Chapter 2: Back of the Old Photo

The doorknob was ice-cold under Ethan’s fingers. He didn’t turn it. Instead, he stepped back half a pace, letting his spine press against the bookshelf. The sound of rain slapping against the glass was amplified by the silence inside, sounding like nails scraping across old hardwood floors. He stared at the black figure in the security monitor, counting seconds. Mark hadn’t knocked again. He just stood there in the rain, water pouring into his raincoat collar, pooling into a small, murky puddle on the tiles. That dead silence was more suffocating than the knocking.

Ethan cut the power to the security system and yanked the ethernet cable. Darkness swallowed the living room instantly. Feeling his way in the dark, he moved toward the study and pulled a spare key from the back of a deep drawer. The door creaked open a crack. Cold wind rolled in, thick with the smell of rain and wet earth. Mark was still standing there. He raised his wrist, and the metal watch band flashed once in the cold white light of a lightning strike. The engraving faced Ethan. He couldn’t read the details, but the outline of the serial number was sharp and clear.

Ethan didn’t reach for it, nor did he close the door. He just leaned to the side, clearing half the doorframe. Mark stepped into the entryway, his raincoat dripping steadily, like a small personal downpour. Ethan shut the door behind him and locked it dead. The house fell back into darkness, broken only by a single candle Ethan had lit. The flame danced wildly in the draft rushing through the house.

"You’re later than I expected," Ethan said. His voice was flat. He struck a second match and held it to the candle.

Mark pulled the hood off his raincoat, revealing half his face. Rainwater dripped from his hairline. His voice was rough. "The coordinates mentioned in the journal require two keys. You have one of them."

Ethan didn’t answer. He just pulled a USB drive from his pocket and placed it on the wooden table next to the candle. The firelight stretched his shadow long across the wall, distorting it into something strange and unfamiliar.

"Twenty years ago, the encrypted logs from Interstellar Shipping were split and stored separately," Mark said, his eyes fixed on the USB drive. "Your father took the hardware key. I took the access permissions. Now that he’s dead—or, rather, fake dead—"

"How do you know?"

"Because I helped design his fake-death plan." Mark looked up. His eyes were hollow. "Jack Hansen saw through it before he leaked any intel. He thought he was stealing a secret, but he was just a decoy. Alice McRae needed chaos to cover the real extraction."

Ethan’s fingers tightened, his nails digging into his palms. The pain kept him sharp. "Why did Dad choose Houston?"

Mark let out a cold laugh, tinged with self-mockery. "It’s where aerospace meets secret engineering. Twenty years ago, there was an abandoned launch testing area next to the Houston Space Center. The family stored something that doesn’t belong to this world in that sector. The 'Luna' in the logs isn’t a name. It’s a code name."

Ethan watched the candle flame flicker. A chill crept up his spine. *Luna*. The moon. His mother, Alice McRae, had used that word for a secret project when he was a child. He only remembered the scent of cold metal.

"Take me to the relics," Mark said.

Ethan turned and walked toward the study, his steps steady. He knew this rain wasn’t going to stop anytime soon, but the storm inside was just beginning.

The air in the study was stale, thick with the smell of old paper and dust. Ethan opened the cabinet door, and dust motes swirled in the candlelight. He rummaged through the box his father had left behind—the one his mother Alice had personally handed him when he left the family home, claiming it was a memento of his father. Inside, there were only a few old books, a worn leather jacket, and a kraft paper envelope.

The wax seal on the envelope was cracked and dry. It was a variant of the family crest: a wolf’s head pressing down on a crescent moon. Ethan tore the seal and found a single folded photograph inside.

The photo was yellowed, its edges curled. The background showed the rocket test towers at the Houston Space Center. The massive metal skeleton looked lonely against the gray-blue sky. Two people were in the frame. One was wearing a flight jacket and sunglasses—his father. The other stood in the shadows, only a silhouette visible, holding a rolled-up blueprint.

