Chapter 5 - THE BROTHER WHO DIED TWICE
Alexander watched the elevator footage until the image blurred.
Nathan.
Same eyes.
Same scar above the left eyebrow.
Older, thinner, but unmistakable.
His brother had died in a boating accident off the California coast.
No body had been recovered.
Alexander had spent years believing the ocean took him.
Sarah did not seem surprised.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
Alexander grabbed the edge of the table.
“You knew my brother might be alive?”
“Julia knew.”
That sentence hurt worse.
Sarah explained that Julia saw Nathan at a Northstar facility three months before her death.
She believed he had become involved with the research program after his disappearance.
Alexander struggled to understand.
Nathan had been brilliant but reckless.
He co-founded Cole Dynamics with Alexander, then left after a bitter fight over the company’s direction.
Nathan wanted military and intelligence contracts.
Alexander refused several projects on privacy grounds.
Months later Nathan disappeared.
Alexander always assumed the boating accident ended everything.
Sarah shook her head.
“It gave him a new identity.”
Nathan had allegedly joined a private consortium financing neurological research.
Memory alteration.
Behavioral conditioning.
Identity reconstruction.
Northstar was one piece.
Cole Dynamics supplied infrastructure through shell contracts.
Julia uncovered Nathan’s involvement.
She confronted him.
Then she told Sarah she planned to tell Alexander everything.
Six weeks later, Julia died.
Alexander stared at her.
“You think Nathan killed my wife.”
“I think Julia thought he might.”
That distinction mattered.
Alexander called federal investigators.
They began searching for Nathan immediately.
Meanwhile, police entered Sarah’s apartment.
The man was gone.
Nothing appeared stolen except one framed photograph of Julia and Sarah.
Why take a photograph?
Sarah studied the empty spot on the wall.
Then understood.
“The frame.”
“What?”
Julia had given her the picture personally.
The wooden frame was unusually thick.
Sarah had never opened it.
Nathan may have believed something was hidden inside.
Alexander felt anger rise.
“He’s looking for Julia’s evidence.”
Sarah nodded.
“Or making sure no one else finds it first.”
Back at the estate, Henry was recovering physically.
The sedative was leaving his system.
His memory remained fragmented.
Alexander showed him a carefully selected photograph of Nathan without naming him.
Henry recoiled instantly.
“That’s him.”
Alexander felt cold.
“The man who came with Rebecca?”
Henry nodded.
“What did he ask you?”
Henry squeezed his hands together.
“He asked about Mommy.”
“What about her?”
“Where she put the little black thing.”
Alexander frowned.
“What little black thing?”
Henry drew a rectangle roughly the size of a thumb.
A data drive.
Alexander remembered Julia carrying an encrypted hardware key on her keychain.
After the accident, it was never found.
“Did Mommy give it to you?”
Henry looked confused.
“She hid it in my dragon.”
Alexander stood.
Henry owned dozens of toys.
“Which dragon?”
“The broken one.”
Alexander ran upstairs.
In the storage room, old toys filled several boxes.
He found a stuffed green dragon with one torn wing.
Julia had bought it before Henry’s first birthday.
Alexander cut open the damaged seam.
Inside was a small black storage device.
His heart pounded.
He connected it to an isolated laptop.
Encrypted.
One password hint appeared.
The first thing Henry remembered.
Alexander looked toward his son.
Henry stared at the screen.
“I don’t know.”
Then he began humming Julia’s four-note melody.
Alexander entered the numeric sequence.
The drive unlocked.
Dozens of folders appeared.
Northstar.
Behavioral trials.
Cole approvals.
Private payments.
Then one folder labeled Nathan.
Alexander opened it.
The first file was a video recorded by Julia.
She looked directly into the camera.
“If you are seeing this, Alexander, I failed to tell you in person.”
Alexander stopped breathing.
Julia continued.
“Nathan is alive.”
Alexander swallowed.
“I know.”
May you like
Then Julia said something he did not expect.
“And he is not the person I am most afraid of.”
