Chapter 8 - Thomas WhitmoreNathaniel reached Emma before the second shot.
He knocked her behind a concrete pillar and covered her body with his.
Thomas disappeared.
Emma realized it three seconds later.
“Dad!”
“Stay down.”
“Nathaniel—”
“Marcus has him.”
Another shot struck metal.
People screamed.
Station security rushed toward the exits.
Nathaniel listened through his earpiece.
“North roof.”
Marcus’s voice answered.
“Moving.”
Emma’s wolf surged.
Every instinct demanded action.
She forced herself to breathe.
Lena’s training.
Fear.
Trap.
Half-second.
Choice.
Emma did not command anyone.
She waited.
Twenty-seven seconds later, Marcus reported the shooter gone.
No casualties.
One abandoned rifle.
Professional.
Nathaniel stood.
Emma pushed him away.
“My father.”
Marcus entered from the side corridor.
“Gone.”
Emma stared.
“What?”
“He used the evacuation.”
“You were watching him.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
Marcus looked deeply offended.
“He’s very good.”
Nathaniel swore.
Emma ran toward the exit.
Nothing.
Thomas had disappeared again.
This time, Emma did not cry.
She became furious.
They found him three hours later.
Not through security.
Through accounting.
Emma remembered the station phone.
Disposable.
Cash purchase.
But Thomas had needed transportation.
A camera showed him entering a taxi.
Cash again.
The taxi dropped him near a motel.
Emma found the motel’s parent company.
Then Marcus found Thomas.
Room 214.
Nathaniel wanted to breach.
Emma knocked.
“Dad.”
Silence.
“If you climb out another window, I swear I will use my Alpha command to make you sit in a chair for six consecutive months.”
The door opened.
Thomas looked exhausted.
“You sound like your mother.”
Emma pushed past him.
Nathaniel entered behind her.
Thomas looked at him.
“I said alone.”
Emma turned.
“You lost the right to give me instructions around 2010.”
Thomas accepted that.
Nathaniel closed the door.
For several seconds, the two men stared at each other.
Emma crossed her arms.
“If either of you starts doing Alpha dominance nonsense, I’m leaving.”
Thomas almost smiled.
“I’m not an Alpha.”
Nathaniel answered.
“Neither was your daughter until recently.”
Thomas’s smile vanished.
“You awakened.”
Emma sat.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Men attacked our home.”
Thomas looked at Nathaniel.
“You let her get attacked?”
Nathaniel’s expression became lethal.
Emma raised a finger.
“No.”
Both men stopped.
“This is not going to become some prehistoric argument where my father and husband decide which man failed to protect me.”
Thomas looked embarrassed.
Nathaniel looked annoyed.
“Good.”
Emma faced her father.
“Start talking.”
Thomas sat opposite her.
He looked older than sixty.
His hands shook slightly.
Emma noticed.
“Are you sick?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie.”
“Parkinson’s.”
Her anger faltered.
“When?”
“Diagnosed three years ago.”
“Treatment?”
“Yes.”
“Prognosis?”
“Manageable.”
Emma nodded.
Later.
She would feel that later.
“Mom.”
“Alive.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Emma closed her eyes.
Thomas immediately added, “Truly.”
“When did you last see her?”
“Nine years ago.”
“Why?”
“We disagreed.”
“About me?”
“Yes.”
Of course.
“What did she want?”
“To come back.”
Emma stared.
Thomas looked down.
“I stopped her.”
The room became very quiet.
Nathaniel moved slightly closer to Emma.
She did not need him to.
But she was glad he did.
“You stopped my mother from coming home?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Grant was not the threat.”
“I know.”
“Not completely.”
Thomas rubbed his hands.
“North Passage began in 1958. Several old territorial families created it after human development started fragmenting pack lands. Its purpose was legitimate—buy threatened land, preserve migration corridors, protect families.”
“And then?”
“Money.”
Emma almost laughed.
Always money.
