THE SEVENTH CHILD WAS NEVER REPORTED MISSING

Chapter 15

Ethan called Sarah immediately.

She arrived within twenty minutes.

Neither spoke as they studied the photograph.

Noah eventually joined them.

He looked at the children.

Then his face changed.

“You know this place?”

Noah nodded slowly.

“That’s where they took us before Red Creek.”

“Where?”

He pointed to the building.

“Somewhere in Colorado.”

Sarah looked at Ethan.

“The investigation isn’t over.”

Ethan nodded.

“No.”

He turned the photograph over.

There was another message.

IF YOU WANT TO FIND THE OTHER TWENTY-FIVE, COME ALONE.

Below it was a date.

Tomorrow.

And a location.

A deserted military facility in Colorado.

Sarah immediately shook her head.

“No chance you’re going alone.”

Ethan smiled.

“I thought you’d say that.”

Noah looked at both of them.

“I want to go.”

They stared at him.

“No,” Sarah said.

Noah shook his head.

“They took my friends.”

Ethan crouched beside him.

“You’ve already been through enough.”

Noah looked at the photograph.

“They remembered me.”

Silence.

Then Ethan noticed something strange.

One of the children in the photograph was holding a piece of paper.

He zoomed in.

A name was written on it.

MICHAEL MITCHELL.

Sarah’s father.

Her face went pale.

Her father had supposedly died twelve years earlier.

But if the children had written his name recently…

Then perhaps he had never died.

Perhaps he had been hiding.

Perhaps Project Echo had never ended.

Ethan looked toward Sarah.

She stared at the photograph.

For several seconds, neither moved.

Then her phone rang.

Unknown number.

She answered.

A man’s voice whispered:

“Sarah.”

She froze.

She knew that voice.

Her father’s.

Then he said four words:

“You should have stayed away.”

The line went dead.

And somewhere across America, in a place no map showed, twenty-five missing children were still waiting to be found.

The investigation had only just begun.