Chapter 5 - The Photograph from Morning Grace
Emma ran.
She didn't scream.
She hit Gabriel's emergency contact and sprinted toward the elevator.
The apartment door opened behind her.
A man followed.
"Emma, wait!"
She reached the elevator.
Locked.
Security protocol.
The man was coming closer.
Then Gabriel stepped from the stairwell.
He slammed the stranger against the wall.
Luca arrived seconds later.
The second intruder surrendered.
They weren't assassins.
They were private investigators.
Or claimed to be.
The first man's name was Noah Pierce.
He carried a message.
"Victor Hale wants to meet Emma."
Gabriel tightened his grip.
"Victor Hale is dead."
"No. He wants you to believe that."
"Where?"
Noah looked at Emma.
"Only her."
"Not happening."
Emma stepped forward.
"Why me?"
"Because Thomas Brooks left something for you."
"The ledger?"
Noah shook his head.
"The truth."
Gabriel released him.
Noah handed Emma an envelope.
Inside was another photograph.
Morning Grace.
But this one had been taken before it was a bakery.
Thomas stood outside with Salvatore Moretti.
On the back:
For Emma, when she is old enough to understand why I chose her over them.
Emma's throat tightened.
"Chose me?"
Gabriel examined the picture.
There was a date.
The day Emma turned five.
Margaret had always said Thomas became her stepfather when Emma was four.
Emma suddenly realized something.
Thomas wasn't her biological father.
She had known that.
What she had never asked was who was.
She went directly to Margaret.
"Who was my biological father?"
Margaret stared at her.
"Mom."
Tears appeared in Margaret's eyes.
"I promised Thomas."
"He's dead."
"That's why I promised."
"Was it Victor?"
Margaret shook her head.
"Salvatore?"
"No."
"Then who?"
Margaret gripped Emma's wrist.
"You were never supposed to meet those men."
"Which men?"
"Any of them."
Gabriel waited outside.
Emma sat closer.
"Please."
Margaret's clarity flickered.
Then returned.
"Your father was a good man."
"Thomas?"
"The only father that mattered."
"Who was the other one?"
Margaret looked toward the doorway.
"Adrian."
Emma stopped breathing.
Adrian Vale.
The supposedly dead accountant.
The man who had visited Morning Grace.
The man connected to Gabriel's father.
The man who might now be hunting them.
Emma walked into the hallway.
Gabriel read the answer on her face.
"Who?"
"Adrian Vale."
Luca immediately called for additional security.
Emma leaned against the wall.
"My biological father may be the man who tried to kill Sophie."
"We don't know that."
"You think he arranged the crash."
"I think he's involved."
"Why?"
Gabriel hesitated.
"Tell me."
"The SUV wasn't meant to explode."
"What?"
"The device under the hood was crude. It created fire after impact."
"Meaning?"
"It was meant to destroy evidence."
"What evidence?"
Gabriel looked at her.
"Sophie."
Emma went cold.
Gabriel continued.
"The driver had something. Someone believed Sophie might have seen it."
"Your driver?"
"Marco. He'd worked for me twelve years."
"And the photograph was in his apartment."
"Yes."
Emma understood.
"Marco found my father's trail."
"That's what I think."
Gabriel showed her Marco's last encrypted message.
FOUND T.B. CONNECTION. GIRL MAY BE KEY.
Emma frowned.
"Girl?"
Gabriel had assumed Sophie.
Now he wasn't certain.
Maybe Marco had meant Emma.
That evening, Sophie asked Emma to stay.
Emma sat beside her until she slept.
Gabriel stood near the window.
"She trusts you."
"I trust her."
"That's rarer."
Emma looked at him.
"What happens if Adrian really is my father?"
"Nothing changes."
"You don't know that."
"I know you."
"You've known me four days."
"I've known men for twenty years who showed me less truth than you did in twenty minutes."
Their eyes held.
Emma looked away first.
Gabriel's phone buzzed.
Unknown sender.
One photograph.
Emma sleeping beside Sophie's bed.
Taken moments earlier.
Inside the hospital.
Beneath it:
DAUGHTERS SHOULD KNOW THEIR FATHERS.
Gabriel immediately locked down the floor.
But Emma noticed something in the photograph.
A reflection.
The photographer was visible in the window.
She enlarged it.
Gabriel stared.
Because the person holding the camera was wearing a hospital identification badge.
May you like
And Gabriel knew him.
It was Sophie's surgeon, Dr. Daniel Hart...
