Page 98 of Rage
“Where did you get this?”
“I took it.”
I look up sharply. “You were there?”
“I was never far.”
The room seems to tilt.
“I couldn’t approach.”
“Why?”
“Because every time we found her...” He places another photograph beside the first. It looks like she is in a different city. Her hair a different color like she purposely dyed it. He slides another picture and another. Different places, clothes, and hair color. Every photograph shows my mother and me.
“She changed countries.” Valet’s voice is calm. “She changed passports. Names. She burned every trail we followed.” He looks down at the pictures. “Your mother was an extraordinary woman.”
I stare at him as he takes a sip of his drink. “Then why stop looking?”
His honey-colored eyes meet mine. “I never did.”
He walks toward his desk and presses a button hidden beneath the edge of the desk. A screen rises silently from inside the wood. Hundreds of files appear. Satellite images. Files.
Every file bears one name.Vitale.
“I assigned one hundred and forty-three people to find you.”
The number steals my breath.
“For eighteen years.”
Another image appears from a security camera. It’s the campus at Kenyan University. Then an image of me walking across campus in a black hoodie.
“The Order made one mistake.” He zooms in. “There is no question who my son looks like.” Then another image pops up on the screen. My scar. The one across my hand.
Valet smiles sadly. “And he has mine.”
He closes the screen. “I recognized you immediately.”
“So why didn’t you come?”
“I did.”
My voice hardens. “No.”
“I came.”
“You simply couldn’t see me.”
He walks toward another desk. This one is covered with maps and blueprints. Photographs of Unit 9. My stomach tightens.
“You were never forgotten.”
He points toward the underground prison. “You were contained.”
I step closer. “What does that mean?”
Valet studies the blueprint. “Vikiar discovered your identity the night he killed your mother.”
