Chapter 10 - The Third Brother
The old man stepped beneath the warehouse light.
He resembled my father enough to make the night feel unreal, but there were differences. His hair was whiter. His posture straighter. A thin scar crossed his upper lip.
Eleanor whispered, “Andrew.”
So she knew him.
Nathan smiled.
“Now we’re getting somewhere.”
I looked at her.
“Who is Andrew?”
“My father’s brother,” Evan said from the chair.
His voice was weak.
“My uncle?”
“Yes.”
Eleanor stared at Andrew as though she had seen a ghost.
“You died in London.”
Andrew smiled.
“People in this family die very conveniently.”
Gabriel folded his arms.
“Tell him.”
Andrew looked at me.
“Your grandfather Samuel had a twin. Me. He was seven minutes older.”
I almost laughed.
“Does every generation do this?”
“Apparently God has a sense of humor.”
Nathan pressed the gun harder against Evan’s temple.
“Enough family history. The key.”
I held it up.
“The watch first.”
Gabriel removed my father’s silver watch from his pocket.
He tossed it.
I caught it.
Still ticking.
Andrew said, “Open the back.”
I turned the watch over.
The rear plate had a crescent-shaped indentation.
I inserted the brass key.
Perfect fit.
A click.
The watch face popped open.
Beneath it was a tiny digital screen.
Nine digits flashed.
317129000.
Then the screen asked:
SECOND HEIR CODE.
Gabriel stepped beside me.
“This is why we need both of us.”
I looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“Dad told me.”
I glanced at Evan.
He looked ashamed.
“You’ve been with him?”
“For years,” Gabriel said. “Just not by choice.”
Nathan laughed.
“None of us were.”
I said, “What’s the second heir code?”
Gabriel touched the crescent mark below his ear.
“Birth times.”
4:09.
4:17.
Backward from the promise.
I entered 417409.
The watch beeped.
ACCESS DENIED.
Gabriel smiled.
“You assumed you came first.”
He entered 409417.
The screen changed.
BIOMETRIC CONFIRMATION REQUIRED.
Two small metal contacts extended from the sides.
Gabriel placed his thumb on one.
I placed mine on the other.
The screen went black.
Then a map appeared.
Coordinates.
Andrew’s face changed.
“There.”
Nathan saw it too.
He lowered the pistol slightly.
Evan moved.
Fast.
Faster than a man his age should.
He drove his shoulder into Nathan’s waist.
The gun fired.
Eleanor screamed.
The bullet struck a steel support.
I lunged.
Gabriel grabbed my arm.
For one instant, I thought he was stopping me.
Then he pulled me aside as Nathan fired again.
The bullet hit Gabriel in the shoulder.
He fell.
“Gabriel!”
My voice calling his name surprised me.
Blood spread across his shirt.
He looked up at me.
“Eight minutes,” he gasped.
“What?”
“I’m still older.”
“Shut up.”
I pressed my hand against the wound.
Lena’s officers poured from both doors.
“Police! Drop it!”
Nathan fired toward them.
Bell emerged from the maintenance tunnel and tackled him.
They crashed into a stack of pallets.
Eleanor ran to Evan.
I dropped beside Gabriel.
Paramedics rushed in.
As they moved Gabriel onto a stretcher, he grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t let Andrew take the watch.”
I looked toward my uncle.
He was gone.
“Where did he go?”
Marcus ran toward the rear door.
Too late.
Outside, an engine roared.
Andrew vanished into the fog.
I looked down.
The silver watch was missing.
Nathan, handcuffed and bleeding from the mouth, laughed.
“You all still think I’m the villain.”
Lena pulled him upright.
“You kidnapped Eleanor.”
“She asked me to.”
Every head turned.
Eleanor went still.
I looked at her.
“What?”
Nathan grinned through blood.
“She called me this morning. Said the only way to flush Andrew out was to make him think the ledger was moving.”
Eleanor’s silence confirmed it.
“You staged your own kidnapping?”
“Daniel—”
“You let me think you were going to die.”
“I needed you to follow the trail.”
“Why not tell me?”
“Because Andrew has someone inside your circle.”
Bell said, “We already knew that.”
Eleanor looked at him.
“No. You found Julian’s payments and assumed.”
Julian, entering from the tunnel with police, stopped.
Eleanor continued.
“Julian is loyal.”
Bell looked disgusted.
“Then who?”
My mother turned toward Marcus.
Marcus’s face hardened.
“Careful.”
“It isn’t Marcus.”
“Then who?”
A gunshot cracked outside.
Everyone ducked.
Then my phone rang.
Claire.
I answered.
All I heard was Evie screaming.
“Claire?”
A man’s voice said, “Mr. Vale, your wife made the mistake of trusting a police officer.”
I looked at Lena.
Her face drained.
“Which officer was assigned to the SUV?”
She ran outside.
I followed.
The armored vehicle sat empty.
Door open.
A smear of blood on the pavement.
No Claire.
No Evie.
Lena stared at the discarded badge lying near the tire.
Her voice was almost inaudible.
“That officer has worked for me for seven years.”
Nathan laughed behind us.
“Halcyon has worked longer.”
Lena grabbed my shoulder before I could run blindly into the fog. “Daniel, think. Whoever took Claire wants you emotional.”
“They succeeded.”
“I know. That’s why you use me.”
I hated her calm, but I needed it. Marcus searched the SUV and found a second phone taped beneath the rear seat. Its screen showed a map of Philadelphia covered in pulsing dots—our vehicles, my penthouse, the hospital, the old headquarters. Someone had been tracking us continuously.
Nathan looked over Lena’s shoulder and smiled. “There’s your inside man.”
“That proves nothing,” Marcus snapped.
“It proves access.”
Eleanor stepped closer to the map. “No. It proves theater. If Halcyon wanted us dead, they wouldn’t show us how closely they can watch. They want Daniel to chase the traitor instead of the hostage.”
I looked at her. “You sound like you know their methods.”
Her gaze held mine. “I do.”
That answer became another question I did not have time to ask.
On the pavement, I found one of Evie’s tiny socks. White cotton, pink stitching, damp from the river fog. Claire had packed nothing when she came to me. We had bought those socks only hours earlier. I picked it up and closed my fist around it.
Gabriel was being loaded into an ambulance when he saw me. His face was gray from blood loss, but he called out, “Daniel.”
I turned.
“If they took the baby, they’ll use the trust.”
“What do you know?”
“Samuel used to say the marked child is never a child. It’s a key.”
May you like
The ambulance doors shut before I could ask more.
I stood beside the empty SUV, Evie’s sock in one hand and a brother’s warning in the other, and understood that Claire’s kidnapping was not an escape from the Pier Nine disaster. It was the next move in a plan older than either of us.
