Chapter 6 - The Last Secret
Thomas shoved Emily backward as the window shattered.
Alvarez drew her weapon.
“Down!”
I pulled Emily behind a parked car.
Another shot struck the porch railing.
Police moved toward the house.
Thomas crawled behind the doorway.
He wasn’t hit.
The falling figure had been a coat rack knocked over inside.
Officers entered.
The shooter was gone.
A rear window stood open.
Footprints led toward an alley.
Whoever had fired had escaped seconds before police surrounded the block.
Thomas was taken into protective custody.
Emily sat across from him at the precinct.
For a long time, neither spoke.
Then she asked the only question that mattered.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
Thomas cried.
“I was a coward.”
No excuse.
No heroic explanation.
Just truth.
He had believed leaving would protect Susan and Emily.
Then Susan became ill.
By the time he learned, she had forbidden him from returning because threats had started again.
After her death, Thomas continued secretly investigating NorthStar.
He sent information to federal agencies.
Nothing stuck.
Records disappeared.
Witnesses recanted.
People were paid.
Some were frightened.
Peter Sloan had eventually contacted Thomas.
Sloan discovered current fraud records that connected the old scheme to Richard Weller.
“What happened to Peter?” Alvarez asked.
Thomas looked at Marcus.
Marcus answered.
“He died on my operating table.”
“Was his death natural?”
“Yes.”
Marcus’s voice was firm.
“His injuries were catastrophic. I tried to save him.”
Thomas nodded.
“Pierce arranged the collision.”
“Proof?”
Thomas took a small key from around his neck.
“Not here.”
He had hidden a second archive.
Not financial records.
Audio.
Years of conversations.
Including Pierce discussing Sloan.
Including Weller instructing Pierce to “contain exposure.”
The archive was stored in a private locker at Union Station.
Federal agents were contacted.
This was no longer merely a local investigation.
By afternoon, Richard Weller’s attorneys released a statement denying all allegations.
Weller himself appeared on television.
He called the accusations “fantastical.”
Then something unexpected happened.
Lucas Moreno woke up.
Emily was allowed to see him.
He looked impossibly young beneath the hospital blankets.
His mother held his hand.
Emily approached.
“Lucas?”
His eyes opened.
“You’re the doctor.”
“Yes.”
“The one I told.”
“Yes.”
His lips moved.
“Did you find it?”
“The flash drive?”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
Relief crossed his face.
Then fear.
“He saw me.”
“Pierce?”
Lucas shook his head.
“Not him.”
Emily leaned closer.
“Who?”
“The other man.”
“What other man?”
Lucas described the crash.
Pierce’s SUV had followed him.
But another vehicle had blocked the intersection.
A dark sedan.
A man stepped out.
Pierce spoke to him.
Lucas had taken a photograph.
“Who was he?”
Lucas whispered a name.
Richard Weller.
Alvarez immediately searched the phone again.
One deleted photograph was recovered.
Blurry.
Dark.
But recognizable.
Weller.
At the scene.
That changed everything.
Federal agents obtained warrants.
NorthStar offices were searched.
Computers seized.
Accounts frozen.
Pierce was located at a private airfield outside Chicago.
He was arrested before boarding a chartered plane.
For the first time, Emily breathed.
But Weller was missing.
His attorneys claimed they didn’t know where he was.
That evening, Emily and I sat in my car outside St. Catherine.
She had worked only six hours.
I considered that progress.
“You realize,” I said, “normal people go to dinner when they start dating.”
“Are we dating?”
“I drove you into a criminal conspiracy.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I’d like us to be.”
She looked at me.
“I’d like that too.”
I smiled.
“Excellent. Dinner.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“I look terrible.”
“You were wearing someone else’s blood the first time we met.”
“Your standards are alarmingly flexible.”
We went to a small Italian restaurant.
No threats.
No detectives.
No hospital administrators.
For ninety minutes, we were just Daniel and Emily.
She told me she wanted children someday.
Then immediately looked embarrassed.
“That was aggressively personal.”
“I asked what you wanted your life to look like.”
“I know.”
“I want them too.”
Her expression softened.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“And a dog.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then this relationship has no future.”
“Cat.”
“Daniel.”
“One medium dog.”
“Two.”
“This negotiation is deteriorating.”
She laughed.
I loved the sound.
I didn’t say the other thing.
Not yet.
Too soon.
But I felt it.
After dinner, we returned to my car.
Emily opened the rear door.
“What are you doing?”
“Nostalgia.”
She climbed into the back seat.
Dropped her purse beside her.
Closed her eyes.
“Just home, please.”
I laughed.
“You’re unbelievable.”
She opened one eye.
“Wrong car?”
“Definitely.”
“Good.”
She moved to the front seat.
Then kissed me.
It should have been the end of the worst week of our lives.
It wasn’t.
My phone rang.
Ryan.
“Daniel.”
His voice was strained.
“What happened?”
“Someone’s at the office.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Call police.”
“I did.”
I was already starting the engine.
“Where are you?”
“In the server room.”
“Stay there.”
“He’s looking for something.”
“What?”
Ryan went silent.
Then whispered:
“Your car records.”
My blood chilled.
Emily heard him.
“Daniel,” Ryan said, “he wants the original GPS file from the night you picked up Emily.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Then we both realized.
My car had recorded every location that night.
Including the minutes before Emily entered.
I had been parked outside St. Catherine.
The vehicle’s exterior cameras might have captured traffic around us.
Maybe the black SUV.
Maybe Pierce.
Maybe someone else.
We raced to the office.
Police arrived simultaneously.
The intruder had fled.
Ryan was safe.
The server room had been searched.
But our backups were cloud-based.
I pulled the raw vehicle-camera archive.
We watched footage from Thursday night.
10:58.
11:04.
11:12.
Cars passed.
Doctors exited.
Nurses crossed the lane.
Then, at 11:16, before Emily entered my car, a black Escalade rolled past.
Marcus Vale’s vehicle.
Pierce was driving.
Beside him sat Richard Weller.
But that wasn’t what made Emily freeze.
In the rear seat was a third man.
Thomas Carter.
Her father.
Alive.
Unrestrained.
Talking calmly with them.
Emily stared at the screen.
“No.”
Thomas had told us he had been hiding from these men for years.
But the video showed him riding with them four days earlier.
Then another frame appeared.
Thomas turned toward the camera.
He seemed to notice my car.
His expression changed.
And Pierce handed him an envelope.
Emily stepped backward.
“My father lied again.”
Her phone buzzed.
A message from Thomas.
DON’T BELIEVE WHAT YOU THINK YOU SAW.
Then another.
I CAN EXPLAIN.
Then a third.
BUT NOT OVER THE PHONE.
An address followed.
Detective Alvarez recognized it.
An abandoned NorthStar records facility.
Police units headed there.
Emily and I followed.
The building was dark when we arrived.
The front door was unlocked.
Inside, a single light glowed at the end of a corridor.
Thomas’s voice came from behind a metal door.
“Emily?”
She reached for the handle.
Before she touched it, another voice spoke from inside.
Richard Weller’s.
“Bring my daughter in.”
Emily went completely still.
May you like
Thomas had never told her the final secret.
And Richard Weller had just called Emily his daughter.