Ethan’s fingers traced the back of the photo. His fingertips brushed against uneven texture. Pencil marks.

He grabbed a magnifying glass and moved it closer to the candle. The writing on the back was faint, barely visible. He picked up the UV lamp from the table—a tool he used for inspecting old book restoration layers—and swept the blue light across the paper.

The writing glowed under the UV light, a pale purple fluorescence.

Line one: LUNA-04.

Line two: A set of coordinates: 29.7604° N, 95.3698° W.

Line three: A single word: CHECKPOINT.

Ethan’s breath hitched for a second. He knew those coordinates. It was an abandoned industrial zone on the outskirts of Houston, near an old warehouse district in Harris County. Twenty years ago, his father had taken him there, claiming he was teaching him how to identify the acoustic signatures of metal fatigue. Ethan hadn’t understood it back then. His father had just told him to listen to the wind blowing through the empty warehouses.

"What is this place?" Mark stood in the doorway, staring at the photo.

Ethan didn’t look up. His voice was low. "It’s a checkpoint. My father called it the Moon Gate. Only someone with full clearance can know what’s on the other side of that gate."

Mark stepped closer and crouched down, looking at the coordinates. "Hansen leaked commercial data, but these coordinates point to a physical location. If the logs were destroyed there, why leave a checkpoint?"

Ethan flipped the photo over and pointed to the figure in the shadows holding the blueprints. "Look at his posture. Weight on the back foot, blueprints in the left hand, right hand hanging at his side, gripping a folding knife. That’s a combat reflex. My father wasn’t just an engineer. He was the family’s ‘janitor.’"

Mark squinted. The rain was still dripping outside, but the ticking of the clock inside was loud and clear. "Are you sure?"

"I’m sure." Ethan laid the photo flat on the desk. The candle flame jumped, illuminating the fluorescent writing. "And look at the handwriting here. The ‘L’ in ‘LUNA-04’ is stretched out, like a scratch. That’s my father’s habit. When he’s under extreme stress, he extends the vertical lines of his letters. This photo was taken the night before he decided to fake his death."

Mark was silent for a moment. He stood up and walked to the window, looking out at the curtain of rain. "Does Alice know?"

"She definitely does. Otherwise, my father wouldn’t have left the relics with me instead of her." Ethan closed the box and stood up, zipping it shut. "But why me? A psychological counselor? I don’t even have the security clearance to enter that industrial zone."

Mark turned. His gaze was sharp as a blade. "Because you haven’t triggered the family’s ‘memory lock.’ Alice called you back not to process your grief, but to serve as a vessel. There’s an old server at those coordinates. It holds the final logs my father uploaded before he fled. And the key to start that server is engraved on the inside of your father’s watch."

Ethan looked down at himself. His father’s watch had been taken by his mother after the funeral, but he remembered his father leaving a backup watch in a drawer in the study before he vanished. He had always thought it was just a memento and had never worn it.

"If I go there, I’ll be arrested as a thief," Ethan said. His tone was calm, but his fingertips were trembling.

"Hansen is setting up a perimeter there," Mark said. "He thinks he’s guarding a secret, but he’s actually guarding a trap. Alice needs a scapegoat to eliminate Hansen, and that location needs an ‘innocent’ to trigger the alarms. You’re the perfect fit."

A chill rose from Ethan’s feet. He wasn’t the hunter. He was a caged decoy.

"What about Judy Walker?" Ethan asked suddenly.

Mark blinked, then a bitter smile crossed his face. "That detective is digging into Hansen’s old debts. She’s close to the truth, but she’s looking in the wrong direction. She thinks the missing persons case is linked to human trafficking, but Nora Carter is the one being held at that ‘checkpoint.’"

Ethan’s heart skipped a beat. Nora Carter. The stand-in bride who had been imprisoned by the family for years, as he had found out in his online research. She had always believed she was a bride, but she was actually a prisoner.

"Where are the coordinates?" Ethan asked. His voice was dry.

