Chapter 6 - The Man Waiting Upstairs
Daniel drew Adam back from the stairs.
“Security first.”
Adam ignored him.
“Emma stays outside.”
Emma glared.
“No.”
“Someone is upstairs.”
“And this is my house.”
George picked up his cane.
“I’m going too.”
Adam looked at both of them.
He understood immediately why Emma was impossible to control.
She inherited it.
Two security officers entered ahead of them.
They cleared the first room.
Empty.
Second room.
Empty.
Then Sarah’s old sewing room.
The door was closed.
One officer reached for the handle.
It opened from inside.
Brian Walker stepped out.
Emma shouted, “Brian?”
His face was bruised.
Blood ran from his lip.
Adam grabbed him.
“What are you doing here?”
Brian shoved him away.
“I was trying to stop them.”
“Who?”
“Malcolm’s men.”
Emma stared.
“You broke into our house?”
“No.”
Brian wiped blood from his mouth.
“I saw a black truck leaving the property. I came inside.”
Daniel studied him.
“Convenient.”
“I know how it looks.”
“Bad.”
“Yes.”
Brian reached into his jacket.
Security moved instantly.
“Easy!”
He slowly removed a folded piece of paper.
“They dropped this.”
Adam took it.
A list of names.
Sarah Parker.
Thomas Bell.
Rachel Monroe.
George Parker.
Emma Parker.
Adam Collins.
Some names were crossed out.
Sarah.
Thomas.
At the bottom was a handwritten note.
RECOVER ORIGINAL LEDGER.
Emma whispered, “What ledger?”
George sat down heavily.
“I know.”
Everyone turned.
He looked older suddenly.
“Sarah kept books.”
Emma frowned.
“She was an analyst.”
“No. I mean actual notebooks.”
George looked toward Sarah’s sewing room.
“She wrote everything by hand when she stopped trusting computers.”
“Where?” Adam asked.
George stared at the floor.
“I thought I destroyed them.”
Emma looked at him.
“What?”
“Your mother asked me to burn everything after she became sick. She was afraid someone would come after you.”
“Did you?”
George hesitated.
“One book wouldn’t burn.”
Brian frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“I couldn’t do it.”
George walked toward the sewing table.
He removed the lowest drawer.
Behind it was a narrow cavity.
Inside lay an old red notebook.
Emma covered her mouth.
George handed it to her.
“Your mother’s.”
Emma opened the first page.
Names.
Dates.
Property numbers.
Bank transactions.
Malcolm Price appeared repeatedly.
So did Meridian Infrastructure.
Then another name.
Vanessa Clarke.
Adam froze.
“No.”
Emma looked up.
“Vanessa?”
Daniel took the ledger.
Transactions linked a company owned by Vanessa’s father to Malcolm’s shell corporations.
Recent transactions.
Not fourteen years old.
Recent.
Adam felt betrayal settle into place.
Vanessa had not simply learned where he was.
She was involved.
Daniel’s phone rang.
He answered.
“Yes.”
His face went still.
“When?”
He lowered the phone.
“Vanessa’s gone.”
Adam stared.
“Gone where?”
“She left her Manhattan apartment two hours ago.”
Brian said, “Maybe she’s running.”
Adam looked at the ledger.
“No.”
A memory returned.
Vanessa asking about his land holdings months earlier.
Vanessa encouraging him to reconsider rural infrastructure investments.
Vanessa introducing him to Malcolm at dinners even though they already worked together.
He had seen none of it.
Because he had assumed greed in obvious places while ignoring manipulation beside him.
Emma touched the ledger.
“My mother found them years ago.”
“Yes.”
“And now they want this.”
Adam nodded.
“Which means we give them what they want.”
Daniel stared.
“No.”
“A copy.”
“No.”
“A controlled exchange.”
“Still no.”
Emma looked at Adam.
“I agree with Daniel.”
Adam almost smiled.
“That may be the first time anyone has ever said that voluntarily.”
