Chapter 5 - Six Easter Eggs
By 7:10 p.m., the hospital had become a fortress.
Lily was transferred through a service corridor into an armored medical vehicle. Only Mara, Dr. Bennett, two nurses, and I knew the exact route.
Even the drivers received directions one turn at a time.
We left through the loading dock while news crews remained gathered at the main entrance. A decoy ambulance departed first with federal motorcycles around it.
Three black SUVs followed the real vehicle.
No lights.
No sirens.
No electronic navigation.
Mara sat across from me, reviewing the Easter-party guest list.
“One hundred and twelve people entered the estate,” she said. “Twenty-eight were children. Federal agents documented nineteen baskets during the initial sweep.”
“That leaves nine unaccounted for.”
“Seven. We have confirmed that two families left their baskets behind.”
“Where are the nineteen now?”
“Secured at the estate. Teams are examining each egg.”
“And the missing purse?”
“The evidence officer who logged Eleanor’s property says another agent collected it.”
“Name?”
“He cannot remember.”
“That is convenient.”
“He was processing forty people.”
“It is still convenient.”
Lily listened from the stretcher.
Her face looked gray beneath the medical lights.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
I leaned toward her.
“For what?”
“I thought separating the list would make it safer.”
“It did.”
“Now children have it.”
“The people searching for it do not know which families.”
“Daniel knows.”
“Daniel knows there are six pieces. He may not know the locations.”
Lily looked toward Mara.
“He knew the colors.”
I turned sharply.
“You did not tell me that.”
“He chose them,” Lily said.
The vehicle became silent.
“When he gave me the key, he also gave me six small drives. Each one was already hidden inside a plastic egg. He said the list had been divided and encrypted.”
“Did he explain why?”
“He said no single piece could identify everyone. All six were required.”
“Then Daniel knows exactly what the eggs look like.”
Lily nodded.
“And possibly their serial markings,” Mara said.
I looked at the dark windows.
Daniel had presented himself as a secret ally.
But he had designed the hiding method.
He controlled the information.
He had called at exactly the moment we discovered the list existed.
That was not assistance.
That was management.
“Did Daniel tell you to attend the Easter party?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Did he know Richard was violent?”
“I told him.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Richard would never hurt me in front of witnesses.”
The anger returned.
“He used you.”
“I know.”
“No. You trusted someone who knew your mother. He used that trust.”
Lily’s eyes filled with tears.
“He said he had spent years trying to prove what happened to her.”
“He may have.”
“Do you think he killed Mom?”
“I do not know.”
The vehicle entered an underground garage beneath an old federal courthouse that had been closed to the public for renovations. A secure elevator carried us to a protected medical suite once built for endangered witnesses.
Dr. Bennett examined Lily again and ordered complete rest.
Lily refused.
“I need to help identify the families.”
“You need to avoid another internal hemorrhage,” the doctor said.
“I remember the children.”
“Then you can speak from bed.”
Mara projected photographs from the party onto a wall screen.
Lily identified the children whose baskets received the eggs.
The red egg went to a seven-year-old girl named Sophie Lambert.
The blue egg went to twin brothers whose father worked for Vale Development.
The yellow egg went to the grandson of Judge Bell.
The green egg went to Chief Pike’s niece.
The purple egg went to the daughter of a local television reporter.
I looked at Lily.
“You chose those families deliberately.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because each child was connected to someone on the list.”
Mara studied the screen.
“You knew the identities?”
“Not all of them. Daniel gave me initials and family photographs. He told me to place the eggs with people whose relatives were either involved or likely to cooperate.”
“He turned children into couriers,” I said.
Lily looked ashamed.
“He said nobody would hurt them.”
“He did not have the right to promise that.”
The six eggs were not merely a hiding system.
They were pressure points.
Each egg had been placed inside the home of someone connected to the Crown. Whoever retrieved them would reveal loyalties, fears, and betrayal.
Daniel was not protecting the list.
He was using it to flush out the network.
And Lily had been his unwitting operative.
Teams were dispatched simultaneously.
The Lambert family answered their door and surrendered the red egg immediately. Its drive remained intact.
The television reporter had already discovered the purple drive when her daughter opened the egg in the car. She made two copies before agents arrived.
That frightened Mara.
Copies meant the information could leak publicly before it was verified.
The twins’ family could not be located.
Judge Bell denied that his grandson possessed any yellow egg.
Chief Pike’s sister claimed the green egg had been thrown away at a gas station.
Nobody believed her.
At 8:02 p.m., agents opened Eleanor’s evidence locker and confirmed that her purse had never been entered.
Security footage showed the evidence intake room during processing.
For eleven seconds, the camera froze.
When the image returned, Eleanor’s purse was gone.
Only three federal employees had access during that interval.
