Chapter 10 - CLAIRE’S LAST ROOMStorage Unit 317 sat behind a row of identical steel doors.
I remember shouting.
I remember Ortiz telling me Ethan was alive.
At least they believed he was.
I remember wanting to kill Samuel Merrick with my own hands.
The safe house had been compromised through a corrupt contractor.
Someone disabled one rear camera.
Dad had been in the kitchen.
Ethan in the den.
A man wearing a utility uniform knocked.
Dad refused entry.
A second man came through the back.
Dad fought.
At seventy-four years old, weakened by months of poisoning, my father fought two grown men with a fireplace poker.
He broke one man’s wrist.
The other struck him unconscious.
They took Ethan.
When I arrived, Dad was sitting in an ambulance with blood running down his forehead.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I grabbed his shoulders.
“This isn’t your fault.”
“I promised I’d protect him.”
“You almost got killed.”
“I should’ve gotten killed before I let them take that boy.”
“Don’t say that.”
Dad looked at me.
His eyes burned with rage.
“They wanted the plant.”
I stared.
“What?”
“One of them said, ‘Get the plant too.’”
Claire’s peace lily was gone again.
Why?
The contaminated original could still contain chemical traces, but police already had samples.
Then Dad remembered.
“The pot.”
“What?”
“Claire repotted it.”
“When?”
“Before she died.”
I stared at him.
Claire hid things.
The USB drive.
The SD card.
Maybe something else.
The kidnappers had taken the wrong version of the plant once already.
Now Merrick specifically wanted it.
Why?
Rachel provided the answer.
“Claire recorded Merrick talking about a storage key.”
“What storage key?”
“I don’t know.”
I called Ortiz.
Investigators searched old photos of Claire’s plant.
One image showed the ceramic pot before Claire repotted it.
Another afterward.
Different base.
Claire had used a double-bottom planter.
Merrick must have discovered this from her files.
Maybe he believed evidence was hidden inside.
The kidnapped plant still had that pot.
More importantly, Ethan had it.
If he knew the hiding place, he might leave us a clue.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Daddy?”
I nearly collapsed.
“Ethan!”
His voice trembled.
“I’m okay.”
“Where are you?”
“I don’t know.”
Merrick’s voice replaced his.
“Bring the original card.”
“If you hurt him—”
“You’ve already heard that speech in movies.”
“I’ll give you anything.”
“I know.”
“Let me talk to Ethan.”
“You just did.”
“Merrick!”
The call ended.
Agents traced it unsuccessfully.
Burner phone.
Moving signal.
Then a text arrived.
A photograph.
Ethan sitting on the floor of a dark room.
Beside him: Claire’s plant.
His face was pale but unharmed.
Under the photograph:
MIDNIGHT.
Coordinates.
No police.
Ortiz insisted we would go tactically.
Nobody believed Merrick expected me to arrive alone.
The coordinates pointed to an abandoned paper mill near the state line.
Before leaving, I enlarged the photograph.
Something bothered me.
Ethan’s hand.
He held three fingers against his chest.
Then two.
Then, in another photo sent minutes later, one.
A countdown?
No.
Claire had taught Ethan a game for remembering directions.
Finger numbers represented letters.
Three = C.
Two = B.
One = A.
CBA meant nothing.
Then I noticed the plant.
Ethan had turned the pot.
A faded manufacturer sticker was visible.
C-21.
Ortiz looked at the mill blueprints.
Building C.
Room 21.
Ethan was telling us exactly where he was.
My five-year-old son was helping rescue himself.
Federal teams entered from the south.
I approached from the front as instructed.
Merrick waited inside the main processing hall.
He held a handgun.
Ethan was nowhere visible.
“Card,” he said.
“Boy.”
“Card first.”
“You need me alive to decrypt it.”
He smiled.
“I don’t believe you.”
“You should.”
A noise sounded above.
Merrick looked up.
Agents moved.
He fired.
Chaos exploded.
I ran.
Not away.
Toward Building C.
Room numbers flashed past.
Locked.
I kicked.
Nothing.
“KID!”
“DADDY!”
I kicked again.
The door opened.
Ethan ran into me.
I dropped to my knees and held him so tightly he squeaked.
Behind him sat Claire’s plant.
The ceramic pot had been smashed.
Inside the false bottom was a brass key.
And a folded piece of paper.
Claire’s handwriting.
A storage-unit number.
The final piece Merrick had been willing to kidnap a child to recover.
Behind us, gunfire stopped.
Minutes later Ortiz entered.
“Merrick’s down.”
“Dead?”
“No.”
Samuel Merrick had been shot in the shoulder.
Alive.
Arrested.
Unable to run.
For the first time since Claire died, the man who destroyed my family was in handcuffs.
May you like
But Claire’s hidden storage key was about to reveal that Merrick had one final secret.
One that none of us expected.
