Chapter 20 - A Name Buried for Years
No one spoke for several seconds.
Detective Harris replayed the footage.
The dark sedan exited the depot parking lot slowly before stopping across the street.
Although the license plate had been replaced, the damage near the rear bumper was unmistakable.
Ethan closed his eyes.
"My father crashed it when I was twelve."
"The insurance company refused to repair that corner."
"You never forgot it."
"I couldn't."
Detective Collins immediately contacted vehicle registration.
Minutes later, dispatch returned with unexpected information.
"The VIN belongs to a vehicle reported destroyed six years ago."
"Destroyed?"
"In the same warehouse fire connected to Victor Hale."
The room fell silent.
Again.
Two supposedly destroyed vehicles.
One supposedly dead orthopedic technician.
Multiple sabotaged medical devices.
Someone had erased an entire history.
Or tried to.
Detective Harris looked toward Ethan.
"When was the last time you saw your father?"
"Seven years."
"Did he ever contact you afterward?"
"No."
"Not once."
"And your mother disappeared before that."
Ethan nodded.
"I always believed those two events were connected."
Before Harris could ask another question, a young forensic officer hurried into the room carrying a sealed evidence envelope.
"We found this inside the abandoned sedan."
"What is it?"
"A photograph."
The detective carefully opened the protective sleeve.
Inside was an old family picture.
A smiling woman stood beside two small children.
One of them was unmistakably Ethan.
The little girl beside him could only be Maya.
But what caught everyone's attention wasn't the family.
It was the man standing several feet behind them.
Watching.
Half-hidden beneath the branches of a tree.
Detective Collins enlarged the image.
The face became clearer.
The nurse gasped.
"It's him."
"The man from the hospital video."
Detective Harris slowly shook his head.
"No."
He pointed toward the date printed on the back of the photograph.
"This picture was taken..."
"...nine years ago."
Every person in the room stared at the image in stunned silence.
If the same man had been watching Ethan's family for nearly a decade...
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Then the attack on the bus had never been an isolated incident.
It had been the latest move in a plan that had begun many years earlier—and no one yet knew why.
