Chapter 6 - What David’s Father Left Behind
The hospital room was empty when Andrew arrived.
Not messy.
Not bloody.
Empty.
The sheets were pulled back. An IV line hung cut from the pole. One Carter guard lay unconscious in a supply alcove with a swollen temple. The second had been found in a stairwell.
David Stone was gone.
Cindy stood in the doorway wearing the same gray sweater Lucas had bought that morning.
She stared at the empty bed.
“This is my fault.”
Andrew turned sharply.
“No.”
“He came after me because of what his father knew.”
“He came after you because he was violent before any of this began.”
“But Graham used him because of me.”
“Graham used everyone.”
Andrew stepped closer.
“Do not help him by carrying guilt that belongs to him.”
Cindy looked at Andrew, surprised by the words.
He sounded as if he were speaking to himself too.
Lucas entered holding a tablet.
“Security footage was looped for seven minutes. Wheelchair exited through service elevator. White medical van left at nine forty-three.”
“Plate?”
“Stolen.”
“Traffic cameras?”
“Working it.”
Cindy thought about the message.
Ask him what his father left him.
“David kept a storage unit.”
Andrew looked at her.
“Where?”
“Brooklyn. After his mother died, he moved everything from their house into a unit. He used to complain about the monthly payment.”
“Name?”
“HarborLock Storage.”
Lucas was already searching.
“Three locations.”
Cindy closed her eyes.
“Red Hook. Near the repair shop where he worked.”
Andrew pointed toward the elevator.
“Move.”
HarborLock sat between an auto-body yard and a plumbing warehouse.
The manager was not eager to cooperate until Lucas placed a photograph of David on the counter and explained that the man had been abducted from a hospital.
The manager checked his system.
“Unit 318.”
“Access history?” Cindy asked.
He turned the monitor.
“Yesterday at six thirteen p.m.”
David.
Then again at two sixteen that morning.
A second entry using David’s code.
Cindy frowned.
“He was in my apartment at two sixteen.”
Andrew looked at Lucas.
“Graham.”
They reached Unit 318 with weapons drawn.
The padlock was already cut.
Inside, cardboard boxes had been overturned.
Old mechanic tools.
Family photographs.
A cracked television.
High school trophies.
Someone had searched everything.
Cindy stepped carefully through the mess.
“David hated throwing things away.”
Andrew scanned the unit.
“What are we looking for?”
“If I knew that, this would be easier.”
She picked up an old photo album.
A picture showed David at about ten years old beside his father, Patrick. Behind them stood a red Ford pickup.
Cindy paused.
“David used to talk about that truck.”
“What about it?”
“He said his father never let anyone drive it.”
Lucas searched the vehicle database.
“Truck was sold at estate auction after Patrick died.”
Cindy turned the photograph over.
Something was written on the back.
If David ever needs the truth, tell him to look under the saint.
Andrew read it.
“The saint?”
Cindy looked around.
A small plaster statue sat on the top shelf.
Saint Christopher.
Patron saint of travelers.
Lucas pulled it down.
The base had been glued.
Andrew broke it against the concrete floor.
A tiny brass key rolled out.
Cindy stared at it.
“Another key.”
Andrew gave a humorless smile.
“Apparently our fathers liked keys.”
The key opened a rusted metal cash box buried beneath old blankets.
Inside was a cassette tape.
A Polaroid.
A stack of invoices.
And a handwritten note addressed to David.
Cindy sat on an overturned crate and unfolded it.
David,
If you are reading this, I either finally found the courage to tell you, or I ran out of time.
I did something for money that got a man killed.
Michael Carter trusted the wrong people, and I helped one of them.
Graham Mercer paid me to shut down the warehouse cameras. He told me it was for a private meeting. I believed what I wanted to believe because we needed money.
After Michael died, Graham paid me again to keep quiet.
I kept quiet.
That makes me guilty too.
I recorded him six months later when I told him I wanted out.
If anything happens to me, the tape is insurance.
Do not become a man who solves fear by making someone else afraid.
Dad
Cindy’s hands shook.
The last sentence hurt more than the confession.
