"Where are you?"
"Olivia, listen to me. Your father didn't hide the fourth name in the ledger. He hid it in the one place Arthur Bennett would never think to search."
"Where?"
"In your birth records."
Olivia went completely still.
"What?"
"Your original birth certificate was altered. The hospital record was replaced. Your father kept the original because it contained—"
A loud crash interrupted her.
Then a man's voice spoke in the background.
"Step away from the phone."
Catherine whispered one final sentence.
"The Custodian is not a title anymore. It's a person. And that person has been using your identity."
The call ended.
Olivia stared at her phone.
Walker stepped closer.
"What did she say?"
Olivia repeated every word.
Rebecca frowned.
"Using your identity how?"
"I don't know."
Walker looked at the screen.
"Your birth records?"
"She said my original birth certificate contained something that identified the Custodian."
Rebecca immediately opened her secure tablet.
"We need the hospital archive."
"That hospital closed twenty years ago," Olivia said.
"Then the records were transferred somewhere."
Olivia thought of her mother.
Elizabeth had kept secrets for decades. She had copied Nightfall records, monitored accounts, and concealed information to protect her daughter. Perhaps she knew more about Olivia's birth than she had admitted.
Olivia called the hospital where her parents were staying.
The nurse answered almost immediately.
"Ms. Bennett?"
"Put my mother on the phone."
"She's not in her room."
Olivia's stomach tightened.
"What do you mean?"
"She was taken for additional testing about ten minutes ago."
"Who authorized it?"
"The doctor on duty."
"What's the doctor's name?"
There was a pause.
"Dr. Martin Keller."
Olivia looked at the physician lying on her apartment floor.
"That is impossible. Dr. Keller is here with us."
The nurse began breathing faster.
"Then who took your mother?"
"Listen carefully. Lock the ward. Find my father. Do not allow anyone to move him."
"Ms. Bennett, your father is gone."
The words seemed to drain all the air from the apartment.
"What?"
"His bed is empty. The security team said he was transferred."
"Transferred where?"
"No one knows."
Olivia looked at Walker.
"My father is missing."
Walker immediately grabbed his radio.
"All units, emergency alert. Thomas Bennett has been removed from the hospital. Possible abduction. Secure every exit and obtain the transport records."
Rebecca was already moving.
Olivia's phone vibrated.
A new photograph appeared.
It showed Thomas sitting in the back of a vehicle, his hands tied, his face bruised.
Beside him sat Elizabeth.
Both were alive.
A message followed.
NOW YOU UNDERSTAND. THE LEDGER FOR YOUR PARENTS.
Then another message appeared.
DO NOT BRING WALKER. DO NOT BRING REBECCA. COME TO THE OLD FEDERAL ARCHIVE ALONE.
Olivia stared at the photograph.
Walker read the message over her shoulder.
"No," he said firmly. "You're not going alone."
"They have my parents."
"That's exactly why you cannot do what they want."
Olivia looked at the photograph again.
Her father was staring directly into the camera. His expression was exhausted, but his eyes were focused.
Then she noticed something.
His right hand was partly hidden beneath his coat.
Two fingers were extended.
Olivia remembered the gesture Sarah had used outside her apartment.
Two fingers against the wrist.
A warning.
Her father was sending the same signal.
He was telling her not to trust the message.
Olivia enlarged the photograph.
Behind Thomas's shoulder, almost invisible in the dark interior of the vehicle, was a small reflection in the window.
A street sign.
She zoomed in again.
The letters were blurred, but she could make out two words:
MERCER ROAD.
Olivia turned to Walker.
"They want me at the federal archive. But my father is somewhere else."
Walker examined the image.
"Mercer Road has several abandoned warehouses."
"Then we start there."
Rebecca checked her weapon.
"We'll need to move quickly."
Olivia looked at the photograph one more time.
For twenty years, her father had carried the burden of Nightfall. Now someone was using him to force her into another impossible choice.
But this time, she would not follow the path laid out for her.
She would find the person behind the Custodian, uncover the original birth record, and bring her parents home.
And if Harrington believed he could control her by threatening the people she loved, he had made one final mistake.
He had given her a reason to stop being careful.
As Walker opened the apartment door, Olivia's phone vibrated again.
This message contained no photograph.
Only six words.
YOUR MOTHER KNOWS WHO YOU REALLY ARE.
Olivia stopped walking.
Then a second message appeared.
ASK HER WHY SHE CHOSE YOUR NAME.