Cursed Vault by L.A. McBride

Author:L.A. McBride [McBride, L.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: One Tree Press
Published: 2025-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Had Volkov’s arm not anchored me to my seat, I would have gone for Sato’s throat. “You knew?” The air around me felt charged, as if my rage was a tangible thing. “That’s why you recruited me. Because of her.”

So many questions fought for headspace. Had my father and I been some kind of cover for her? I didn’t want to believe that to be true. Maybe she lost her memory in the explosion. That would be easier to accept. My whole body stiffened when another possibility hit me. Did the Enclave have something to do with my parents’ deaths? With Carl?

I had the dagger in my hand without realizing I reached for it. Volkov caught my wrist and lowered it to my lap, his thumb brushing across my pulse point in an attempt to calm me. It didn’t work.

Sato kept his attention on the dagger still clutched in my fist as he answered. “The Enclave had no idea about the connection between Amelia and you until recently.” He opened a new file showing my mother’s DNA results. “We’ve had alerts set in all the major human systems—medical, law enforcement, DMVs—since Amelia Hunt disappeared. When you ran her DNA through the system, we were notified. Since we knew you grew up in New Mexico, we investigated Santa Fe and the surrounding areas for any trace of her.”

Nash shot me a worried look. “If what you’re saying is true, and Amelia Hunt faked her own death once to escape with this artifact, could she have done it again when Riley was a child?”

I clutched the hilt of the dagger until my fingers numbed. “No. She would never do that.” My voice shook, but my certainty didn’t. Blood relation or not, the woman who’d raised me would have never left me in Carl’s clutches.

“No,” Sato agreed. “I don’t believe she did.” He opened another document on the screen. “Otherwise, she wouldn’t have left this.”

Only the first page of the document was visible, which included standard legalese. I blinked at my mother’s name and at mine. “I don’t understand.” I put my dagger away and scooted forward for a better view.

My parents had nothing. Why would she leave a will?

Even before Carl, I’d grown up poor. During my childhood, we’d lived in a run-down rental house with leaky pipes and lousy insulation. My parents hadn’t even owned a car, getting around on bikes or bumming rides with neighbors. Although my mother’s jewelry commanded top dollar, she rarely sold a piece, and when she did, she used most of the proceeds on raw materials for her next project. For the most part, they paid the bills working at restaurants and with the occasional handyman project my dad picked up. I’d never gone hungry before moving in with Carl, but we’d never had excess either.

As far as I knew, the only things of value my mother left behind were the rings I now wore. One I stole from the display case in Carl’s pawn shop before I ran at sixteen.

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