David had become exactly that.
Andrew took the cassette.
Lucas found an old tape player in the manager’s office.
The audio hissed.
Then Patrick Stone spoke.
“I want out.”
Graham Mercer answered.
“You don’t get out.”
“I shut down cameras. I never agreed to murder.”
“You agreed to be useful.”
“You shot Michael.”
A long pause.
Then Graham laughed softly.
“Michael was going to destroy everything.”
“You framed Romano.”
“I gave Carter an enemy. He needed one.”
Patrick’s voice rose.
“And the money?”
“Mine.”
“That fund belongs to all three of you.”
“Not anymore.”
The tape clicked.
Then Patrick said, “If something happens to me, my lawyer has a copy.”
Graham replied, “Then I’ll make sure your lawyer loses it.”
The recording ended.
No one spoke for several seconds.
Lucas finally said, “That’s enough to bury him.”
Andrew shook his head.
“Not alone. Old tape. Chain of custody is weak. He’ll call it fabricated.”
Cindy looked at the invoices.
“These aren’t old copies.”
She pulled one free.
“Some are from five years ago.”
Andrew stepped closer.
The invoice listed Bellweather Transport and a series of cash disbursements to a consulting company.
Mercer Advisory.
Cindy scanned the totals.
“Graham kept paying David.”
Her expression changed.
“He wasn’t only in debt to a bookmaker.”
Lucas understood.
“Graham had him on payroll.”
Cindy looked sick.
Andrew’s voice went flat.
“For what?”
She found another document.
Private investigator expense.
Subject: Cindy Stone.
Dates covering almost one year.
Andrew’s face became still.
David had not reappeared in Cindy’s life by accident.
Graham had put him there.
Cindy read more.
“He was watching me before I found the foundation transfers.”
“Maybe Graham was watching all senior staff,” Lucas said.
“No.”
She held up another page.
“My name is the only one here.”
Andrew took it.
“Why?”
Cindy looked through the box.
At the bottom was a newspaper clipping from twenty-six years earlier.
A car crash in Ohio.
Two adults killed.
Infant survives.
Cindy froze.
She knew the photograph.
Her parents.
Not the Stones.
Her own.
She had been adopted at eight months old by the people she called Mom and Dad.
She had always known that.
But she had never known much about her biological parents.
The clipping identified them as Elaine and Robert Hale.
Andrew read the names.
Cindy whispered, “My birth name was Hale.”
Lucas searched his tablet.
His eyes lifted slowly.
“Robert Hale was an accountant.”
“For who?” Andrew asked.
Lucas turned the screen.
“Michael Carter.”
Cindy stared.
Her biological father had worked for Andrew’s father.
The same year the MC Eleven fund was created.
The storage-unit door rattled behind them.
All three turned.
A phone had been taped to the outside handle.
Its screen lit.
Incoming video call.
Andrew answered.
Graham Mercer appeared on screen.
Perfect suit.
Silver hair.
Calm eyes.
Behind him, David sat tied to a chair.
One side of his face was bruised.
Graham smiled.
“Good morning, Cindy.”
Her stomach tightened.
Andrew stepped into view.
Graham’s smile widened.
“Andrew. I was wondering how long it would take your assistant to find her real name.”
Cindy’s voice was barely steady.
“What did my father know?”
Graham tilted the camera toward David.
“Enough to die.”
Andrew’s expression hardened.
Graham continued.
“And apparently, enough to leave something behind for his daughter.”
Cindy gripped the phone.
“I don’t have anything from him.”
“Maybe not knowingly.”
Graham’s eyes moved to the necklace at her throat.
Cindy touched it instinctively.
A small oval locket.
The only object her adoptive parents had received with her when she was a baby.
Graham smiled.
“There it is.”
Andrew looked at the necklace.
Cindy’s breath caught.
Graham said, “Bring me the locket by midnight.”
“Or what?” Andrew asked.
Graham turned the camera back toward David.
Cindy flinched.
Graham’s answer was quiet.
May you like
“Or Cindy loses the last person alive who can tell her what happened to her parents.”
Then the screen went black.