“By the eighties, North Passage controlled enough shell companies that nobody knew who owned what. Council leaders used it to move territory without public votes.”
Nathaniel asked, “The archive?”
“The archive is the only complete record.”
“Where?”
Thomas looked at Emma.
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“I’ll tell you when this is over.”
Emma stood.
“No.”
“Emma.”
“You do not get to disappear for sixteen years, use me as bait in a legal challenge, arrange a forty-three-second reunion, run from a sniper, and then tell me I haven’t earned access.”
Thomas looked ashamed.
“It isn’t about earning.”
“Then what?”
“If you know where it is, you become the last link.”
“I’m already a target.”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me.”
Thomas shook his head.
Emma felt command rise.
She stopped it.
Nathaniel noticed.
So did Thomas.
His eyes softened.
“You control it.”
“I’m learning.”
“Good.”
“Answer me voluntarily.”
Thomas looked at his daughter for a long time.
Then said, “The archive is under Cedar Hollow.”
Emma blinked.
“What?”
“Your grandfather built a records vault beneath the original council house.”
“The council house burned in 1989.”
“The upper structure did.”
Emma sat again.
“You left the archive under my land for sixteen years?”
“Yes.”
“And nobody found it?”
“I changed the survey records.”
Emma stared.
“You forged records.”
“Yes.”
“You committed fraud.”
“Yes.”
Nathaniel almost smiled.
Emma looked at him.
“Do not admire him.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You have a face.”
Thomas actually laughed.
It sounded familiar.
Emma hated how much she loved it.
She looked back at him.
“Why did you pay for the marriage challenge?”
“To identify the current North Passage board.”
“How?”
“The challenge forced interested territorial families to file support statements.”
Emma understood.
“Public legal standing.”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Seven.”
“Names.”
Thomas gave them.
Nathaniel recognized four.
Emma recognized one.
Adrian Vale.
“He supported us.”
Thomas shook his head.
“He supported transparency.”
“Difference?”
“Large.”
Emma made notes.
“Who ordered the station shooting?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop.”
“I genuinely don’t.”
Thomas looked at Nathaniel.
“But I know who probably authorized it.”
“Who?”
Thomas’s expression changed.
“Gabriel Mercer.”
Nathaniel did not move.
Emma stared at Thomas.
“Nathaniel’s father is dead.”
Thomas looked directly at him.
“No.”
Silence.
Nathaniel’s face emptied.
“My father died seven years ago.”
“I attended his funeral,” Thomas said.
Nathaniel’s command filled the room.
“You attended?”
“From a distance.”
“You watched us bury him?”
“Yes.”
“Then explain.”
Thomas stood slowly.
“Gabriel Mercer is not in that grave.”
Nathaniel grabbed him.
Emma moved instantly.
“Nathaniel.”
He released Thomas.
Not because of command.
Because she asked.
Nathaniel stepped back.
His hands shook.
Emma had never seen that before.
Thomas adjusted his shirt.
“Your father discovered the same thing Rebecca and I did. North Passage had infiltrated the council.”
“Where is he?”
“I haven’t seen him in six years.”
“But alive?”
“As of six years ago.”
Nathaniel turned away.
Emma understood exactly what he was feeling.
The dead returning was not joy.
Not at first.
It was violence.
It ripped open grief that had already scarred.
Thomas continued.
“Gabriel staged his death because someone attempted to kill him twice.”
Nathaniel looked back.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“The same reason I didn’t tell Emma.”
Nathaniel crossed the room so fast Emma barely saw him move.
He stopped inches from Thomas.
“Do not compare us.”
Thomas held his gaze.
“I’m not defending it.”
“Good.”
“I’m explaining.”
“You left children to carry funerals for living parents.”
Thomas’s face broke.
“Yes.”
Nathaniel stepped back.
That answer hurt more than resistance.
Emma looked at her father.
“Was it worth it?”
Thomas stared at her.
Sixteen years seemed to fill the room.
“No.”
Emma’s throat tightened.
“No?”
