Chapter 19 - THE HOUSE WITH THE RED DOORNew York was alive beneath a cold morning sky.
Yellow taxis moved through Manhattan.
Steam rose from street grates.
People hurried toward offices.
Nobody noticed the black SUV moving through the traffic.
Inside, the boss watched the city.
Ethan sat beside him.
Maya sat in the back with the girl.
“What house?” Maya asked.
The girl hugged her bunny.
“Mommy said we'd know it.”
“How?”
“Because there won't be a number.”
They drove for another twenty minutes.
Then the girl pointed.
“There.”
The SUV stopped.
An old brownstone stood between two modern buildings.
No number.
Red door.
The boss stared.
Nobody had mentioned it.
Ethan opened the door.
The interior was completely empty.
No furniture.
No photographs.
No dust.
Too clean.
The girl walked directly toward the basement.
The boss followed.
At the bottom was another red door.
The girl placed her hand against it.
It opened.
Inside was a room filled with photographs.
Not of politicians.
Not of businessmen.
Of children.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
All photographed at different ages.
Maya looked horrified.
“What is this?”
Ethan walked toward a wall.
His face changed.
The boss followed his gaze.
A photograph showed Ethan as a child.
Beside him was the boss.
Both boys were smiling.
The boss stared.
“We knew each other.”
Ethan nodded.
“They separated us.”
“Why?”
“Because we were both selected.”
The girl walked farther into the room.
She stopped at a photograph.
Her mother.
Standing beside a young woman.
The boss stared.
He recognized the second woman.
His mother.
But the photograph was dated twenty-five years earlier.
Before he was born.
Maya whispered:
“They knew each other.”
The girl nodded.
“Mommy said they were sisters.”
The boss froze.
“Sisters?”
The woman in the photograph was not his mother.
It was his aunt.
A woman everyone believed had died before he was born.
The door slammed shut.
A voice came through the speaker.
“You finally found the beginning.”
The boss turned.
“Who are you?”
The voice answered:
“The woman your mother trusted.”
A screen illuminated.
A woman appeared.
Older.
Calm.
The boss stared.
Then the girl screamed softly.
“Grandma.”
The screen showed the older woman smiling.
But she wasn't the grandmother they had met.
It was another woman.
The woman who had been erased from every family record.
She looked directly into the camera.
“You have one hour.”
The boss stepped closer.
“One hour for what?”
“To decide which family you want to save.”
The screen went black.
Maya stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
The boss didn't answer.
Because beneath the screen, two names appeared.
His.
And the girl's.
May you like
One would survive.
One would disappear.
