now a Hawthorne Foundation trustee.
Peter continued.
"That's when I understood the problem wasn't finding honest institutions. It was knowing which people inside them were honest."
"So you kept everything."
"And waited."
"For me?"
"For someone like you."
Victoria disliked the grandness of that answer.
"You couldn't know I'd investigate Voss."
"No."
"Then stop pretending this was planned."
Peter nodded.
"Fair."
He pointed toward the files.
"Your traffic stop changed things."
Daniel laughed softly.
"We're back to the handcuffs."
Peter looked at Victoria.
"Mark and Eric stopping you forced Voss to expose himself. Voss exposed Kerr. Kerr's panic activated Price. Price led you to Hawthorne."
"Richard said he was losing control."
"He is."
"Why?"
"Because the network is turning against itself."
Peter explained.
Hawthorne worked only while members believed the Custodian controlled the ledger neutrally.
No participant could expose another without risking reciprocal exposure.
Richard had violated that balance.
He began using ledger information for personal control.
Blackmail that benefited him directly.
Members became frightened.
Some wanted him removed.
Others wanted the ledger destroyed.
"And the Custodian?" Victoria asked.
"Refused."
"Who is it?"
"I don't know."
"You transferred the role."
"Not directly."
Peter explained that Laura Mendes had discovered him seven years earlier.
Instead of exposing him, she demanded access to the evidence.
Peter eventually trusted her.
When Richard ordered her killed, Peter tried to save her.
He failed.
But before her death, Laura created a succession protocol.
"If something happened to both of us," Peter said, "the archive would select a new Custodian."
Daniel stared.
"Select?"
"Not automatically. It sends access instructions to predetermined candidates."
"Who were they?"
"I don't know."
"Laura chose them?"
"Yes."
"Then the current Custodian could be anybody."
"Correct."
Victoria thought of the anonymous messages.
The warning about Rennick.
The photograph of Peter.
Someone had been watching every side.
"Could the Custodian be inside Hawthorne?"
"Absolutely."
"Why?"
"Best place to survive."
Elena checked her phone.
"No signal."
Peter nodded.
"Intentional."
Victoria opened one of the cases.
The first file concerned Judge Kerr.
The second, Lionel Burke.
The third, Senator Mercer.
Then she found Paul Rennick.
She opened it.
Payments.
Internal access records.
Communications with Price.
Rennick had recruited Owen Price.
That answered one question.
Another document showed Rennick communicating with Richard Avery the morning Victoria first located Sarah Bennett.
"So Rennick gave Voss my movements."
"Indirectly," Peter said.
"Why didn't you warn me?"
"I didn't know until later."
Victoria turned pages.
One report stopped her.
Rennick had requested background surveillance on Victoria eight months before the Voss investigation began.
"Why?"
Peter looked over.
"I don't know."
"Eight months."
"That's before I became aware of you."
Victoria read the authorization.
Reason: recruitment assessment.
But she had already worked at Internal Oversight for years.
The explanation made no sense.
Then she saw the approving signature.
Rebecca Shaw.
Victoria slowly looked up.
Shaw had gone pale.
"Explain."
Shaw approached.
"I've never seen that."
"Your signature."
"Forged."
Victoria handed it to Elena.
Elena examined it.
"Could be."
Victoria looked at Peter.
"Can you verify?"
"Metadata may."
Daniel began loading the digital copy.
While he worked, Victoria found another document.
This one was older.
A list of potential future investigators.
Names scored according to independence, financial vulnerability, family leverage, political ties, and psychological profile.
Victoria found herself.
Score beside her name:
LOW CONTROL PROBABILITY.
HIGH INSTITUTIONAL THREAT.
She stared.
Hawthorne had evaluated her years before she knew Hawthorne existed.
Daniel looked over her shoulder.
"That's unsettling."
"Yes."
Peter read the page.
"I've never seen this."
"Source?"
"Volume B."
"Who supplied it?"
Peter checked the code.
His expression changed.
"Custodian upload."
"When?"
"Three years ago."
"So the current Custodian was watching me."
"Yes."
Victoria continued reading.
A handwritten notation had been added beside her profile.
DO NOT RECRUIT. DO NOT THREATEN. OBSERVE.
Below it sat the initial.
R.
Elena noticed.
"Rennick?"
"Maybe."
Peter shook his head.
"Rennick recruited Price. He wouldn't mark you untouchable."
"Richard?"
"He would recruit or destroy you."
"Then who?"
Nobody answered.
Daniel suddenly turned from the laptop.
"Shaw's signature was forged."
Rebecca exhaled.
"Can you tell by whom?"
"No. But the document was created on Rennick's workstation."
Victoria nodded.
One problem resolved.
Then Daniel's expression changed again.
"What?"
He rotated the screen.
"There's an embedded access history."
Several names appeared.
Price.
Rennick.
Kerr.
Then another.
Victoria stared.
The most recent person to access her surveillance profile had done so only eleven days earlier.
After Voss's conviction.
The account belonged to someone Victoria had considered beyond suspicion.
Captain Elena Morris.
Silence consumed the room.
Daniel slowly looked toward Elena.
Shaw stepped backward.
Peter's hand moved toward the case.
Victoria turned.
Elena stood near the door.
Her weapon remained holstered.
Her face showed neither panic nor surprise.
Victoria spoke quietly.
"Tell me there's an explanation."
Elena looked at the screen.
"There is."
"Then give it."
Elena closed her eyes briefly.
"When Voss was arrested, I received a message."
"From whom?"
"The Custodian."
Peter stepped forward.
"What?"
Elena looked at him.
"I've been communicating with them for six months."
Victoria felt betrayal arrive not as anger but as a strange stillness.
"You never told me."
"I couldn't."
"You had access to my surveillance profile."
"To see who was watching you."
"Why?"
"Because the Custodian told me you were going to become the center of this."
Victoria's voice hardened.
"Who is the Custodian?"
Elena looked directly at her.
"I don't know."
Peter stared.
"How do they contact you?"
"Encrypted channel."
"Show me."
Elena removed her phone slowly.
Before she could unlock it, the screen lit by itself.
A message appeared.
All of them could read it.
PETER, YOU WERE RIGHT TO TRUST LAURA.
VICTORIA, YOU WERE RIGHT NOT TO TRUST ANY OF US.
ELENA, YOUR PART IS FINISHED.
Then another line appeared.
IF YOU WANT VOLUME A, BRING RICHARD AVERY TO THE PLACE WHERE CHARLES DIED.
Click here to continue reading: PART 12: To Reach Volume A, Victoria Had to Prove Charles Avery’s Death Was Murder and Force His Brother Back to the Lake
Two Officers Chose a Young Woman Driving Alone, Never Guessing She Had Been Waiting Months for Someone to Make This Mistake
Part 11 of 20
