Chapter 11 - RICHARD’S LAST BARGAIN“DON’T SHOOT HIM! HE CAME HERE BECAUSE SOMEONE LET HIM ESCAPE.”
Richard stopped twenty feet from Emily with blood on his shirt and broken handcuffs hanging from one wrist.
“I didn’t escape,” he said breathlessly. “They released me.”
Reed raised his weapon.
Richard laughed.
“You still don’t understand Shepherd.”
Richard claimed the investigator who removed him from custody had orders to follow him to Emily. Shepherd wanted Anna’s archive located before destroying everyone connected to it.
Emily stepped closer.
“Who is Shepherd?”
Richard looked toward Daniel.
“Ask your father.”
Silence swallowed the room.
Daniel finally admitted that Shepherd had financed his first political campaign decades earlier through intermediaries. Daniel never knew the organization’s real identity until Anna began investigating.
Richard shook his head.
“That’s not the secret.”
Before he could continue, gunfire shattered the facility’s front windows.
Reed pulled Emily behind the concrete wall.
Margaret screamed.
Daniel dragged Richard into cover as bullets struck the metal lockers.
Richard stared at him in disbelief.
“You just saved me.”
Daniel answered coldly.
“I saved the information in your head.”
Reed located an emergency exit. They escaped through a service corridor seconds before flames erupted behind them.
Outside, Richard grabbed Emily’s arm.
“Shepherd isn’t one person.”
Emily stared at him.
“What?”
May you like
Richard swallowed.
“It’s a title.”
