Waiting. Watching. Listening. Daniel was the first to break the silence. “So they never expected to find the journal.” Eleanor slowly shook her head. “No.” “They expected us to.” I frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.” “It does if their real goal wasn’t the journal.” She enlarged the security image. The tiny device came into sharper focus. “It isn’t only a tracker.” “It’s a proximity beacon.” Daniel looked confused. “Meaning?” “It activates when another electronic signal comes close.” “The hard drive.” “The phones.” “The laptop we brought.” “The moment we carried everything away…” “…they expected the beacon to tell them where it went.” I looked toward the canvas bag sitting on the table. “So they think we’re carrying the evidence.”
“We are.” “Then they already know where we are.” Eleanor smiled for the first time since arriving. “No.” “They know where they think we are.” She reached beneath the table and produced another canvas bag. It looked identical. Same faded fabric. Same worn leather straps. She began filling it with old newspapers. A broken laptop. A few outdated folders. Daniel stared. “You’ve planned for this before.” “I’ve survived this before.” She zipped the second bag closed. “People who hunt evidence usually follow the evidence.” “What if we let them?” Within minutes, the plan was in motion. Daniel would leave first. He would carry the decoy bag. His truck would take the most obvious route back toward town. I would remain underground with Eleanor and the real documents. If someone was following the tracker… they would follow Daniel. “I don’t like this,” Daniel admitted. “Neither do I,” I said. “But they’re already hunting us.”
He nodded. “I’ll call every fifteen minutes.” “If anything feels wrong…” “…I’m turning around.” Eleanor handed him a small radio. “No cell phone.” “They can be cloned.” “This frequency changes every thirty seconds.” Daniel gave a nervous laugh. “You really don’t trust anyone.” “I trust people.” “I don’t trust greed.” Fifteen minutes later, Daniel drove away. Eleanor watched a GPS screen mounted beside the computer. A blue dot represented Daniel’s truck. Nothing happened. Five minutes passed. Ten. Then— Another dot appeared. Red. Moving. Fast. Following him. “There.” Eleanor pointed. “They took the bait.” The red dot stayed nearly half a mile behind Daniel. Never closer. Never farther. Professional. My pulse quickened. “Can we identify the vehicle?” “Not yet.” She enlarged another map. A highway camera came online. For just a moment… a dark SUV appeared. The same model Daniel had seen outside Cottage Four.
“They’re following him.”
“They’re very patient.”
We continued watching.
The SUV never attempted to pass.
Never acted suspiciously.
It simply remained behind him.
Waiting.
Eleanor looked at me.
“They believe he’s carrying Thomas’s archive.”
“What happens when they realize he isn’t?”
“They won’t.”
“Not immediately.”
“Because Daniel won’t keep it.”
She smiled.
“He’ll abandon the bag exactly where I instructed.”
I looked surprised.
“Where?”
“A storage locker.”
“They’ll steal it.”
“They’ll celebrate.”
“They’ll waste hours searching worthless files.”
“And during those hours…”
She looked toward the real hard drive.
“…we’ll finally learn what’s inside this.”
She placed the small portable drive beside one of the computers.
It was older than I expected.
Scratched.
Heavy.
No label.
Thomas had hidden it with extraordinary care.
“What if it’s encrypted?” I asked.
“It probably is.”
She connected it anyway.
The computer immediately requested a password.
Eight characters.
Nothing more.
Daniel’s voice suddenly crackled through the radio.
“I’m approaching the storage facility.”
“So far, so good.”
Eleanor answered calmly.
“Continue.”
Three minutes later—
“The bag’s inside Locker Twenty-Seven.”
“I’m leaving now.”
“Any sign of them?”
“Not yet.”
Another pause.
Then…
“They’re here.”
His voice dropped.
“The SUV just entered the parking lot.”
“They’re waiting until I leave.”
“Perfect,” Eleanor replied.
“Drive straight to the marina.”
“Switch vehicles.”
“I’ll meet you tomorrow.”
The radio fell silent.
Eleanor turned back toward the computer.
“Now…”
“The password.”
She examined Thomas’s journal.
Every page.
Every note.
Every margin.
Nothing.
Then she noticed something.
Inside the front cover, barely visible beneath years of wear…
was a child’s pencil drawing.
A tiny blue cottage.
Number Four.
Below it…
eight handwritten letters.
VALERIES
“No apostrophe,” Eleanor whispered.
She typed:
VALERIES
The computer rejected it.
“Wrong.”
I frowned.
“Try my grandfather’s name.”
“No.”
She stared again at the drawing.
Then at me.
“What did your grandfather always call these cottages?”
I smiled despite myself.
“He never called them rentals.”
“He called them…”
“…safe harbors.”
Eleanor’s eyes widened.
She quickly typed:
HARBORS
The screen flashed.
ACCESS GRANTED.
Dozens of folders appeared.
Thousands of files.
Bank records.
Recorded phone calls.
Scanned contracts.
Corporate ownership charts.
Video files.
My heart pounded.
Thomas hadn’t merely collected evidence.
He had documented an entire criminal network.
Then one folder caught my eye.
Its title was different from all the others.
Unlike the corporate names…
this one contained only two words.
PROJECT VALERIE
The folder’s creation date stopped me cold.
It had been created…
Three months before I first met Russell.
Every bit of warmth left my body.
I whispered the only words I could manage.
“…I wasn’t chosen after we met.”
Eleanor looked at the date.
Her face turned pale.
“No.”
She closed her eyes for a long moment.
“When Russell smiled at you in that charity bookstore…”
“…someone had already been planning your future.”
