Chapter 28 - THE HEART OF MERIDIAN The clue led us to an old financial district building.
The address had belonged to a bank that had closed twenty years earlier.
Beneath it was an underground archive.
Inside were records dating back forty years.
The Meridian Network was larger than we had imagined.
But now there was something different.
A list of names.
Some crossed out.
Some highlighted.
And one name at the bottom.
ELEANOR CALDWELL.
Beside it:
REMOVED.
I stared at the page.
“Removed?”
Lydia looked over my shoulder.
“Maybe she wasn't the Architect.”
“She wasn't.”
“Then who was?”
A door slammed behind us.
We turned.
Mara stood in the entrance.
She looked exhausted.
“I wanted you to find this.”
“You could have told us.”
“I needed to know whether you were ready.”
“Ready for what?”
She walked to the archive wall.
There was a photograph hidden behind a ledger.
A man stood beside Eleanor.
Beside Charles.
Beside my father.
And beside Adrian.
I recognized him.
I had seen him on television.
A billionaire philanthropist.
A respected American businessman.
Someone who had donated millions to hospitals.
Someone who had appeared beside presidents.
Mara spoke quietly.
“The Architect.”
I looked at the photograph.
My stomach turned.
Because I knew him.
He had attended the opening of the Bennett House.
He had shaken my hand.
He had congratulated me.
He had smiled for the cameras.
May you like
His name was Richard Hale.
And he had been one of the people who helped fund my father's original research.
