Chapter 6 - The Last Message from Daniel Nolan
Victor stared at the photograph.
Vincent looked barely twenty.
But it was him.
“Where did you find this?”
“In the basement.”
Graham smiled.
“Now it becomes interesting.”
Victor ignored him.
Clare handed over the photograph.
A date was written behind it.
Twenty-one years earlier.
Three weeks before Elias disappeared.
Vincent entered the house moments later with two investigators.
Victor held up the picture.
“You told me you met Elias eleven years ago.”
Vincent stopped.
“I lied.”
Clare closed her eyes.
Victor laughed without humor.
“Of course.”
Graham was detained for questioning based on the financial evidence already delivered.
Mrs. Conti was not arrested.
Her “kidnapping” had been coordinated with Elias years earlier as an emergency contingency, though nobody had expected to use it.
Maisie had never been harmed.
But Victor barely processed any of it.
He wanted one answer.
Vincent.
They stood in the library after everyone else left.
“Start talking.”
Vincent sat.
“My father worked for yours.”
“I know.”
“I was nineteen when your father discovered Graham’s fraud.”
“And?”
“He needed someone Graham wouldn’t notice.”
“You.”
Vincent nodded.
“Your father asked me to deliver records to Elias.”
Victor stared at the photograph.
“So you knew each other.”
“Yes.”
“For twenty-one years.”
“Yes.”
“And when he disappeared?”
“I helped.”
Victor’s jaw tightened.
“You helped fake his death.”
“Yes.”
Victor crossed the room.
For a moment Vincent seemed prepared to accept whatever happened.
Victor stopped.
“Why?”
“Because Graham had men watching you.”
“So everyone sacrificed my right to know?”
“We were young.”
“So was I!”
Victor’s voice cracked through the room.
“You let me bury him.”
Vincent’s eyes lowered.
“I know.”
“You watched me stand beside an empty grave.”
“Yes.”
“You watched me blame myself for twenty years.”
“I know.”
Victor turned away.
That was the worst part.
Vincent knew.
He had seen what Elias’s disappearance did to Victor.
And remained silent.
“There’s more,” Vincent said.
Victor almost laughed.
“There always is.”
“The night Elias died, he recorded something.”
Victor turned.
Vincent removed a tiny recorder.
“I couldn’t listen to it.”
“Why?”
“He addressed it to you.”
Victor stared.
“You kept this eleven months?”
“I was ashamed.”
Victor took it.
He pressed play.
Static.
Then Elias.
“Vic.”
Victor sat down.
“If Vincent gives you this, try not to kill him.”
A broken laugh escaped Victor.
Elias coughed.
“He kept my secret because I made him. Be angry. He deserves some of it.”
Vincent looked away.
“But most of it belongs to me.”
Victor’s eyes burned.
“I thought protecting you meant disappearing. I was wrong.”
A long pause.
“Maisie taught me that.”
Victor looked toward the doorway.
The child was asleep upstairs.
“She thinks when people are sad, you hold on until they stop pretending they aren’t.”
Victor covered his mouth.
“So if she ever finds you, let her.”
Another pause.
“And Vic?”
Elias’s voice weakened.
“Don’t spend the rest of your life punishing yourself for surviving.”
The recording ended.
Victor sat in silence.
Vincent stood.
“I’ll resign tomorrow.”
Victor looked at him.
“No.”
Vincent blinked.
“That would be easy.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Live with me being furious.”
Vincent almost smiled.
“I can do that.”
“Good.”
Clare appeared.
“Maisie woke up.”
Victor stood.
“Nightmare?”
“She wants you.”
That surprised him.
He followed Clare upstairs.
Maisie sat in bed clutching Bunny.
“You left.”
“I had grown-up things.”
“I hate grown-up things.”
“So do I.”
She lifted her arms.
Victor hesitated.
Then sat beside her.
Maisie wrapped her arms around him.
“One Mississippi,” she whispered.
Victor closed his eyes.
“Two Mississippi.”
He hugged her back.
For the first time in decades, Victor Calder stopped trying to control how much something hurt.
They did not reach three hundred.
Maisie fell asleep at eighty-seven.
Victor carefully lowered her to the pillow.
Clare stood at the door.
“Daniel would have liked that.”
Victor looked at her.
“I wish he’d given me the chance to meet her.”
“He wanted to.”
“Why didn’t he?”
“He was afraid.”
“Of Graham?”
Clare shook her head.
“Of you.”
Victor frowned.
“Why?”
“Because he thought you hated him.”
Victor stared.
“How could he think that?”
“He saw an interview years ago.”
“What interview?”
“You were asked about betrayal.”
Victor remembered.
A business journalist had asked why he trusted so few people.
Victor had answered that the worst betrayal came from people who disappeared when you needed them.
Elias had seen it.
Victor closed his eyes.
“He thought I meant him.”
“Yes.”
“I did.”
Clare’s expression softened.
“But not because I hated him.”
“I know.”
Victor looked at sleeping Maisie.
His phone vibrated.
A message.
From Martin Reese.
Graham Calder had agreed to cooperate.
But only under one condition.
He wanted to tell Victor personally who had ordered Elias followed on the night he died.
Victor opened the attached document.
One name had been blacked out.
Then another message arrived.
This one from an unknown number.
DON’T BELIEVE GRAHAM.
Victor stared at it.
A second message appeared.
ELIAS’S CRASH WASN’T MEANT FOR ELIAS.
Victor stopped breathing.
May you like
A third message began loading.
The intended target was—
