Chapter 12 - The Empty Kennel
Max survived the night, but only because Lena refused to stop working after the monitor flatlined for nine seconds.
“He came back,” she told David in the gray light before dawn. “I don’t know how much time that gives us.”
David sat beside the kennel. “Enough for what?”
“Enough to stop wasting it.”
Nora vanished before the agents could question her. Her apartment had been emptied, her bank accounts closed, and her phone left inside a public trash can near Union Station.
David felt betrayed, but the betrayal had layers. Nora had concealed the truth, protected him without his consent, and perhaps removed evidence because she feared the same people who had threatened his family. None of those facts made her innocent.
Agent Cole asked him to sign a statement accusing Nora of obstruction.
“I will tell the truth,” David said.
“The truth may put her in prison.”
“Then she can defend herself.”
The missing segment was traced to a secure drive once stored in David’s Senate office. Cole found an access log showing that Nora had removed it and transferred it to a private storage facility.
Eli discovered the facility through a payment made by Carter Civic. The drive had not been destroyed. It had been moved.
David, Nia, and Cole entered the facility with a warrant. The unit was empty except for a chair, a dead camera, and a paper envelope taped beneath a shelf.
Inside was another note in Owen’s handwriting.
Dad, if Nora gives you this, she finally chose you over the institution.
David read the line twice.
Beneath it was a password and a warning.
The proof is not in the archive. It is in the people the archive frightened.
Cole frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Witnesses.”
They found the first witness in a nursing home outside Baltimore. Thomas Bell had been a Meridian systems auditor. He had signed off on the targeting software, then suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak.
His daughter, Mae, brought them to his room.
Thomas watched David with clear, furious eyes. His right hand shook against the blanket.
Mae placed a letter board in front of him. “He can spell slowly.”
Thomas pointed to letters.
M-A-X.
David leaned closer. “You know the dog?”
Thomas spelled again.
N-O-T-D-O-G.
Mae swallowed. “He says the dog isn’t the witness.”
Thomas pointed to another sequence.
T-H-E-C-O-L-L-A-R.
David felt the old uncertainty return.
Thomas spelled one more word.
M-A-P.
The collar contained not only a key and a card. It contained a map encoded through the stitching pattern, a map of every property marked by the targeting system.
But the collar had been taken by federal agents.
Cole’s phone rang.
She listened, then looked at David.
“The evidence room was breached.”
“The collar?”
“Gone.”
They raced back to Lena’s clinic. The front door stood open. The examination room had been overturned. Glass covered the floor.
Max’s kennel was empty.
Lena sat against the wall with blood running from her temple.
David dropped beside her. “Where is he?”
She pressed a torn scrap of black leather into his hand.
“They took the collar,” she whispered. “But they didn’t take Max.”
David looked toward the rear door.
Fresh paw prints crossed the wet concrete and led into the alley.
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At the end of the prints, written in chalk on the brick wall, were five words.
COME TO THE OLD WATER PLANT.
