The door exploded inward, and the hidden room filled with smoke and splintered wood. Amanda instinctively ducked as Tyler pulled her against him with his good arm. Reyes fired two shots toward the doorway, forcing the figures outside to retreat. Claire dragged Lily toward the narrow passage Michael had discovered while Evan pushed a metal shelf against the broken entrance.
“Move!” Evan shouted.
Amanda stumbled after Tyler, still hearing Anna's final words in her head.
The person who taught your husband to become a firefighter.
Tyler's father.
Daniel Morgan.
But Daniel had been dead.
Or at least, that was what everyone had believed.
Michael squeezed through the narrow opening first. Claire followed with Lily. Evan disappeared after them, then Anna. Reyes covered the rear while Tyler guided Amanda through the crack in the concrete wall.
The passage was barely wide enough for one person. Amanda scraped her shoulder against rough stone as they moved deeper beneath the house. Behind them came the sound of men forcing their way into the hidden room.
“They're coming,” Reyes warned.
Michael stopped.
“There are two ways.”
“Which one gets us out?” Tyler asked.
Michael pointed left.
“Neither.”
Amanda stared at him.
“The left goes outside. The right goes to the old basement.”
Tyler looked toward Amanda.
“We take the basement.”
Michael nodded.
They turned right.
The passage descended sharply. Amanda felt a familiar pressure in her head, the same strange sensation that had accompanied every recovered memory. She saw flashes as they moved: Daniel carrying boxes, Frank arguing with someone, her mother crying beside a kitchen table, Anna standing at the bottom of these stairs.
Then another memory surfaced.
Daniel's voice.
“Tyler will never know.”
Amanda stopped.
Tyler turned. “What?”
“I remember something.”
“What?”
“Your father talking about you.”
Tyler's face tightened.
“What did he say?”
“He said you would never know.”
“Know what?”
Amanda looked ahead.
“I don't know yet.”
They reached the basement.
The room was larger than the hidden chamber above. Old pipes crossed the ceiling. Dust covered everything except a narrow path leading toward a steel door.
Michael ran toward it.
“That's the exit.”
Evan caught him.
“Wait.”
A red light blinked beside the handle.
Evan crouched.
“Alarm.”
Reyes looked behind them.
“We don't have time.”
Anna stepped forward.
“I can open it.”
Evan shook his head.
“They'll know.”
“They already know.”
Anna touched the black-stone ring against the sensor.
The red light turned green.
The door opened.
Cold night air rushed inside.
They emerged behind the blue house.
For a moment, everyone simply stood there.
The old house looked peaceful from the outside.
Almost innocent.
Then Amanda noticed the driveway.
A black sedan waited beneath the trees.
Its driver's door was open.
Someone had been expecting them.
Tyler raised his weapon.
A voice came from the darkness.
“Tyler.”
Everyone froze.
The voice belonged to Daniel.
Tyler's face changed.
His father had been dead for eight years.
Yet the voice was unmistakable.
Amanda gripped his arm.
“Don't go.”
The figure stepped into the moonlight.
It wasn't Daniel.
It was Samuel Voss.
He removed the disguise slowly.
“You're getting closer,” Samuel said.
Tyler stared at him.
“You used my father's voice.”
Samuel smiled.
“Your father taught me how.”
Amanda felt Tyler tense beside her.
“What did he teach you?” she asked.
Samuel looked at her.
“How to make people believe what they desperately want to believe.”
Anna stepped forward.
“Enough.”
Samuel's expression hardened.
“You should have stayed hidden.”
“I did.”
“For six years.”
“And you still didn't find me.”
Samuel's eyes flicked toward Amanda.
“No. But she led me straight to you.”
Amanda's stomach tightened.
“You wanted me to find Anna.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because she knows where the original records are.”
Reyes stepped forward.
“What records?”
Samuel laughed.
“You still think this is about fire investigations.”
He pointed toward Tyler.
“Ask him.”
Tyler frowned.
“Ask me what?”
“Why your father chose you.”
Silence.
Amanda looked at Tyler.
Samuel continued.
“Why did Daniel insist his son become a firefighter?”
Tyler's face hardened.
“Because he was one.”
“No.”
Samuel shook his head.
“He needed you inside the department.”
Amanda remembered Daniel's note.
You will want to protect everyone. Don't. Protect Amanda.
Samuel smiled.
“Your father didn't train you to fight fires.”
He looked at Tyler.
“He trained you to recognize them.”
PART 37 END
Click here to continue reading: PART 38: THE LAST FIRE:
I Arrived With Balloons and Cake, Expecting My Husband to Laugh—Instead His Entire Crew Went Silent When They Saw Me
Part 37 of 40
