Chapter 2 - The Brother in the Photograph
Grant did not open the door.
He turned.
The whisper had come from Dominic.
Dominic’s face had gone pale.
“You know him?” Grant asked.
Dominic pointed through the glass.
“No. The photo.”
Grant looked again.
The stranger had stepped away from the door but had not left. He stood beneath the butcher shop awning, patiently holding the picture.
“What about it?”
Dominic swallowed.
“Caleb isn’t looking at the camera.”
Grant examined the photograph.
Dominic was right.
Gideon, Samuel, and Rafael faced the lens.
Caleb looked toward something outside the frame.
His right hand was raised slightly.
He appeared to be warning someone.
“Open the door,” Grant said.
Rafael grabbed his arm.
“No.”
Grant looked down at Rafael’s hand.
Rafael released him immediately.
“If that man wanted to talk,” Rafael said, “he’d come inside.”
“He tried.”
“He wants you outside.”
Nora moved toward the register.
“Back entrance.”
Grant looked at her.
“Where?”
“Through the cutting room.”
Nora flipped the lock on the front door and switched the sign from OPEN to CLOSED.
The old man watched.
Then he smiled again.
He knew exactly what they were doing.
Grant pointed at Dominic.
“Stay here.”
To Rafael: “You’re coming with me.”
Nora grabbed a heavy coat.
“So am I.”
“No.”
“It’s my shop.”
“It’s my brother.”
“And my father’s pendant.”
Grant stared at her.
Neither moved.
Rafael muttered, “We don’t have time.”
Grant finally nodded.
“Fine.”
They crossed the cutting room, passed the walk-in freezer, and exited into a narrow alley behind the building.
Grant went left.
Nora followed.
Rafael came last.
They reached the corner.
The sidewalk was empty.
The old man was gone.
On the pavement lay the photograph.
Grant picked it up.
Beneath it was a brass key.
A paper tag was attached.
UNIT 314.
Nora crouched beside him.
“Storage unit?”
“Maybe.”
Rafael said, “Throw it away.”
Grant stood slowly.
“You’re becoming very interested in what I don’t investigate.”
“I’m interested in keeping you alive.”
“Then start talking.”
“Not here.”
“Here works.”
Rafael looked at Nora.
Grant noticed.
“She stays.”
“Grant—”
“She stays.”
Rafael rubbed his face.
“Your father didn’t disappear because of the Marconis.”
Grant felt something cold move through his chest.
Nora listened silently.
Rafael continued.
“Gideon found out someone had been moving money through his businesses.”
“Samuel?”
“No.”
“Caleb?”
Rafael did not answer quickly enough.
Grant stared at him.
“My brother?”
“Caleb found it first.”
“What did he find?”
“A second set of books.”
“Whose?”
“I never saw the name.”
Grant laughed once, without humor.
“Twenty-two years beside me and suddenly your memory is failing.”
“I’m trying to tell you what I know.”
“You’re telling me what’s safe.”
Rafael’s jaw tightened.
“Caleb believed someone close to Gideon was building a separate organization. Shell companies. Judges. Police. Construction contracts. Unions. Enough leverage to survive even if the Callahans fell.”
“And Samuel?”
“Samuel discovered where the money went.”
Nora’s face changed.
“That’s why my father disappeared.”
Rafael nodded.
“He was supposed to meet Gideon the night the Cadillac burned.”
Grant looked at the pendant in his palm.
“Did they?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I drove Gideon.”
Grant stepped closer.
“You were there?”
“Until ten minutes before the explosion.”
Grant’s voice became quiet.
“You told me you were across town.”
“I lied.”
Nora watched Grant absorb it.
Rafael said, “Gideon ordered me to leave.”
“Why?”
“He said if things went wrong, I had to protect you.”
“And Caleb?”
“He arrived later.”
Grant looked at the photograph.
“So all four of you were together.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Grant punched him.
Rafael staggered into the brick wall.
Nora flinched but did not interfere.
Grant grabbed Rafael’s jacket.
“You watched me bury an empty coffin.”
“I know.”
“You watched me start a war.”
“I know.”
“You helped me kill men who had nothing to do with it.”
Rafael’s eyes filled with something Grant had never seen there.
Shame.
“I know.”
Grant released him.
Rafael slid one hand over his bleeding lip.
“There’s something else.”
Grant turned away.
“Of course there is.”
