Chapter 3 - The Price of a Name
Marin read the message three times, hoping repetition would turn the photograph into a coincidence.
It didn't.
Delphine wore the yellow raincoat she'd bought at a thrift store last month. The bakery clock behind her showed 4:41. The photograph had been taken less than ten minutes ago.
Marin called her sister.
“Please pick up,” she whispered.
Delphine answered on the fourth ring, cheerful and breathless. “You're up early. Or still up. Are you eating anything these days?”
“Lock the bakery doors.”
“Good morning to you, too.”
“Del, listen. Lock them now. Go to the back office and stay away from the windows.”
The tone finally reached her. Marin heard a metal deadbolt slide into place.
“What happened?”
“I saw something dangerous. Someone followed me.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No. I need you to call Aunt Ruth in Providence. Go stay with her until I say it's safe.”
“You haven't spoken to Aunt Ruth since Christmas.”
“Please.”
Delphine fell silent. Then she said, softly, “Is this about that boy again?”
The question hit like a blow. Theo Mercer had never been out of Marin's life, not really. Delphine knew it because she had been the one holding Marin on the kitchen floor after the license board's decision arrived.
“Not exactly,” Marin said.
“Then tell me enough to help.”
“There's a man at St. Agnes who may know why they took my license. I helped him tonight. Someone thinks I shouldn't have.”
“Marin, go to the police.”
“I will. First, get somewhere safe.”
She stayed on the line until Delphine confirmed that the bakery's assistant manager had arrived to take over. Then she called Naomi, who arranged for an off-duty security officer to escort Delphine to the bus station.
The detective assigned to her statement arrived at St. Agnes just after sunrise. Gabriel Keene was forty-five, broad-shouldered, and looked as though he had been losing arguments with the city for decades.
He sat across from Marin in a quiet consultation room.
“You saw two men attempting murder?”
“Yes.”
“And you stole their vehicle?”
“I borrowed it under extreme circumstances.”
He didn't smile.
“Can you identify them?”
“One was taller, heavyset. The other wore a dark cap and had a scar across his left hand.”
Keene wrote it down.
“Who told you the victim's name?”
“They did. Then he confirmed it.”
Keene paused. “Do you understand who Roman Ashworth is?”
“Apparently a man with terrible taste in relatives.”
“He runs a criminal organization, Ms. Doyle. People have disappeared after crossing his family.”
“And somebody tried to make him disappear. You can investigate both things.”
Keene studied her. “I intend to.”
She showed him the threat against Delphine. He immediately called for a protective detail and asked for a copy of the message. His reaction was practical enough to earn a small measure of her trust.
After the interview, she found Roman awake behind a hospital door guarded by two uniformed officers from another county. His arm was immobilized. Monitors beeped beside him. Someone had washed the mud from his face, revealing a pale scar near his temple.
He looked older than the photographs she'd seen.
“Your sister?” he asked when she entered.
“Alive. Frightened. On a bus out of town.”
“Good.”
“Don't say that like you had anything to do with it.”
Roman's jaw tightened. “I didn't know they would identify you so quickly.”
“My truck had my name on it. My route paperwork did, too. I left a package in the yard.”
His expression changed.
“What package?”
“Why?”
“Victor's men weren't there just to kill me. They were retrieving something.”
Marin remembered the box. Standard size. Roughly two pounds. No return address, only a faded warehouse number.
“It was supposed to go to the cannery's maintenance office.”
Roman moved his good hand toward the edge of the bed. “Did you open it?”
“No. I'm a delivery driver, not a raccoon.”
“Then you don't know what's inside.”
“Neither do you.”
“I know what was supposed to be inside. A drive containing years of shipment records.”
She stared at him. “So you knew your own murder was being arranged?”
“I knew Victor was stealing from the company. I didn't know he would move this fast.”
“Company?” Marin repeated. “Is that what you call it when men bury people in holes?”
He accepted the attack without defending himself.
“My father built a criminal empire,” he said. “I inherited it. For years I told myself I could take the legitimate businesses and slowly cut the rest away.”
“Did you?”
“Not fast enough.”
There was something about the bluntness of the answer that unsettled her. She had expected a lie polished by money. Instead she got an admission he seemed to dislike making.
“Tell me about Theo Mercer,” she said.
Roman looked toward the door. “Victor's office contained a binder labeled NORTHLINE. Theo's name was inside. So was yours. There were recorded gate logs from the north bridge the night he died.”
“The bridge was closed for a hazardous-load inspection.”
“No inspection was scheduled.”
Marin heard blood thudding in her ears.
“The county ruled that I disregarded dispatch orders. They said I chose a closed bridge and lost twenty-two minutes.”
“I know what the report says.”
“Then you know they blamed me for him dying.”
Roman's voice lowered. “What I'm telling you is that somebody closed the bridge deliberately. And somebody changed the emergency dispatch record afterward.”
She stepped back until she felt the wall.
For two years, Marin had replayed that night in her head: Theo's terrified breathing, her partner shouting into the radio, the locked gate, the countdown of minutes she could never give back.
“Who?” she whispered.
“I don't have proof yet.”
“Then don't give me hope you can't support.”
“I won't.”
There was a knock. Detective Keene entered carrying a sealed evidence bag.
Inside lay Marin's abandoned package. The cardboard had been soaked through and sliced open.
“Found this in the cannery yard,” he said. “Whatever was inside is gone.”
Roman's face hardened.
Keene continued, “We also found fresh tire tracks. Your delivery truck is missing.”
Marin looked at the empty box and understood exactly what it meant: Victor possessed the evidence, her name, and the means to threaten anyone she loved.
Then Keene turned the box over.
On the underside, pressed into the wet cardboard, was a small stamped symbol: a crown above three waves.
Roman stopped breathing for a beat.
“That's my daughter's mark,” he said.
Marin looked up. “You have a daughter?”
May you like
His good hand closed into a fist.
“And Victor knows where she is.”