“I thought keeping you alive was enough.”
Thomas’s eyes filled.
“I was wrong.”
Emma looked away.
He continued.
“A child needs more than survival.”
Tears burned her eyes.
“I needed you.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Thomas nodded.
“You’re right.”
That made her angrier.
“Stop agreeing with me.”
“I don’t know how else to tell the truth.”
Emma stood.
“I spent years thinking something was wrong with me.”
Thomas closed his eyes.
“I know.”
“I thought nobody chose me.”
“I know.”
“Daniel hid me because I wasn’t important enough. Blackridge treated me like furniture. Every time someone overlooked me, I thought that was proof.”
Thomas cried silently.
Emma did not stop.
“You were alive.”
“Yes.”
“Mom was alive.”
“Yes.”
“And I was learning how to be alone because two people who loved me decided fear was a substitute for parenting.”
Nathaniel looked at the floor.
Thomas wiped his face.
“I have no defense.”
Emma’s anger finally collapsed.
She sat.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Then Thomas reached into his pocket.
He removed a folded photograph.
Emma at graduation.
Blue robe.
White dress visible underneath.
She stared.
“Ruth took this.”
“Yes.”
“You had it?”
“Rebecca sent copies.”
Emma touched the image.
“Did you watch me too?”
“Sometimes.”
“How many times?”
“Seven.”
“Seven?”
“Graduation. Your twenty-first birthday. Your first day at Blackridge payroll. Two Christmases. Once when you had pneumonia.”
Emma looked up sharply.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“You were there?”
“In the hospital parking lot.”
Emma stood so abruptly the chair fell.
“You were in the parking lot?”
“Yes.”
“I was alone.”
“I know.”
“You could have walked inside.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Thomas cried.
“Because I was a coward.”
No strategy.
No North Passage.
No protection.
Just coward.
Emma stared at him.
That answer, somehow, was the first one she believed completely.
She picked up the chair.
Sat again.
“Thank you.”
Thomas looked confused.
“For what?”
“For finally not calling abandonment protection.”
Thomas bowed his head.
Nathaniel looked at Emma.
Something passed between them.
Later.
They would talk later.
For now, there were facts.
“Gabriel,” Emma said.
Thomas composed himself.
“He contacted me six years ago.”
“From where?”
“Alaska.”
“Doing what?”
“Tracking North Passage money.”
Nathaniel’s expression became almost offended.
“My father was doing forensic accounting?”
Thomas smiled faintly.
“Badly.”
Emma looked at Nathaniel.
“I like my father.”
“You slapped him three hours ago.”
“Complex relationships.”
Thomas continued.
“Gabriel believed someone inside North Passage killed Evelyn.”
“We know.”
“He believed the poison was meant for him.”
Nathaniel frowned.
“Why?”
“Because the sedative bottle was his.”
Silence.
“Evelyn took medication intended for Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
Nathaniel sat.
That changed everything.
His father had not accidentally poisoned Evelyn.
Someone had attempted to poison Gabriel.
Evelyn died instead.
Emma saw the realization hit him.
Thomas continued.
“Gabriel spent years trying to identify who switched the bottle.”
“Did he?”
“I think so.”
“Name.”
“He never gave me one.”
Nathaniel laughed bitterly.
“Apparently nobody in our parents’ generation knew how to finish a sentence.”
Emma almost smiled.
Then Thomas’s phone vibrated.
He looked at it.
His face changed.
“What?”
Thomas turned the screen.
A message.
One line.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD.
Attached was a photograph.
Cedar Hollow cabin.
Taken ten minutes earlier.
Emma stood.
Nathaniel was already calling Marcus.
Thomas looked at the image.
Then at Emma.
“They’re not after the archive anymore.”
Emma’s blood went cold.
“Why?”
“Because they know you’re going to find it.”
“Then what do they want?”
Thomas looked at Nathaniel.
May you like
Then back at his daughter.
“To make sure there is nobody left alive who can authenticate it.”