Daniel ignored him.
“We send this to federal agents.”
“Already happening.”
“Then we wait.”
Adam shook his head.
“Malcolm has been controlling the timing for fourteen years.”
Emma understood.
“You want him to come here.”
“I want him somewhere we control.”
George said, “Not near my daughter.”
Adam looked at him.
“Never.”
The plan was simple.
Which meant everyone hated it.
Brian contacted Keystone using the same investigator number.
He claimed he had found the original ledger.
He offered to exchange it for cash.
Malcolm responded within twenty minutes.
Old grain warehouse.
Midnight.
Brian alone.
Adam smiled when he heard the condition.
“He knows Brian isn’t alone.”
Daniel nodded.
“Of course.”
“So we assume it’s a trap.”
Emma said, “Then don’t go.”
Adam looked at her.
“I have to.”
“No. You want to.”
“Both.”
She stepped closer.
“Do you still think putting yourself in danger proves something?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because Malcolm came after your mother. Your father. You.”
“That doesn’t make him your responsibility.”
Adam’s voice softened.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“But what happens next is.”
At 11:45 p.m., federal agents surrounded the warehouse from hidden positions.
Brian entered carrying a duplicate ledger.
Adam and Daniel waited in an adjacent storage building.
Emma had been ordered to remain with George.
She ignored that too.
Adam turned and found her behind him.
“You cannot be serious.”
“Very.”
“This is dangerous.”
“So was giving lunch to a strange man on the road.”
“That was also questionable judgment.”
She almost smiled.
Almost.
At midnight, a vehicle arrived.
Malcolm stepped out.
Alone.
Too alone.
Adam watched through a narrow window.
Brian stood in the warehouse.
“Where’s the money?”
Malcolm smiled.
“You really do think small.”
“Money was the deal.”
“The deal changed.”
Malcolm looked toward the shadows.
“Adam.”
Adam remained still.
Malcolm laughed.
“You always did enjoy dramatic presentations.”
Adam stepped out.
Federal agents tensed.
“You wanted me here,” Adam said.
“I wanted you ruined.”
“Why?”
“Because you were going to sell.”
Adam frowned.
Collins Global had received acquisition offers months earlier.
He rejected them.
Malcolm continued.
“If you sold your controlling interest, every historical transaction would face due diligence.”
“So you needed me removed.”
“I needed you discredited.”
“You sent me to Mill Creek.”
“Yes.”
Emma stiffened beside Daniel.
Malcolm smiled.
“Your ridiculous little search for true love made it easy.”
Adam’s face hardened.
“You knew what I was planning?”
“Vanessa knew.”
There it was.
“She told you.”
“She told me everything.”
Adam felt no heartbreak.
Only disgust.
Malcolm continued.
“We arranged the bus options. We knew you would choose somewhere remote.”
“But why Mill Creek?”
“Because if you were discovered living with the Parkers, I could connect you directly to the old land fraud.”
“You planned to frame me.”
“Yes.”
Malcolm shrugged.
“Then you fell in love with the woman.”
Emma stared.
Malcolm laughed softly.
“That complicated things.”
Brian held up the fake ledger.
“You want this or not?”
Malcolm looked at him.
“No.”
Everyone froze.
“I already have what I came for.”
A phone rang.
Emma’s.
She looked down.
George Parker.
She answered.
“Dad?”
No response.
Then Vanessa’s voice came through.
“Hello, Emma.”
Adam turned white.
Emma whispered, “Where is my father?”
Vanessa laughed.
“Back where Adam’s little experiment began.”
The old bus shelter.
They raced there.
Police arrived seconds behind them.
The shelter was empty.
A cane lay in the road.
George’s cane.
Emma ran toward it.
“Dad!”
Adam saw tire tracks leading toward the abandoned roadside building where he had spent his first night.
The door stood open.
Inside, a light switched on.
A figure appeared.
George sat tied to a chair.
May you like
Vanessa stood behind him.
And in her hand was a gun.
