Page 103 of The Chain House

Sam relayed the message to Jennifer, told her he’d see her soon, and ended the call.

“The parking lot is full of reporters,” Agent Givens said. “From all across the country.”

Governor Hawthorne checked his watch. “Thirty minutes.”

Warden Wren entered the room. “Batise is back in my office.”

Agent Givens, still fuming from what had happened at the house, the loss of four of his agents, nodded toward Sam. “Let’s go.”

Sam didn’t move. “Give me a second.”

“I don’t have a second,” Givens said. “Those deaths are on his head.”

“Give me a second,” Sam said.

And then stepped out into the hallway to call his dad.

CHAPTER55

INSIDE THE CAB of the semi-truck, driven by a man named Todd, who had already gone way beyond the call of duty as they tracked Lizzie’s moving cell phone east toward Simpsonville, Trevor Harper’s phone vibrated with an incoming call.

When he saw it was Sam, his heart jumped.

“Answer it,” Lizzie said from her seat between Trevor and Todd, a burly, bearded long- haul trucker with a kind heart and, to their luck, an even bigger love for the governor and his wife. And having already told Trevor and Lizzie that he’d take them wherever they needed to go, he also said to Trevor, “Answer it.”

“I can’t lose track of her phone.”

Lizzie said, “Put in on speaker.”

Trevor put it on speaker and accepted the call. “Sam?”

“Dad …”

Trevor didn’t know how desperately he’d needed to hear that word until he’d heard it, and tears instantly formed in his eyes. “Son.”

Sam sounded emotional over the phone as well. “Who is Jules Whitaker?”

Trevor immediately closed his eyes, conjured strength, he didn’t have much time. When he felt Lizzie’s hand on his arm, he opened his eyes with newfound courage and got right to the point. “She was once my fiancé, Sam.”

“I … don’t understand.”

“Because you were never meant to know,” Trevor said with a catch in his throat. “What has my brother told you?”

“That Jules is my mom,” he said. “That Jules Whitaker is my biological mom. And that he was … with her. But how … if she was your fiancé?”

“We were to be married,” Trevor said. “We were young. Naive. Sal … he … he found out …”

“Found out what?”

“That she was a virgin,” Trevor said. “That I was …” Trevor shook his head, couldn’t believe he was doing this in front of Lizzie and a virtual stranger in Todd, but to salvage his relationship with his son, he plowed on. “We were … saving ourselves for marriage. My brother, he found that out, he thought it was cute. He thought it was funny. He joked about us. And then one day I noticed Jules was beginning to change. Her innocent personality turned combative. She became quiet. Distant. Started doing drugs … with Sal. It wasn’t long before she started to show.”

“With me?”

“Yeah … with you. He’d seduced her,” Trevor said, surprised by how easily the words had come from his mouth, given how many years it had taken for him to get over what she and Sal had done. “She admitted it … she’d fallen under his spell, Sam. Once Sal found out she was pregnant, he didn’t want anything to do with her, and I was so mad I couldn’t look at her. One night, she ran off. I never saw her again. Sal said she’d disappeared into the woods and was overwhelmed by demons. Her own, of course. But one day, out of the blue, when you were about five years old, she arrived at the Freedom Ranch. I think he had Minks kill her, Sam.”

“But he left me alive?”

“Yeah, he did.”