If you walk back onto that plane, you leave those children alone forever, I told my mother at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.
Days blurred into a anxious haze. I had the cloned drive, but no way to decrypt it. The media continued to paint me as unstable, and the mental health petition loomed.
I was crossing the bustling concourse in Terminal 5, heading to meet a pro bono lawyer recommended by a former colleague. The air hummed with the noise of departing flights and hurried footsteps.
Suddenly, a woman bumped into me, her shoulder bag knocking against my arm. Papers scattered from her grasp.
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” she exclaimed, bending down to collect them.
Her face, framed by dark, tired eyes and a cascade of brown hair, was instantly familiar. My breath caught in my throat.
“Evelyn?” I asked, my voice thin.
Evelyn Marsh, my late father’s legislative aide. She had vanished six months ago, right after his death. Her disappearance had been a quiet mystery, adding to the unsettling feeling that something was deeply wrong.
Her eyes widened in recognition, then quickly narrowed with a flash of fear. She instinctively recoiled, a nervous flutter in her hands.
“Marcus,” she breathed, her voice a strained whisper. She glanced around, her head turning like a frightened bird. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same,” I replied, stooping to help her with her scattered documents. They were boarding passes, all to different cities. A hasty escape, perhaps?
She snatched the last paper from my hand, her fingers trembling slightly.
“Look, you need to be careful,” Evelyn said, leaning in, her voice barely audible above the concourse chatter. “They’re watching you.”
“Who’s watching me?” I pressed, my heart racing.
“Vanessa,” she whispered. “Everyone. Just like they watched your father.”
Her eyes, full of a deep, haunting sadness, met mine. “Marcus, your father didn’t die of a heart attack. Not exactly.”
The statement hit me like a physical blow, silencing the roar of the airport. The official report, the one Vanessa had pushed, stated “sudden cardiac arrest.”
“What are you talking about?” I managed, my voice hoarse.
“He called me that night, hours before he collapsed,” Evelyn revealed, her gaze fixed on something beyond my shoulder. “He was frantic. He’d found out about Vanessa’s shell corporations, the illegal foreign contributions.”
She bit her lip, her eyes darting nervously. “He was going to expose her. Threatening to go public with everything.”
“And then he died,” I finished, the pieces clicking into a terrifying pattern.
“He went to confront her,” Evelyn confirmed, her voice shaking. “He was fine when he called me. Full of rage, but fine. Hours later, I got the news.”
A knot tightened in my stomach. It wasn’t just corruption; it was murder.
“The hardware drive,” I blurted out, remembering the crucial evidence. “The one in Owen’s bear. It has the proof, doesn’t it?”
Evelyn’s expression was grim. “It’s a military-grade cryptowallet. It has the ledgers. But it’s useless without the second physical key.”
My blood ran cold. A second key. Another layer of security I hadn’t even considered.
“What second key?” I asked, a desperate edge to my voice.
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