Chapter 2 - The Man Who Should Have Been Dead
Emily couldn’t move.
The hallway disappeared.
The city lights disappeared.
Even Adrian seemed to vanish from her awareness.
There was only the man.
Same gray-blue eyes.
Same uneven eyebrow.
Same tiny scar beneath the left corner of his mouth.
Older now.
Thinner.
His hair almost completely silver.
But Daniel Carter’s face had lived inside Emily’s memories for sixteen years.
No daughter forgot her father’s face.
“Emmy.”
Her knees weakened.
Adrian caught her elbow.
Emily jerked away instinctively.
“Don’t touch me.”
He released her immediately.
Daniel’s expression tightened with pain.
“I know you have questions.”
Emily stared at him.
Questions?
She had buried him.
She had stood beside a polished wooden coffin at eleven years old while adults told her Daddy wasn’t coming home.
She had watched her mother collapse beside the grave.
She had spent years afraid she would forget the sound of his laugh.
Questions did not begin to describe what filled her mind.
“You’re dead.”
“I was supposed to be.”
Her mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Adrian stepped between them slightly.
“You knew she was here tonight.”
Daniel looked at him.
“I hoped she wouldn’t be.”
“You sent the documents?”
“No.”
“The photograph?”
“Yes.”
Emily found her voice.
“Stop.”
Both men looked at her.
“Neither of you gets to talk around me.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“You’re right.”
“Where have you been?”
“Trying to keep you alive.”
“For sixteen years?”
“Yes.”
Emily slapped him.
The sound cracked through the hallway.
Daniel didn’t move.
Adrian remained silent.
Emily’s palm burned.
Tears finally spilled freely down her cheeks.
“You don’t get to say that like it makes anything better.”
“I know.”
“My mother thought you were dead.”
Daniel’s eyes changed.
“Your mother knew.”
Emily stared at him.
“No.”
“She knew I survived.”
“That’s a lie.”
“I wish it were.”
“Stop lying!”
Her voice echoed through the corridor.
Security personnel appeared at the far end.
Adrian raised one hand.
They stopped.
Emily pressed both palms against her temples.
Her mother had cried for years.
Had refused to remarry.
Had told Emily stories about Daniel every birthday.
There was no possible world in which she knew he lived.
Daniel reached into his jacket.
Adrian moved instantly.
“Slowly.”
Daniel gave him a tired look.
“If I wanted to hurt her, Adrian, I had sixteen years.”
He removed a small recorder.
Old-fashioned.
Digital.
He placed it on the hallway table.
“Your mother recorded this the night I disappeared.”
Emily stared at it.
“Why?”
“Because she knew one day you might find Harbor.”
Adrian picked up the recorder, inspected it, then handed it to Emily.
She pressed play.
Static.
Then her mother’s voice.
Older than Emily remembered from childhood, younger than the woman she spoke to every Sunday now.
“If Emily is hearing this, then everything we did failed.”
Emily covered her mouth.
The recording continued.
“Daniel found evidence that the Harbor project was being used to move money through construction contracts. Not thousands. Hundreds of millions. When he tried to expose it, people inside the Romano organization discovered him.”
Emily looked at Adrian.
His face had gone rigid.
Her mother continued.
“Salvatore Romano tried to help us. That is why we trusted him. He arranged Daniel’s death on paper because it was the only way to get him out alive.”
Emily’s eyes moved toward the photograph.
Daniel and Salvatore.
Not enemies.
Allies.
“Daniel wanted to come back for Emily,” the recording said. “I begged him not to. We believed whoever controlled Harbor would watch us forever.”
Emily pressed pause.
She couldn’t breathe.
Daniel stood silently.
“You let me mourn you.”
“Yes.”
“Mom let me mourn you.”
“Yes.”
“For sixteen years.”
His eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Emily wanted to strike him again.
Instead she walked back into Adrian’s office and sat.
Her legs could no longer support her.
Daniel remained outside until Adrian looked at Emily.
She nodded once.
Adrian allowed him in.
The door stayed open this time.
Emily noticed.
Adrian noticed her noticing.
Neither commented.
“What does Harbor have to do with me?” Emily asked.
Daniel sat across from her.
“Your name was never supposed to be involved.”
“But it is.”
“Which means someone found out who you are.”
“I’m an executive at Romano Group. Everyone knows who I am.”
Daniel shook his head.
“Not that.”
Emily’s stomach tightened.
“Then what?”
“You inherited something from me.”
“Debt?”
A sad smile touched his face.
“Evidence.”
Emily blinked.
“I don’t have anything.”
“You do. You just don’t know it.”
Adrian leaned against the desk.
“What evidence?”
Daniel looked toward him.
“The original Harbor ledger.”
Adrian’s expression sharpened.
“The ledger doesn’t exist.”
“That’s what everyone believes.”
“Where is it?”
Daniel looked back at Emily.
“Your father gave it to you.”
Emily laughed bitterly.
“You are my father.”
“I gave it to you before I disappeared.”
“I was eleven.”
“Yes.”
“I would remember receiving a ledger.”
“Not if you thought it was something else.”
A childhood memory flickered.
Daniel kneeling beside her bed.
Her red music box.
A silver key.
Emily looked at him.
“No.”
Daniel saw recognition.
“Yes.”
“The music box?”
“You still have it?”
“At Mom’s house.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
Relief.
Adrian straightened.
“We need to move it.”
Emily looked at him.
“No.”
“Emily—”
“We are not breaking into my mother’s house because my dead father walked into your office and told me my childhood music box contains evidence.”
Daniel almost smiled.
Adrian didn’t.
“Your forged signature proves someone is already looking.”
“They could be looking for something else.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“The number 117 is a message.”
“You said it was your hospital room.”
“It was.”
“So?”
“The person who forged it knows I survived.”
Emily stared at him.
Daniel’s face had lost all warmth.
“And they want me to know they know.”
Adrian picked up his phone.
“Vincent.”
A man answered immediately.
“Boss.”
“Put two teams around Margaret Carter’s house. Quietly.”
Emily stood.
“No armed men around my mother.”
“Then tell me what alternative you prefer.”
“I call her.”
“Do it.”
Emily dialed.
Her mother answered on the fourth ring.
“Emily?”
Relief surged through her.
“Mom.”
“Sweetheart, it’s late.”
“I know. Are you home?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Is anyone there?”
Another pause.
Too long.
“Why?”
Emily looked at Daniel.
His face had changed.
He was listening.
“Mom, I need you to go upstairs and lock your bedroom door.”
“Emily, what happened?”
“Please.”
Her mother lowered her voice.
“There’s a man downstairs.”
Emily’s blood turned cold.
“Who?”
“He said Adrian sent him.”
Adrian was already shaking his head.
Emily’s voice trembled.
“Mom, Adrian didn’t send anyone inside.”
Silence.
Then Margaret whispered, “Oh.”
A floorboard creaked through the phone.
Emily stood so quickly the chair fell.
“Mom?”
No answer.
“Mom!”
Another sound.
A door opening.
Then a man’s voice came through the phone.
Soft.
Close to Margaret.
“Tell Emily we found the box.”
The call ended.
Adrian was already moving.
Daniel grabbed his coat.
Emily stared at the dead screen.
Then another message appeared.
A photograph.
Her mother’s living room.
The red music box sat open on the table.
Empty.
Beneath it was a handwritten note.
Emily enlarged the image.
Four words.
ADRIAN HAS THE LEDGER.
Emily slowly raised her eyes.
May you like
Adrian was standing directly across from her.
And for the first time in three years, Emily had no idea whether the man she loved was the person she should fear most.
