Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
DAY EIGHT AFTER ALEX’s DISAPPEARANCE
The dining room was heavy with tension—warm light above, but the air between them was cold.
The long oak table stretched out beneath half-empty cups, files, burner phones, and too many half-said things.
It was the kind of silence that hummed with pressure, everyone waiting for someone to light the fuse.
Charlotte sat midway down the table, hands folded, posture taut. On her right, Graham Cullen sat still, unreadable. On her left, Ruth lifted the pitcher, pouring a fresh cup of coffee for Ethan, who sat at the head, jaw clenched, fingers drumming on the table like a warning.
Izzy hovered for a moment, quietly setting down a tray of water glasses. No one thanked her, but not out of rudeness—everyone was locked in. She took a seat next to her fiancé, Brad.
Ethan started without ceremony. “Noah,” his voice sliced through the room. “Any luck on finding the contact Alex was meeting?”
Noah didn’t hesitate. “Based on the tower pings before he went dark, I’m betting it was someone Alex cultivated before, when Sophie needed assistance.
It’s connected to black site operations.
Off-book personnel. Maybe medical, maybe intel.
Alex was spooked but focused. Said he needed a lead on Elias that couldn’t be traced back to us. ”
Ethan turned. “What happened at the prison?”
Brad leaned forward, elbows on the table, his voice tight. “Good cop-bad cop. The doctor—Fields—finally cracked. Told us Ward trained his son to be smarter, controlled. She didn’t say it outright, but she’s Elias’s mother. She also knew Charlotte visited Ward through the years.”
All eyes slid to Charlotte, who sat rigidly in her chair, her hands clenched in her lap, the low hum of strategy and planning around her fading to static. The war table had gone quiet the moment Ethan called for full transparency.
Graham exhaled slowly. “Honey, we will bring him home.” He looked at the rest of the group. “During our original investigation, Ward was always ten steps ahead. Always testing the room. Always watching who had access to him.”
He sipped from his coffee mug. “But listening to the interrogation tapes, this part’s real: he believed Elias was holding on to the lessons he taught him.
And someone—likely the people running this project—was keeping tabs on him.
He trained Elias to move in and out of this facility.
To be useful to Ward while appearing useful to them. ”
“I want you to go through your pretrial notes and the audio and video again. Maybe there is something else hidden there,” Ethan said.
Brad frowned. “Ward was a psychiatrist. I believe he wasn’t a serial killer but a scientist running experiments. Especially after what Dr. Fields said. Look at Henry Byron and Mara Dwyer, plus the survivors from earlier. I don’t think they are the only ones out there.”
He looked at Charlotte. “You visited Ward multiple times.”
She met Brad’s powerful gaze. He wasn’t mad. He was determined and demanding.
“Charlotte, Alex was hurt and angry because you clearly needed Ward for something. Alex believed you were unable to let yourself trust him. You were unable to truly return his love.”
Brad dropped the bomb, and her heart broke open. He was right. She felt her betrayal of Alex from her head to her toes. Every set of eyes was on her—Noah, Brad, Ethan, Tristan, Olivia, Jackson, Sophie, Ruth, Molly, Izzy and Graham.
She swallowed hard and looked down. Then up. “Alex wanted to know why I visited Ward,” she said, voice quiet but steady. “I told him… I told him the truth.” Her breaths came faster.
The room stilled.
Charlotte looked at no one. If she did, she wouldn’t be able to say it.
“It started during my interrogation. I was carrying Izzy but wasn’t showing.
I hadn’t even said the words out loud yet.
Not to myself and not to Chuck. But Ward…
he somehow knew. He said I was trying to shield my unborn child from evil. Evil to the degree I was unaware of.”
Silence.
“After he was convicted, after the sentencing, he sent me a letter.” Her voice wavered. “He told me he understood me better than even my husband did. He heard some on patrol call me cold. I believed I was. Gideon said I wasn’t cold—I was controlled. I carried my pain like armor.”
Her jaw clenched. “I went to see him to tell him off. To rip into him. To advise him he didn’t know anything about me.”
Even Graham, sitting beside her, looked over with surprise.
Charlotte kept going. “He claimed I used my coldness to control my life. When things got tough, I shut people out.” She gulped. “And damn it… he wasn’t wrong. I left furious. I planned never to go back…” She longed for Alex’s steady arms around her.
