Chapter 3 - The Man at Table Seventeen
Edmund drew his pistol.
Vivian grabbed his arm.
“My father could be inside.”
“That’s why you stay behind me.”
“You say that a lot.”
“And you ignore it a lot.”
The warehouse door rose another foot.
Darkness beyond it.
Marco and four guards spread out.
Then a pair of hands appeared beneath the door.
Empty.
A man crawled out.
Victor.
“Dad!”
Vivian ran.
Edmund cursed and followed.
Victor collapsed into her arms.
His face was bruised.
His shirt was torn.
But he was alive.
“Vivian.”
“Who did this?”
Victor looked over her shoulder.
At Edmund.
Fear changed his face.
“Get away from him.”
Vivian stiffened.
Edmund stopped several feet away.
“Victor.”
“You promised.”
“I promised to protect her.”
“You promised she would never know.”
Vivian stood.
“Know what?”
Victor closed his eyes.
“Dad.”
“Not here.”
She almost laughed.
Apparently every man in her life had agreed on those two words.
“Everybody keeps saying that.”
A shot cracked from inside the warehouse.
Edmund shoved Vivian down.
Marco fired toward the darkness.
Footsteps ran across metal stairs.
“North exit!” Marco shouted.
Guards pursued.
Edmund looked at Victor.
“Who brought you here?”
Victor’s mouth trembled.
“A man from the wedding.”
“Name.”
“I don’t know his real name.”
“What did he look like?”
Victor shook his head.
“He was sitting at Table Seventeen.”
Vivian remembered.
Table Seventeen had contained city officials, shipping executives, two judges and one man she had never seen before.
Gray hair.
Silver glasses.
He had toasted her marriage.
“What did he want?”
Victor looked at Vivian.
“The ledger.”
“What ledger?”
Victor stood shakily.
Edmund said, “The Aurelia ledger.”
Victor glared.
“You should never have told her.”
“She was shot at.”
“Because you married her!”
“No. Because somebody discovered what she inherited.”
Vivian looked between them.
“What did I inherit?”
Victor said nothing.
She stepped toward him.
“You sold everything.”
“I know.”
“You gambled away our houses, our company, my future.”
His eyes filled.
“I know.”
“And now you’re telling me there was something left?”
Victor looked broken.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“Your mother’s shares.”
Vivian stared.
“In what?”
“Aurelia Maritime.”
“That company was fake.”
Victor shook his head.
“The company was real. Its public business was fake.”
Edmund lowered his weapon.
“Victor.”
“No more secrets.”
Victor looked at his daughter.
“Your mother founded it.”
Vivian felt the air leave her lungs.
“My mother?”
“She discovered criminals were using our shipping network. She created Aurelia to follow the money without alerting them.”
“So she was investigating them.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Victor glanced toward the warehouse.
“People powerful enough to kill her.”
Vivian went cold.
“The car accident.”
Victor began crying.
“I lied.”
“My mother didn’t die accidentally.”
“No.”
“Did you know who killed her?”
“I suspected.”
“Who?”
Victor looked toward Edmund.
Then back at Vivian.
“Someone inside the Costa organization.”
Edmund’s face hardened.
Marco stared at him.
Victor continued.
“Your mother left evidence. I hid it.”
“The ledger.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I never knew.”
“You just said you hid it.”
“I hid what I thought was the ledger. Your mother switched it.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
Vivian laughed bitterly.
“That phrase is becoming unbearable.”
Victor reached for her.
She stepped away.
He let his hand fall.
“The real ledger contains names, payments, routes. Judges. Police. Businessmen. Men in both families.”
“And whoever wants it thinks I have it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother left it to you.”
Edmund looked at Victor.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
A guard returned.
“Warehouse clear. Shooter escaped through the water exit.”
“Boat?”
“Probably.”
Edmund looked at Victor.
“Table Seventeen.”
Victor nodded.
“The man told me the marriage changed everything. He said once Vivian became your wife, he had to move before the ledger reached you.”
