Page 19 of Whispers in the Dark
Now the vultures were here. Monroe and Maddox. Smarter. Meaner. Unburdened by guilt. They didn’t want control anymore. They wanted replacement of the person with their directive. Erasure of the original.
But they had underestimated Gideon’s last weapon—his son, Elias.
But Elias couldn’t fight alone. And with his father’s impending death, the only one who could steady him, guide him, free all the subjects and give homage to the dead, was the woman Gideon had truly loved—not Elias’s mother but Charlotte Everhart.
At the end of the briefing, Rook asked a question, his jaw tightened by a hair. He kept his voice flat. "And Mara?"
Bray laughed. “I told you the kid gets horny.”
Monroe ignored Bray. “She escaped. Slipped through an airlock carelessly left open after a computer glitch.”
No one had figured out Elias rigged her escape. He was going to save her. She was secretly hidden in the safe house built out-of-range of the black site’s sensors. He needed to confirm some things before he got her to advanced care.
"If she's alive, we'll recover her," Monroe said. "An anomaly. But without food or shelter, she won't last. If, on some odd chance, she stabilizes—we extract what we need. Then shut her down."
Rook gave a small nod. "Understood." He turned and walked out, every step rehearsed. Every move controlled. But inside? He wasn't following orders. He was preparing to bring the whole rotten machine crashing down. From within.
Seven
The evening airhung thick as Charlotte pulled into Molly’s driveway. Alex sat quietly beside her, the headlights casting long shadows across the lawn.
Lights glowed from inside the house, silhouettes shifting behind the curtains. They were all here. Isobel had called them.
Brad had told her about Victor Graves/Gideon Ward. And Isobel, being Isobel, had put the family meeting together faster than Charlotte was ready for.
Charlotte cut the engine, gripping the steering wheel for a moment before stepping out.
Alex didn’t say anything, but she knew he was watching her. He had been watching her all day.
She walked inside, feeling the shift the moment she crossed the threshold. Molly’s house always felt warm, filled with the quiet hum of family, the scent of dinner lingering in the air, sweet baby Wyatt babbling in the background.
But tonight, something was different.
Ethan Hayes, Molly’s husband and Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Resident Agency in Pierre, leaned against the back of the couch, his expression unreadable. Jackson Reynolds, Olivia’s fiancé, sat beside her, steady and silent, but hisfirefighter instincts were on alert. Noah Kaldor, Alex’s partner and Ruth’s fiancé, stood near the kitchen, arms crossed. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Ruth since Charlotte walked in.
Sophie was perched on the arm of the couch, her fiancé, Tristan Blackwell, beside her, his hand resting lightly on her knee. Isobel sat stiffly at the center of it all. Brad, a commander with South Dakota’s Highway Patrol Division, sat next to her.
Charlotte had spent her life keeping them out of her work in the police department. Now, it was too late.
Isobel’s sharp eyes locked onto hers. "We need to talk."
Charlotte nodded, stepping farther into the room. Alex followed her. She exhaled. "Where do you want me to start?"
Isobel leaned forward, hands clasped. "How about the beginning?"
Charlotte hesitated. She hadn’t spoken these words in thirty years. She forced her spine to straighten. "Gideon Ward, alias Victor Graves…" There it was. The name that had been clawing its way back into her life.
The room reacted as one. They all knew the basics of the story, like they knew about the Son of Sam or Ted Bundy.
Sophie frowned. Molly reached for Wyatt’s tiny hand. Ruth exhaled slowly, absorbing the name the way a lawyer absorbs evidence.
Olivia spoke first. "The home invasions. The bodies. The women who never spoke again."
Charlotte nodded.
Tristan, always clinical, nodded. "Dissociative catatonia."
"Yes," Charlotte said.