“Caleb called me two days after Gideon disappeared.”
Grant stopped.
Nora stared.
“He was alive?” Grant asked.
“At that point.”
“What did he say?”
“He said the Marconis didn’t kill Gideon. He told me not to trust anyone. Not even him.”
“Where was he?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“And then?”
“One week later, I received his ring in a box.”
Grant knew the ring.
Their mother had given Caleb a heavy gold signet ring on his eighteenth birthday.
Grant had buried it inside Caleb’s coffin.
“You told me police found it with his body.”
“There was no body.”
Grant turned.
“What?”
“We buried another empty coffin.”
For the first time, Nora saw Grant Callahan look truly shaken.
He stepped backward.
Seventeen years.
Two funerals.
Two graves.
No bodies.
“Caleb might be alive,” Nora said.
Grant stared at the words on the photograph.
HE IS ALIVE.
“Or someone wants me to believe that.”
Nora looked at the key.
“Only one way to know.”
They returned inside.
Dominic was standing near the front window.
“Where’s the old man?”
“Gone,” Grant said.
Dominic nodded toward the counter.
“He left something else.”
A small package sat beside the register.
Nora froze.
“How did that get inside?”
“I don’t know. I was watching the door.”
Grant approached carefully.
Brown paper.
Twine.
No return address.
He opened it.
Inside was a cassette tape.
Nora stared.
“You have anything that plays that?”
She pointed toward the office.
“My father’s old radio.”
They carried the cassette into a cramped back room.
Nora found the dusty player on a shelf.
Grant inserted the tape.
Static crackled.
Then a man’s voice filled the room.
Grant gripped the desk.
He knew that voice.
Caleb.
“If Grant is hearing this, Rafael finally stopped lying.”
Rafael closed his eyes.
The recording continued.
“Grant, I don’t know how old you are when this reaches you. I don’t know whether Dad survived. I don’t know whether Samuel did. But if you took over the family, listen carefully.”
Static.
A breath.
“There is someone inside our organization who was never loyal to us.”
Grant glanced at Rafael.
Caleb continued.
“He was building his own empire using ours as cover. Dad found out. Samuel proved it.”
Nora moved closer.
“Samuel kept the proof somewhere nobody would search.”
The tape clicked.
Caleb’s voice weakened.
“If his daughter is alive, protect her.”
Nora’s eyes widened.
Grant looked at her.
“That proof is the reason Samuel Whitaker was marked for death.”
Another burst of static.
“Grant, if you find Nora…”
Grant went still.
Nora’s hand covered her mouth.
The recording was seventeen years old.
Caleb knew her name.
“…don’t trust the first person who claims to know where I am.”
The tape stopped.
Nobody spoke.
Dominic finally asked, “How old were you?”
Nora’s voice was barely audible.
“Twenty-one.”
Grant looked toward her.
“Did you know Caleb?”
“No.”
“Did your father mention him?”
“No.”
Rafael moved toward the door.
“We need to go to that storage unit.”
Grant stared at him.
“You suddenly want answers?”
“I want to know who sent the tape.”
Nora pocketed the key.
“Then we go together.”
Forty minutes later they reached Halpern Storage on the industrial south side.
Unit 314 was at the end of the third corridor.
Grant inserted the brass key.
It turned.
Inside was a single metal table.
A chair.
A locked document box.
And a portable television.
Nora stepped inside.
The television turned on by itself.
A live video appeared.
It showed Nora’s butcher shop.
Dominic was still there.
He was walking toward the rear freezer.
Nora frowned.
“Why is he going back there?”
On-screen, Dominic stopped.
Someone knocked from inside the freezer.
Grant looked at Nora.
“You said nobody else was there.”
“There wasn’t.”
Dominic reached for the freezer latch.
The screen flickered.
A message appeared.
GRANT, YOU HAVE TEN SECONDS TO DECIDE WHO YOU TRUST.
The video returned.
Dominic opened the freezer.
A man stepped out.
Older.
Gray hair.
A scar across his right hand.
The stranger from the sidewalk.
But now Grant could see his face clearly.
Rafael stumbled backward.
“No.”
Grant turned.
“You know him.”
Rafael stared at the screen as if seeing a ghost.
The old man looked directly into the hidden camera.
Then he slowly removed his glasses.
Grant’s blood went cold.
May you like
Rafael whispered:
“Samuel Whitaker…”
