Chapter 25 - The Ghost in Zurich
The rain pounded relentlessly against the cracked windshield as the station wagon climbed the winding mountain pass toward the interior of Maine. The burner phone crackled with static, the connection fraying as we climbed higher into the granite hills.
"Where do I go, Ethan?" I asked, my voice trembling. "If Julian has federal warrants and private syndicates behind him, where can we possibly hide?"
"Head for the old quarry near Saint-Martin," Ethan instructed. "There is an airfield used by private timber charters. I have an associate who can fly you and Leo into Quebec before the border alerts go live. I’m driving north now to meet you with the flight manifests."
"And if Julian’s people find the airfield first?"
"They won't. Nobody knows about the quarry route except—"
The call cut off abruptly with a shrill electronic beep.
I looked down at the phone. The screen flickered from green to black, and then a strange text message flashed across the interface, overriding the operating system.
It was an audio file originating from an encrypted server in Zurich.
My thumb hovered over the screen. Against my better judgment, driven by an agonizing need to know the truth, I tapped the file.
The crackle of an old magnetic tape hummed from the phone's tiny speaker. Then, a voice I had not heard since I was twelve years old filled the dark cabin of the car.
"Eleanor, this is Arthur," my father's voice spoke, tired, raspy, and burdened with an unbearable sorrow. "The third clinical trial has failed. The neurological damage in the infant primates is irreversible. If we proceed with the human cohort, we are creating monsters. I am taking the formula and burying it. If you ever come near Clara... if you ever try to breed this trait back into my family line... I will destroy the patents and leave the entire trust to rot."
A cold sweat broke out across my forehead.
May you like
*Breed this trait back into my family line.*
Julian hadn't chosen me. I hadn't met him by chance at that art gallery in Boston. My entire life—my romance, my marriage, my pregnancy—had been an orchestrated harvest.
