The Dynasty Missing Daughter

in the photogr

the first bullet shatte

d instinctively, clutching the photograph agains

t d

eed to be

hrough the filing c

but my mind was

t the corridor offered no protection. My phone lay beside the overturned chair, its screen c

s willing to k

en whether the hospital would extend my foster

l of stolen identities, holding p

wimming pool. She wore a white dress and a tiny gold bracelet. Behind he

mot

r-the woman whose face had appeared on a hospital id

n told had died g

three words on the b

IR SUR

e came from

s Va

urn

y expensive for a building scheduled for demolition. His dark hair was damp from the rain. His face was

d from the ph

ond, he looked as i

extended

me if you w

are

n Blac

k me before I

ts founder had died six years ago, leaving behind a fortune large enough t

nnected to the disappearance of a li

t take

uld I tr

shoul

t struck th

ist, and pulled me behind the concrete pillar just as a t

ly my body respon

ore that he se

run?" h

es

stop until

act pistol from

mach d

rought

xpecting

d have warned me before

iss Vale. If I'd known you were still al

explanation, he fired o

r

the confidence of a man who knew exactly where every door led. I followed

ed a ste

a code into

ng ha

anged it,"

ou ope

try

footsteps

, but the maintenance cover had been removed.

ov

stare

ha

to the police why we're standing

ent it, and connected two exposed conta

oor c

d at the loc

eres

o sound so

he underground

exit ramp. Its driver was sl

e

top

re under h

ght in the ga

my elbow backward, connected with

," Adria

op grabb

t engine

t through the darkness toward us. Its headlights swept acro

raised a pho

h illuminated

icle vanishe

a picture,"

d turned frighteningly cold.

mation

jacket and produced

little girl besid

circle had been dra

brac

d went

was the only thing left from the day she'd found me outside a clinic in Nairobi. She'd kept t

elieved her

t know what

ooked at

you get tha

hy

photograph was declared de

pau

r name was Sera

suddenly fe

sn't my

. "Your name

for the first time,

e, you may be the only survivin

It came out shar

uld anyone w

nced towar

amily intends to announce the e

s that have t

returne

ckwell. He's spent twenty-four years

nded somewh

the passenger

in, E

n at the pho

irl stared

ther the people who had raised me had saved m

into the

e engine, my phone v

sage. N

AT HAPPENED T

ed tow

the m

into a gunfight without bli