The Lie Hidden in Roses Chapter 15

The Lie Hidden in Roses Chapter 15 The Impostor’s Real Name

Thirty minutes later, the search team came out of the woods.

They looked like they had crawled through half the mountain to get back to us. Mud streaked their jackets. burrs clung to their sleeves, and dead leaves were caught in their hair and boots. Their flashlights swung through the clearing in shaky white arcs as they made their way toward the cars.

Damon placed the waterproof case on the hood of his SUV and snapped it open.

Just like the agent had promised, there was a thick bundle of documents inside. The pages were old, the paper faded into a brittle yellow, but the writing had survived. Every name, every note, every line of the report was still readable.

It was the full record of the undercover operation from fifteen years ago.

Code names, legal names, personal histories, contact chains, and the network that connected every person involved were all laid out in front of us.

I turned the pages faster and faster, my heartbeat kicking harder with every name I recognized.

Then I froze.

“Malcolm Voss?” I looked up at Damon. “Wasn’t he reported dead five years ago? Some kind of illness?”

Damon’s expression tightened immediately.

The file did not leave much room for doubt.

Malcolm Voss had been the one who betrayed the task force.

He had exposed the whole operation from the inside.

And sometime afterward, he had taken in a child.

By the time the first thin strip of dawn began to brighten the mountains, Elliot drove me back to the exchange site.

Damon and the rest of his team were already in place. They had spread out through the trees and behind the rock formations around the clearing, close enough to intervene if the handoff went bad, but concealed well enough that no one would see them unless they knew exactly where to search.

I stood under the dead oak, holding a manila envelope in one hand.

Damon’s tech people had spent the last two hours aging the copy. They had stained the paper, softened the corners, and yellowed the edges until it looked like it had been sitting in storage for years. From a distance, it could have passed for the original.

The impostor appeared less than ten minutes later.

Two men walked behind him, dragging Rowan between them.

He looked even worse in person than he had on the video.

The cuts across his face had begun to crust over, one of his eyes was swollen almost completely shut, and his split lips were still dark with blood. His clothes were smeared with mud and red-brown stains. His left leg barely seemed to support him, and every step looked like it cost him more strength than he had left.

Still, when he saw me, something flickered in his eyes.

“Maren,” he rasped, “you shouldn’t be here.”

His voice was almost gone. It was so raw and broken that I had to strain to understand him, as if every word had been scraped out of his throat.

My eyes stung, but I forced myself not to cry.

The impostor glanced at the envelope in my hand.

“You bring it?”

“I brought it,” I said. “Now where is he?”

“Hand over the file first.”

“Let Rowan go first.”

For a few seconds, neither of us moved.

Then the impostor gave a slight nod.

The two men let go of Rowan.

He stumbled toward me, and I rushed forward just in time to catch him before his legs gave out.

The heat coming off him made my stomach drop. He was burning up, and the sour, sick smell coming from his wounds told me the infection had already started.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

“I’m fine.”

He sagged against me and buried his face against my shoulder. Even though he was trying to sound steady, his voice trembled.

“Why would you take a risk like this?”

“That’s rich, coming from you,” I said.

Then I extended the envelope.

The impostor took it and opened the flap just far enough to check the papers inside.

A smile slowly crossed his face.

It was Rowan’s face.

And somehow, it was not Rowan at all.

My hands clenched at my sides.

“Where is Malcolm Voss?”

The impostor studied me for a moment before smiling again.

“Malcolm Voss?” he said. “I thought he died years ago.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

Funshed

Maybe he believed he had already won. Maybe once the file was in his hands, there was no point in acting

anymore.

“He changed his name to Victor Rane and slipped across the border,” the impostor said. “But cancer caught up with him anyway. Late-stage liver cancer. He died three years ago.”

“Then who the hell are you?”

I stared directly into his eyes.

“You already know.” he said. “I’m Malcolm Voss’s adopted son. He took me in. He saved me. So yes, I did what he asked.”

He raised one finger and tapped the side of his own face.

“Seven surgeries,” he said. “They broke my jaw and rebuilt it twice. Do you have any idea what that feels like when the anesthesia wears off? There were nights I wanted to slam my head into the wall just to make the pain stop.

His eyes shifted to Rowan.

“But Rowan didn’t want me to hurt any more than necessary, so I didn’t have to force much out of him. He told me everything about the two of you on his own.”

The smile vanished from his face.

“Maren,” he said quietly, “because of the few days we spent together, I’ll give you one piece of advice. I have the evidence now. Walk away. If you stop here, they might still let you live.”

Then he turned and disappeared back into the woods.

The two men who had brought Rowan followed him without a word.

A few seconds later, the trees closed around them, and they were gone.