But he picked it up.
His face changed within seconds.
The voice on the other end was male, calm, and old.
Frank barely managed to speak.
“How did you know she was here?”
Then he listened.
And hung up.
“What did they say?” Hannah asked.
Frank looked at Owen.
“They said Caleb should have stayed buried.”
Diane screamed.
Hannah grabbed Owen’s backpack.
“We’re leaving.”
“Where?” Frank asked.
“To someone who doesn’t owe Hayes any favors.”
They left in the light rain.
Hannah drove to Syracuse, where her college friend Rebecca Lane, an independent journalist, lived.
Rebecca already knew part of the story.
In fact, she had been the one to warn Hannah not to hand the USB drive to just any police officer.
“In this country, honey, there are good cops, and then there are cops who belong to somebody,” she had told her.
When they arrived, Rebecca opened the door with her laptop already running.
“I copied your files,” she said. “But there’s one folder I couldn’t open.”
Frank looked at the screen.
The folder was labeled: LIGHTOFPORT.
His face turned pale.
“That name…”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Does it mean something to you?”
Frank moved closer as though a memory were pulling him forward.
“It was an old warehouse near the bus terminal. We used to store things there when we worked double shifts.”
Hannah felt the truth moving toward them like a storm.
That same night, three of them went there: Rebecca, Hannah, and Frank.
Diane stayed with Owen, even though he begged to come.
“This is my story too,” the boy said.
Hannah touched his hair.
“That’s exactly why I’m coming back alive to tell it to you.”
The old terminal was almost abandoned.
A security guard who recognized Frank let them in after hearing two sentences and seeing Caleb’s photograph.
“I never thought this would come out,” the man muttered.
Inside a warehouse with rusted doors, they found locker 214.
Frank cut through the lock with pliers.
Inside was a cardboard box.
Old newspapers.
A yellow hard hat.
A handkerchief stained with dark marks.
And beneath a false bottom, another USB drive.
Black.
Unmarked.
Rebecca picked it up with gloves.
But before they could leave, a voice stopped them.
“What a touching family reunion.”
Victor Hayes stood at the end of the corridor.
He was older now, polished and elegant, wearing a black coat and the smile of a politician.
Two men stood beside him.
“Frank,” Hayes said. “You were always sentimental. That’s why you were never good at keeping secrets.”
Frank stepped in front of Hannah.
“What did you do to me?”
Hayes laughed softly.
“Enough to make you doubt yourself for ten years.”
Hannah felt fury rise in her chest.
