CHAPTER 4 THE LITTLE GIRL REMEMBERED WHAT EVERY ADULT FORGOT.
Senator Whitmore led us into an abandoned subway maintenance station beneath Manhattan.
Hidden behind rusted steel doors were twenty-three survivors.
All officially listed as dead.
Doctors.
Lawyers.
Executives.
Even two former federal agents.
Every one of them had escaped Camila.
But none could stop her.
Because she owned nearly every piece of evidence against herself.
Except one.
The doll.
Whitmore explained why.
"Alexander couldn't hide the microchip."
"So he hid the encryption key somewhere nobody would search."
I frowned.
"The doll?"
Whitmore shook his head.
"No."
He looked at Sophie.
"Your daughter."
I stared at him.
"What?"
Alexander had visited Sophie once.
Three years ago.
At a park.
Only fifteen minutes.
During that visit he taught her a silly game.
"Always remember the secret song."
Sophie suddenly began humming.
A nursery rhyme.
One I'd never heard before.
As she sang, the microchip decrypted another hidden folder.
Everyone gasped.
Blueprints.
Private prisons.
Secret laboratories.
Lists of kidnapped people.
And one document labeled...
NEXT TARGET
My name.
Elena Carter.
Scheduled disappearance:
Forty-eight hours.
Reason:
"Potential witness."
I stopped breathing.
Camila hadn't started hunting me tonight.
She had been planning my disappearance for months.
Then alarms echoed through the tunnels.
Someone had betrayed us.
One of the survivors slowly stood.
Smiling.
He pulled a phone from his pocket.
May you like
"I'm sorry," he said.
"But she pays better."