She blinked, once, slowly. “Then Chuck died. And I went back. Not to talk but to prove something. That I hadn’t shut down. That I was fine.”
Her eyes glistened now. “And he looked at me—through that glass—and said the fact I had to tell him meant I had shut down. That I was barely surviving.” She gulped. “He was right.”
Her voice cracked. “He said we shared something. Loss. Grief. Something that eats you from the inside if you don’t let it out. He didn’t tell me who that loss was for him, but I assume it was Elias.”
She took a shaky breath. “I cried. Right there, in front of him. I hadn’t cried once after Chuck died. Not during the funeral. Not until that moment.”
Her voice softened, breaking. “I didn’t cry again until Graham and I came back from the prison.
After Ward died. It was a controlled cry.
” She dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “Alex was waiting for me, inside my ransacked home. And there he was, solid, empathetic, oh so loving. He knew what I needed. I sobbed in his arms.”
She looked down, then to Graham briefly. He didn’t say a word. Just listened.
“I realized I never grieved Chuck. Not really. It was easier to push people away. I did it to Graham. I did it to my career. I did it to Alex.”
Now she couldn’t stop. The words poured like a wound cracking open.
“Every time he told me ‘I love you,’ I said ‘I know.’ Alex told me that love without understanding and emotion isn’t really love. That until I share what I’m actually carrying… I’m not letting him in. Not sharing me.”
Her shoulders trembled. She inhaled sharply, tried to hold it together, but it slipped: a sob, small and raw.
“I hurt him terribly,” she whispered. “He was right. He said he wasn’t leaving the case… but he couldn’t stay with me until I was ready. He needed to protect himself.”
She finally looked up. At all of them. “After we talked at the college, when I dropped him off at the house to pick up his SUV…” Charlotte’s voice caught, and she blinked hard, trying to stay steady. “I told him I loved him. Really said it this time. And he said it back.”
She paused, breath shaking. “It wasn’t perfect. But it was real. There was this… moment between us, quiet but solid. Like we were finally starting to meet in the middle.”
Her voice thinned, trembling. “There was so much more I planned on saying when he came back. I was going to tell him I’d go to therapy. That I wanted to stop holding back. That I wasn’t scared of the work anymore—I was scared of losing him. And I have.”
She looked up, tears blurring her vision. “I thought I’d have more time. Just a few hours. I was going to meet him at Sophie’s and say everything I should’ve said so long ago.”
A sob slipped loose, sharp and quiet. “I waited too long.”
Tears ran freely now, and her voice shook. “Now I’ve lost him. Before I could tell him—I can’t imagine breathing without him. That, even if it hurts, even if it terrifies me, I would take the risk. I wanted to build something real.”
Ruth slipped from her seat and wrapped her arms around her mother. Silence settled over the table. No one else moved. No one interrupted.
Charlotte wiped her face, breathing hard. “I need him back,” she said, barely a whisper now. “Because I never told him the truth. Even if he wants to end our relationship, I want him back.”
For once—Charlotte Everhart didn’t hide. She broke. Openly. Honestly.
Ethan swallowed hard. “Charlotte, I can’t predict where your relationship will head, but everyone in this room wants Alex home.”
Noah blew out a breath. “I’m sorry, Charlotte. He does love you. But that love won’t find him.” He slammed his hand down, voice sharp. “We need to focus on the investigation. What are we doing about Stokes? He has to know something.”
Ethan’s eyes cut to him, razor-sharp. “Sad to say, Stokes is an FBI agent dispatched to my command from the Sioux Falls resident agency. Both our agencies fall under the larger Minneapolis field office, which serves South Dakota, Minnesota, and North Dakota. I’ve got a tap on his phone and a tail on his car.
Thanks to Noah’s hard work, we caught him talking to someone on a secure line—unlisted frequency, military-grade.
He’s involved. But we still have nothing. ”
Ethan opened his phone and played a conversation. “This was recorded before Alex went missing.”
Nathan Stokes: Yeah, no, it wasn’t just a casual drop-in. Killian and Marcel went out there with a purpose. Straight to the prison.
Unknown Male Voice: Who’d they meet with?