Mark pulled a small folded note from his pocket and tossed it on the desk. "I memorized part of the data, but I need the USB drive to decrypt it. You have forty-eight hours. Alice will cut off your communication permissions in forty-eight hours and isolate you completely."

Ethan picked up the note and unfolded it. A winding route was drawn on it, with a red X marking the end point.

"I’m going to find Judy," Ethan said.

"No time for that," Mark interrupted. He turned and walked toward the door. "If you go to her, she becomes the next target. Hansen’s people are watching her apartment. Your only way out is to take the USB drive straight to Houston."

The door opened, then closed. The sound of rain flooded the living room again, drowning out Ethan’s breathing.

He stood in the center of the study, holding the photo. The UV lamp’s battery had died, and the fluorescent writing was fading away, like a dream being forgotten.

29.7604° N, 95.3698° W.

Houston.

Ethan opened his laptop. The screen lit up, the blue light harsh in the darkness. He searched for the coordinates. The map showed a private preserve in Harris County, always without power, restricted access. But on another layer of the map, he found an old satellite image from 2003. In the image, next to the abandoned warehouse, a black armored vehicle was parked.

License plate: TX-0042.

Ethan zoomed in, his finger sliding across the trackpad. In the driver’s seat of the armored car, a figure was faintly visible, holding up a camera to take a photo.

That angle was exactly the direction the photo had been taken.

His father hadn’t run away. His father had waited there for a long time, waiting for something to appear.

Ethan closed the laptop and grabbed his backpack. He stuffed the USB drive, the photo, and the note inside. The straps dug into his shoulders, leaving a sharp ache.

He walked to the entryway and put on his shoes. The rain was still falling, harder now, pounding against the windows like countless hands scratching at the glass.

The doorbell rang suddenly.

Ethan whipped around, looking at the security camera at the door. It wasn’t powered down this time; the feed was clear.

Standing outside wasn’t Mark.

It was a woman in a gray trench coat. Rain had soaked the tips of her hair, clinging to her cheeks. She was holding a phone, its screen lit up, displaying Ethan’s address.

Judy Walker.

Ethan didn’t open the door. He looked through the peephole at Judy Walker’s face. Her eyes didn’t have the authority of a police officer. They held only deep exhaustion and a near-desperate plea.

Judy knocked on the door, the rhythm urgent and sharp, different from Mark’s heavy pounding.

"I know you’re in there." Her voice came through the door, muffled but clear. "Ethan, open the door. I know what you’re looking for. I know your father didn’t die."

Ethan’s hand rested on the doorknob, hesitating.

"Jack Hansen is downstairs from you," Judy’s voice rose, trembling slightly. "He’s armed. He thinks you’re Alice’s spy and wants to send you to the dungeon. But I know you’re not. You’re the only key."

The roar of an engine starting echoed from downstairs, low and angry, like a beast growling.

Ethan looked at the USB drive. He was thinking. Opening the door meant facing Judy and the potential threat of Hansen. Not opening it meant he’d have to jump out the window into the rain and escape down the back alley to Houston.

But he didn’t choose to run.

He opened the door.

Judy Walker burst in, soaked to the bone. Her police badge flashed with a cold light under the dim entryway lamp. Behind her, the heavy, orderly sound of leather shoes on stairs echoed from the stairwell.

"They’re here." Judy panted. She shoved a small handgun into Ethan’s hand. The barrel was ice-cold. "Hansen’s people have blocked off the block. Your car isn’t going anywhere. But I’ve got a spare motorcycle in the backyard."

Ethan looked at the gun, then at Judy. "Why are you helping me? I’m a McRae. Alice is your benefactor."

Judy laughed bitterly. Rainwater dripped from her hair onto the floor, pooling into small puddles. "Because twenty years ago, my sister disappeared. Her name was Lily Walker. She was the first one locked inside the Moon Gate."

The coordinates echoed in the beat of his heart.