“Why abduct you?”
“To make me tell him where it was.”
“And you couldn’t.”
“No.”
Vivian looked at her father.
“Why did you start gambling?”
Victor flinched.
She suddenly understood.
“It wasn’t gambling.”
He looked away.
“You were moving money.”
“I was paying them.”
“For years?”
“To keep them away from you.”
Vivian’s anger did not disappear.
But its shape changed.
“You destroyed our family to pay blackmailers.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me hate you.”
Victor whispered, “That was safer.”
Vivian turned away.
Edmund watched her.
She hated that he understood what she was feeling.
Because she barely understood it herself.
Her entire life had been rewritten in less than an hour.
Her mother murdered.
Her father blackmailed.
Her husband connected to both.
And somewhere in Bellhaven was a ledger people were willing to kill for.
Marco approached Edmund.
“We identified Table Seventeen.”
He handed over a tablet.
Vivian stepped beside Edmund.
Photographs appeared.
Judge Aaron Pike.
Councilman Thomas Reeve.
Shipping magnate Conrad Hale.
Police Commissioner James Rowe.
Then the unknown man.
The screen displayed no name.
“Facial recognition?” Edmund asked.
“Nothing.”
“Impossible.”
“Unless the image is false.”
Vivian leaned closer.
“What do you mean?”
Marco enlarged the photograph.
“The man entered the hotel using credentials belonging to someone who died eleven years ago.”
Edmund’s eyes narrowed.
“Whose?”
Marco hesitated.
“Gabriel Costa.”
Edmund stopped breathing.
Vivian looked at him.
“Who is Gabriel?”
Nobody answered.
“Edmund?”
His voice was almost inaudible.
“My brother.”
Vivian stared at the photograph.
“You have a brother?”
“Had.”
“When did he die?”
“Eleven years ago.”
The same number.
The same year her mother died.
Victor made a broken sound.
Edmund turned.
“You knew.”
Victor backed away.
“Edmund—”
“You knew Gabriel was connected.”
“I didn’t know how much.”
Edmund grabbed Victor’s jacket.
“My brother burned alive in a car.”
“Edmund!”
Vivian pulled at his arm.
He released Victor.
Barely.
Victor coughed.
“The accident happened three days after Evelyn died.”
Vivian’s mother.
Edmund looked toward the black water beyond the warehouse.
Two deaths.
Three days apart.
Two families.
One hidden company.
Vivian remembered the wedding photograph.
Her mother standing beside Edmund.
“What was Edmund doing with Mom?”
Victor’s face changed again.
Edmund answered.
“She hired me.”
“For what?”
“To find the man stealing from Aurelia.”
“And did you?”
“I thought I did.”
“Who?”
Edmund looked at the tablet.
At his dead brother’s face.
“Gabriel.”
Silence.
Vivian whispered, “You thought your brother killed my mother?”
“Yes.”
“And then he died.”
“Yes.”
“But tonight someone used his identity.”
“Yes.”
Victor sank against the car.
Edmund took the tablet.
“Marco. Pull every camera from the hotel.”
“We already started.”
“I want Table Seventeen from the moment he entered until the shooting.”
Marco nodded.
Then paused.
“There is something else.”
He swiped to another image.
A security still showed the unknown man entering the ballroom.
A woman walked beside him.
Blonde.
Older.
Her face was turned away.
Vivian leaned closer.
Victor whispered, “No.”
“What?” she asked.
Victor looked terrified.
“That dress.”
Vivian zoomed in.
The woman wore a sapphire brooch.
A familiar brooch.
Vivian had seen it in childhood photographs.
Her mother had worn it almost every day.
“That belonged to Mom.”
Victor shook his head.
“I buried it with her.”
Marco swiped to the next frame.
The woman had turned toward the camera.
Vivian stared at the screen.
Her knees weakened.
The woman had her eyes.
Her mouth.
May you like
Her mother’s face.
And according to the timestamp, she had walked into Vivian’s wedding less than two hours ago.
