Chapter 10 - The Second Tape
Officer Kim drew her weapon.
“Samuel Price. Show me your hands.”
No answer.
A door slammed at the far end of the hall.
Kim ran after him.
Daniel found a flashlight and swept it across the records room.
One drawer stood open that had been closed before the lights failed.
Emma pointed. “He took something.”
Rachel checked the floor.
A cassette case lay beneath the cabinet.
Empty.
Samuel had taken Tape 2.
Police found his car abandoned two miles away.
Inside was a burner phone and a folder containing photographs of Daniel, Rachel, and Emma going back three years.
That night, Daniel finally listened to every tape they had recovered.
Laura’s story grew worse.
She had discovered Mercer-Hale Development was using shell companies to buy contaminated land cheaply, paying inspectors to approve cleanup reports, then selling the property to public agencies at huge markups.
Robert Mercer knew.
Martin knew.
Samuel designed the companies.
Laura threatened to expose all of them.
Then came the fire at the downtown office.
Daniel remembered flashes now.
His mother dragging him toward a stairwell.
A man blocking the exit.
A silver watch.
A voice saying, “The boy saw too much.”
Daniel stood so fast the chair fell.
Rachel stared at him.
“What?”
“Samuel wore that watch for twenty years.”
Emma searched the scanned photographs from the hidden room.
“Dad.”
She enlarged one image.
Samuel stood beside Robert outside the burned office days after the fire.
On his wrist was the same square silver watch Daniel remembered.
But another detail mattered more.
Behind them, Martin was carrying a child toward a car.
The child’s face was turned away.
Daniel zoomed in on the sleeve.
A red patch shaped like a rocket.
His childhood jacket had the same patch.
On the back of the photograph, his father had written:
DANIEL REMEMBERED SAMUEL. WE MADE SURE HE STOPPED.
Emma looked at him.
May you like
“What does ‘made sure’ mean?”
Daniel already knew he was afraid of the answer.