Agent Samuel Redd.
Analyst Paula Singh.
Deputy Director Mara Cole.
I looked at Mara across the secure room.
She read the suspicion before I spoke.
“My badge entered the room,” she said. “I did not.”
“Where were you?”
“At the hospital with you.”
“Your credential was cloned.”
“Or borrowed.”
“Who can access your office?”
“Redd. Singh. My executive assistant.”
“Where is the assistant?”
“On leave in Virginia.”
“Confirm it physically.”
Mara ordered an immediate internal security review.
Lily watched us.
“You think someone on the federal team took the purse?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Then nowhere is safe.”
“No place is automatically safe. That is different.”
She looked unconvinced.
My phone buzzed.
Only Mara had the number.
The screen displayed an image.
A red Easter egg sat on a wooden table beside a child’s bracelet.
Below it was a message.
ONE FOUND. FIVE TO GO.
Mara checked her phone.
“I did not send that.”
A second image arrived.
The Lambert family’s front door.
Open.
An agent lay unconscious in the entrance.
We contacted the retrieval team.
No response.
Local emergency units were sent to the house.
Four minutes later, they found two federal agents injured and both parents tied inside the kitchen.
The child was missing.
So was the red egg.
Lily began to shake.
“No.”
I took her hand.
“This is not your fault.”
“They took Sophie because of me.”
“They took her because they are criminals.”
“I put the egg in her basket.”
“Because Daniel manipulated you.”
She pulled her hand away.
“I still did it.”
Guilt can become another prison if it is allowed to speak alone.
I moved closer.
“Listen to me. You were trying to expose people who hurt families. You made a decision based on lies told by someone you believed. Responsibility belongs to the people who chose violence.”
Her breathing slowed slightly.
Mara’s phone rang.
She answered on speaker.
A distorted voice filled the room.
“You have one hour.”
“Proof of life,” Mara said.
A child cried in the background.
“Please,” Sophie whispered. “I want my mom.”
Lily covered her mouth.
The distorted voice returned.
“Bring the remaining eggs to the Vale Foundation. No agents. No aircraft. No surveillance.”
“We do not possess the remaining eggs.”
“Then find them.”
“What happens after one hour?”
“The first family learns what Arthur Mercer learned fifteen years ago.”
The call ended.
I stared at the phone.
The words were chosen specifically for me.
They did not merely threaten Sophie.
They promised to recreate Claire’s death.
Mara looked at the clock.
“Fifty-nine minutes.”
“We need to identify the caller.”
“Voice masking prevented an immediate match.”
“It was a man.”
“Could be synthetic.”
“The phrasing was personal.”
Mara began issuing orders. Traffic cameras were accessed. The Vale Foundation was placed under covert observation. Tactical teams prepared routes that would remain outside the kidnappers’ visible perimeter.
I looked at the five families connected to the missing drives.
The list itself was no longer our most urgent concern.
A child was.
“Daniel knows where the eggs are,” I said.
“He claims he does not know which children received them.”
“He knows enough.”
“You want to bring him here?”
“I want to make him choose.”
Mara arranged a secure video call with the federal detention room.
Daniel appeared on the screen seated across from Richard.
Richard’s wrists were cuffed to the table.
Daniel remained composed.
“Arthur,” he said.
“A child was taken.”
His expression changed.
“Which child?”
“Sophie Lambert.”
Daniel closed his eyes briefly.
“You need to retrieve the other drives.”
“You created this system.”
“To protect the information.”
“You used Lily.”
“I gave her a choice.”
“You gave a frightened woman partial information and put her inside a violent man’s house.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“I did not know Richard would attack her.”
“She told you he had attacked her before.”
“I believed the witnesses would restrain him.”
“You believed wrong.”
Richard smiled across the table.
“Daniel makes mistakes.”
Daniel ignored him.
I leaned toward the camera.
“Who is retrieving the eggs?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who knew the system?”
“Only Lily and me.”
“Then either you told someone or Lily did.”
“She did not.”
“How can you be certain?”
“Because the only person she mentioned the list to was her therapist.”
“Dr. Crane?”
“No.”
Daniel looked toward Richard.
Richard’s smile disappeared.
Lily had been ordered to see Dr. Crane, but she secretly contacted another therapist online.
“What was the therapist’s name?” I asked.
Daniel hesitated.
“Dr. Rebecca Mercer.”
My chest tightened.
“Mercer?”
“She claimed to be your daughter.”
The message from the hospital card returned to me.
YOU SAVED THE WRONG DAUGHTER.
I stared at Daniel.
“I have one daughter.”
He looked directly into the camera.
“No, Arthur.”
Beside him, Richard began to laugh.
Daniel spoke again.
May you like
“Claire was pregnant when she died.”
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