At 2:14 AM, I was taking out the trash behind the Philadelphia Municipal Annex when I heard a faint whimpering inside a sealed steel dumpster.
The subway ride was a blur of flashing lights and rattling metal, carrying us further away from Brody’s ambush. Samuel led us to a nondescript motel on the edge of the city, miles from where we’d left his car. We needed a secure place to digitize DeWitt’s letter and the waste logs. My phone was dead, a casualty of the frantic escape.
“We can’t risk using public WiFi,” Samuel warned, checking the motel room for any obvious bugs. “And a library computer might be monitored.”
My mind spun. I had one last, desperate option. My brother, Brandon. He might be angry, but surely family still counted for something. His apartment was small, off the main grid, and he worked the night shift, so it would be empty.
With a borrowed charger, I brought my phone back to life and hesitantly dialed Brandon’s number. He answered after a few rings, his voice still edged with irritation.
“What do you want, Elena? I told you, I’m done with your drama.”
“Brandon, please,” I pleaded, my voice cracking with exhaustion. “I need a place, just for two hours. To scan some documents. It’s urgent. It could clear my name, clear Aunt Karen’s name.”
There was a long pause. I could almost hear the gears turning in his opportunistic mind. “Two hours? No questions asked?”
“Two hours,” I confirmed, “and I’ll be gone.”
“Fine,” he grumbled. “Front door’s unlocked. Keys are under the mat. Don’t touch anything.”
Relief washed over me, a fragile hope that family ties, however strained, might still hold. Samuel dropped me off a block away from Brandon’s apartment building. The street was quiet, shrouded in a thin fog.
I slipped inside, found the spare key, and let myself in. The apartment smelled faintly of stale pizza and cologne. I went straight to Brandon’s small bedroom, pulled out my laptop, and began carefully scanning DeWitt’s letter, page by painstaking page, onto a flash drive.
I was halfway through the letter when I heard it – light footsteps in the hallway. My heart leaped into my throat. Brandon worked nights; he shouldn’t be home. I froze, holding my breath, straining to hear.
The footsteps paused just outside the bedroom door. Then, a voice. Not Brandon’s, but a woman’s. Clear, precise.
“He’s in the bedroom, Brenda,” a familiar voice whispered. My blood ran cold. It was Brandon.
“Good,” Brenda Gable, Hallowell’s Chief Campaign Strategist, replied, her voice dangerously calm. “Remember what we discussed, Brandon. $15,000 for you, and your aunt’s subsidy restored. All you have to do is plant these in her bag and call Captain Brody. We’ll handle the rest.”
A cold dread seeped into my bones. My brother hadn’t agreed to help me; he’d traded my location. For money, for comfort, for his own selfish gain. He had sold me out.
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