Chapter 4 - Someone Had Followed Emma Home
Gabriel was moving before Emma could breathe.
"Sophie?"
No answer.
He called Luca.
Sophie was safe at the hospital.
The voice came again.
"Emma..."
Gabriel followed it into the stairwell.
A small speaker lay on the landing.
Recorded audio.
Beside it was a phone.
The screen illuminated.
A video began.
Emma saw herself entering Morning Grace twenty minutes earlier.
Someone had filmed them from across the street.
Then words appeared.
YOU FOUND THE KEY.
A second message followed.
NOW BRING IT TO US.
Gabriel smashed the phone beneath his shoe.
"That was evidence."
"They wanted us to find it."
"Who?"
"I intend to find out."
Emma looked at him.
"You're angry."
"They used my daughter's voice."
His calmness frightened her more than shouting would have.
Gabriel ordered Luca to take Emma away.
She refused.
"I'm not luggage."
"Tonight you are."
"No."
"Emma—"
"My father hid that key. Someone threatened my mother. Someone used Sophie's voice. I'm involved whether either of us likes it."
Gabriel stared at her.
"Then stay behind me."
"That sounded suspiciously like an order."
"It was."
"Still working on those."
They left together.
By morning, Luca identified the speaker's purchaser.
Cash.
Fake name.
But the security camera captured part of the buyer's face.
Gabriel recognized him.
Adrian Vale.
Once Salvatore Moretti's accountant.
Officially dead for eleven years.
Gabriel looked at the photograph.
"I attended his funeral."
Luca said, "Apparently he didn't."
Emma entered.
"Who's that?"
Gabriel told her.
She went pale.
"I've seen him."
"Where?"
"My bakery."
"When?"
"Years ago. Dad was alive. They argued in the back room."
"What did they say?"
"I don't remember."
Gabriel stepped closer.
"Try."
Emma closed her eyes.
Then she remembered one sentence.
Her father saying:
"My daughter is not payment for what I did."
Gabriel went still.
"Payment?"
"I was nineteen. I thought they were arguing about money."
Luca placed another photograph on the table.
Adrian Vale beside Salvatore Moretti.
Between them stood Thomas Brooks.
Emma's father.
All three were smiling.
The picture had been taken fourteen years earlier.
Three years before Thomas died.
Emma sat down.
"He lied about everything."
"No," Gabriel said. "He hid something."
"What's the difference?"
"Sometimes the reason."
Emma looked at him.
"You sound like someone who's practiced that explanation."
"I have."
That evening Emma visited Margaret.
She showed her the photograph.
Margaret stared at Adrian.
Her hands began trembling.
"Mom?"
"Take it away."
"You know him."
"Take it away."
"Please."
Margaret pushed the photograph away.
"Victor said Thomas was dead because of that man."
Emma froze.
"Victor?"
Margaret stared at her.
Then she whispered, "Victor Hale."
Gabriel, standing near the door, heard it.
His expression changed.
Emma noticed.
"Who is Victor Hale?"
Gabriel didn't answer immediately.
"Gabriel."
"He was my father's closest friend."
"Was?"
"Until he disappeared."
"When?"
"Fourteen years ago."
The same year as the photograph.
That night Gabriel searched old records.
Victor Hale had vanished with millions belonging to Salvatore.
Salvatore had accused him of betrayal.
No body had ever been found.
Emma's father had died two years later in what police called a workplace accident.
Too many dead men were suddenly alive inside the same mystery.
At midnight Emma returned to the secure apartment.
The door was closed.
She inserted her key.
It opened before she turned it.
Emma stopped.
She remembered Gabriel's instructions.
Never enter if anything looks wrong.
She stepped backward.
Then she heard breathing inside.
Not one person.
Two.
Emma reached for her phone.
A hand appeared through the gap.
It held the silver bracelet Sophie had been wearing the night of the crash.
Then a man's voice came from the darkness.
"Emma Brooks?"
She didn't answer.
The door opened another inch.
May you like
And the man inside said the one name Gabriel had warned her never to trust.
"Victor Hale sent me"...
