Chapter 6 - The Man Who Came Looking
"Lily!"
Emergency lights flickered on.
She was gone.
A rear door swung shut.
Marcus ran.
I followed.
We burst into the alley.
A man was pulling Lily toward a van.
She bit his hand.
He yelled.
That gave Marcus enough time.
Two guards tackled him.
I reached Lily.
She slammed into me.
"Daddy!"
It was the first time she'd called me that.
Even in terror, the word stopped my heart.
"I've got you."
Police arrived.
The attacker was arrested.
He was one of Richard's former security contractors.
That was enough.
The FBI moved immediately.
Richard was detained the next morning.
His offices were searched.
Accounts frozen.
Board members questioned.
For the first time, the empire he'd built on fear began collapsing under facts.
But Lily didn't care about any of that.
She cared about breakfast.
School.
Her teddy bear.
Whether she could paint her new bedroom pink.
Those ordinary questions saved me.
I stepped away from Mercer Capital temporarily.
For years, I'd believed losing control was weakness.
Then I discovered there were things worth losing control for.
I enrolled Lily in a school near my home.
Dad moved into a nearby apartment.
Arthur became "Uncle Arthur" within two weeks.
Thomas cooperated fully with investigators.
And every night, Lily asked for one story about Emily.
I told her everything good.
How her mother laughed.
How she hated raisins.
How she once walked six blocks in the rain because she'd seen an injured pigeon.
How she used to hide notes in my briefcase.
One night Lily asked, "Did Mama love you?"
"Yes."
"Did you love her?"
"Very much."
"Then why weren't you together?"
I thought carefully.
"Because people got scared and made bad choices."
"Are you scared now?"
"All the time."
She frowned.
"Then how come you're still here?"
That question stayed with me.
Because courage wasn't the absence of fear.
Emily had known that at the end.
Lily somehow knew it at seven.
Weeks passed.
Then prosecutors discovered Richard hadn't acted alone.
Someone inside Mercer Capital had helped him monitor Emily.
Someone still employed by me.
Marcus traced the surveillance access.
My chief operating officer.
Nathan Cole.
My closest friend since college.
I stared at the report.
"No."
Marcus placed another document beside it.
Nathan had accessed Emily's records.
Hospital records.
Lily's school information.
My old phone records.
Everything.
"Where is he?"
Marcus didn't answer immediately.
"Daniel."
"Where?"
"He checked Lily out of school twelve minutes ago."
My chair crashed backward.
I called the school.
The administrator confirmed it.
Nathan was listed on an emergency authorization form.
A form I had never signed.
Marcus traced his car.
It was moving north.
Then my phone rang.
Nathan.
I answered.
"Where is my daughter?"
His voice was calm.
"Bring me Emily's ledger."
"If you touch her—"
"Daniel."
Then Lily came onto the line.
"Daddy?"
"I'm here."
"I'm okay."
Nathan took the phone back.
"One hour."
The line went dead.
Marcus looked at the tracking screen.
Then his face changed.
"Nathan's car stopped."
"Where?"
He turned the monitor toward me.
May you like
The location was my father's apartment.
And Dad had just stopped answering his phone.
