Chapter 3 - The Name Behind My Companies
A gray-haired man emerged beside Michael.
Daniel recognized him immediately.
Thomas Vale.
Daniel's former attorney.
A man who had supposedly retired two years earlier.
Rebecca backed into the nursery.
"What is he doing here?"
Thomas looked older but not weaker.
"Trying to keep all of you alive."
Daniel stepped between him and Rebecca.
"Where's Claire?"
"I don't know."
Daniel showed him the photograph.
Thomas's expression tightened.
"Where did you get that?"
"Answer me."
Michael closed the elevator doors.
"Daniel, we don't have much time."
"You ran."
"I went downstairs because someone disabled the building security."
"You knew the nursery code."
"No."
"You knew Carter Meridian."
Michael said nothing.
Daniel's voice dropped.
"Claire said you're lying."
Michael looked toward the nursery.
"She's right."
Rebecca inhaled sharply.
Daniel stared at him.
Michael continued.
"I know the name. I didn't know what it had become."
Thomas entered the nursery and examined Claire's wall.
"She's farther along than I thought."
"With what?"
"Finding the person who took your father's network and rebuilt it inside your companies."
Daniel froze.
"My father?"
Daniel's father, Richard Carter, had died seventeen years earlier.
Officially, he'd left behind debts and several failing properties.
Daniel had rebuilt the family businesses from almost nothing.
Or so he'd believed.
Thomas pointed to Carter Meridian.
"That company existed before you owned your first restaurant."
Daniel looked at Michael.
"You knew?"
"Parts."
"How many parts?"
"Enough to know your father didn't die broke."
Thomas removed an old photograph from his coat.
Richard Carter stood beside three men.
One was Thomas.
One was much younger Michael.
The third man's face had been torn away.
On the back were four words.
MERIDIAN BELONGS TO THE HEIR.
Daniel read them twice.
"What heir?"
Thomas looked at him.
"You."
Daniel almost laughed.
"I don't own Meridian."
"Legally, you may own all of it."
Thomas explained that Richard had created a private holding structure before his death. Assets had been placed behind layers of companies and trusts.
Someone had hidden those assets.
Then, years later, started siphoning money from Daniel's legitimate companies into the old structure.
"Why?"
"To make it appear that you were moving the money yourself," Thomas said.
Rebecca understood first.
"They were building a case against him."
Thomas nodded.
"If investigators eventually found those transfers, every document would point toward Daniel."
Daniel looked at the insurance policy.
"And Claire?"
Thomas's face darkened.
"She became dangerous when she found the trail."
Daniel picked up his coat.
"I'm going to that address."
Michael blocked the hallway.
"Then you're doing exactly what they want."
"Move."
"No."
Daniel's eyes hardened.
Michael didn't move.
"Claire is pregnant."
"I know."
"Move."
Thomas interrupted.
"Look at the photograph."
Daniel did.
"Hospital room."
"No," Thomas said. "Look at the wall."
Daniel enlarged the image.
Behind Claire was a medical poster.
At the bottom was a logo.
Lakeshore Women's Center.
Rebecca shook her head.
"That clinic closed last year."
Daniel searched it.
Thomas was right.
Closed eleven months earlier.
The address from the message wasn't the clinic.
It was an abandoned office building two blocks away.
A trap.
"Then where is Claire?"
Rebecca whispered.
Daniel examined the photograph again.
Claire wasn't looking at the camera.
She was looking toward something on her left.
A clock.
6:42.
The message had arrived at 9:18.
The photograph was old.
Maybe hours old.
Maybe days.
Daniel noticed something else.
A bracelet around Claire's wrist.
Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
He enlarged the image.
Rebecca gasped.
Daniel grabbed his keys.
Michael followed.
They drove through Chicago in silence.
At the hospital, Daniel discovered Claire had been admitted three days earlier after experiencing premature contractions.
She had discharged herself the next morning.
"Was she alone?" Daniel asked.
The nurse hesitated.
"A man came for her."
Michael showed his identification.
"Description?"
The nurse described someone in his fifties.
Gray hair.
Expensive coat.
Daniel slowly turned.
Thomas had not come with them.
Michael immediately called him.
No answer.
Daniel called Rebecca.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
His phone vibrated.
A message from Rebecca.
Except it wasn't words.
It was a photograph.
The nursery.
Empty.
The wall of documents had been stripped clean.
Then another photograph arrived.
Thomas Vale standing beside Rebecca.
He was holding Claire's flash drive.
Daniel stared at Michael.
"You brought him into my home."
"I thought he was helping us."
"You thought?"
Michael looked sick.
Daniel's phone rang.
Thomas.
Daniel answered.
"Where's Rebecca?"
"Safe."
"Where's Claire?"
A pause.
Then Thomas said:
"Your wife found something she was never supposed to find."
Daniel's hand tightened around the phone.
"If you touch either of them—"
"Stop performing, Daniel. This isn't one of your boardrooms."
"What do you want?"
"What belongs to me."
"Carter Meridian?"
Thomas laughed softly.
"No."
Daniel waited.
Thomas said:
"Your daughter."
The call ended.
Daniel stared at the screen.
Then another message appeared.
A scanned document.
At the top:
THE CARTER MERIDIAN FAMILY TRUST.
Beneficiary upon birth:
Daniel Carter's first biological child.
May you like
Daniel's daughter hadn't even been born.
And someone had already built an empire around her name.