STOKES: Dr. Fields and Warden Shepler. Killian could get a nun to give up her vows. Marcel plays it cool and relaxed. Between the two of them, I’m sure they got what they wanted. And Hayes. He doesn’t play things fast and loose.
UMV: This about Ward?
STOKES: Yeah. Who do you think they went to talk about? They’re digging deep.
UMV: What’s the connection?
STOKES: What do you think? These questions are stupid. What, are you recording the conversation? You damn well know, if the task force—or actually Killian and Marcel—are knocking on those doors, it means Ward’s not just a ghost in the system anymore. They want answers.
UMV: You think they know?
STOKES: If they don’t yet, they’re close. Too close.
Graham ran a hand through his hair. “From that recording, it’s clear Stokes has no idea what he’s protecting or anything to do with the program’s goals.”
Noah snapped his pencil. “I hacked into his financials.”
Ethan rolled his eyes.
“If where they have Alex is a black site, they’d get word of any warrant we issue. Since the task force convened, he’s been receiving five grand every other day from an unlisted direct depositor. He’s definitely compromised, but by whom is unknown.”
“Where do we go from here?” Brad asked.
Ethan’s voice dropped into a growl. “I’m going to that damn prison myself. You’re coming with me. That warden and that doctor are still hiding something. And if we have to turn over every concrete block in that place, we’ll do it.”
A moment passed. Everyone was processing their own version of the same storm.
Charlotte finally spoke, low and clear. “We’re running out of time. If they’re trying to reprogram Alex, we need to move soon. You saw Henry’s autopsy and Mara’s physical.”
Ethan nodded, deadly calm. “We continue to burn the clock.” There was no time to sleep. No luxury of second-guessing. The clock started the moment Alex went dark.
“We split in twos. Noah, Olivia—you hit the cell tower grids. Start with the last confirmed ping from Alex’s phone and trace the surrounding data traffic. Look for anything that spikes and dies fast. That’s your ghost signal.”
Olivia already had her tablet out. “We’ll check for brief, hidden messages sent in quick bursts. If someone used a military-grade relay to scrub him, we’ll find the echo.”
“Brad,” Ethan continued, turning toward him, “gear up. We hit the prison before first light. No courtesy call, no warning. We show up hard and ask louder than we did last time.”
Brad was already reaching for his phone. “I’ll pull transport logs, maintenance records, everything from the last five days before Alex disappeared. If someone moved Alex through that facility, we’ll see the gaps.”
“Tristan,” Ethan said, “I want you and Izzy to go through the psychological profile the police psychiatrists performed on Ward. Everything the court psychiatrists flagged—any sign of off-the-chart behavior. Anything. And maybe we can find Elias.”
“Molly, Sophie, go through the records on Mara and Henry Byron. Look for commonalities and if there were particular markings or medical anomalies. Maybe we can find out what made them. Something to indicate who is running the site.”
Tristan gave a nod, measured and focused. Izzy moved to sit beside him.
“I called in all my government contacts. Maybe someone will give up the name and location of the program,” Ethan said.
Charlotte stood now, eyes clear, steady. “And I’ll pull every visitor record from my visits with Ward. Maybe there is something there. He never said Elias’s name, but he hinted—always. Like he wanted me to connect the dots without handing me the whole picture.”
Graham pushed back from the table, finally breaking his silence. “I’ll dig more into the black site theory. Transport manifests. Redacted ops. After I left the PD, I used to help run joint-agency transfers—trust me, even ghosts leave footprints.”
Ethan turned to the group. “If anyone comes knocking, you don’t answer. If you hear chatter about Alex on official channels, you tell me first. This investigation doesn’t exist on paper.”
Ruth gave a rare, cold smile. “We know how to keep a secret.”
Izzy nodded. “We’ll lock things down here.”
Ethan finally looked around the room. At all of them. “Whatever’s out there, it’s bigger than Alex. Bigger than Elias. We’re not just chasing ghosts—we’re chasing the people who did this to God knows how many other people. And if they took Alex, they’re going to try and erase everything he knows.”
Charlotte’s voice cut in, low and sharp. “Then we make damn sure he remembers who he is before they erase him.”
Ethan nodded once. “Brad and I can start moving now. And after we reclaim Alex, we burn the place that took him to the ground.”