Chapter 2 - The Name He Wasn't Supposed to Know
Adrian moved before Emma understood what was happening.
One arm caught Lucas.
The other pulled Emma behind the steel shelving.
“Down.”
Another shot cracked through the hallway.
Glass shattered.
Emma hit the concrete floor.
Adrian's men were shouting outside.
“East corridor!”
“Move!”
“Door!”
Then silence.
Not peaceful silence.
The kind that made every breath dangerous.
Emma's hand searched blindly until it found Lucas's shoulder.
“I'm here,” she whispered.
The boy touched her wrist.
“I'm okay.”
Adrian was beside them.
Emma couldn't see his face, but she could hear the controlled rhythm of his breathing.
A phone screen glowed.
His fingers moved across it.
Thirty seconds later emergency lights came on.
Dim red illumination filled the storage room.
Emma looked toward the doorway.
One of Adrian's men was kneeling beside another man in the corridor.
Nobody appeared dead.
Thank God.
Adrian stood.
“Stay here.”
Emma grabbed his sleeve.
“Someone said my name.”
“I heard.”
“From inside the room.”
“I know.”
His eyes swept the shelves.
Emma suddenly realized what that meant.
Someone else might still be hiding there.
Adrian motioned to one of his men.
They searched every corner.
Behind boxes.
Under shelves.
Inside the freezer alcove.
Nothing.
“No one,” the man reported.
Emma shook her head.
“I heard it.”
“So did I,” Adrian said.
They found the explanation beneath the lowest shelf.
A tiny wireless speaker.
Cheap.
Disposable.
Adrian picked it up using a cloth.
A red light blinked.
Someone had planted it before Emma entered the room.
Someone had known exactly where she would hide.
That realization frightened her more than the gunshots.
“Who knew I was working tonight?” she asked.
Adrian looked at her.
“Who?”
“My manager. Three servers. Kitchen staff. My mother.”
“And your stepfather?”
“Former stepfather.”
“Could he know?”
Emma hesitated.
“Yes.”
Adrian handed the device to one of his men.
“Bag it.”
Emma folded her arms.
“You're talking like the police.”
“My people are better paid.”
“That isn't comforting.”
“It wasn't intended to be.”
Outside, the restaurant was being cleared.
Adrian escorted Lucas toward a rear exit.
Emma followed because she no longer had a better option.
Three black SUVs waited in the alley.
She stopped.
“No.”
Adrian turned.
“You've already said that once.”
“And I'm saying it again.”
A distant siren approached.
Emma looked toward the street.
“Police are coming.”
“Yes.”
“So I'm staying.”
Adrian walked closer.
“If your stepfather is connected to tonight, do you know whether he has friends in the department?”
Emma hated that she didn't know.
Her mother had married Charles Mercer four years after Emma's father died.
Charles owned a security-consulting company.
He knew judges, police officers, politicians and half the city's wealthy families.
For years, Emma had believed he was simply well connected.
Then her mother abruptly filed for divorce.
She refused to explain why.
Three months later Charles was apparently helping armed men hunt Emma through a restaurant.
“I need to call my mother.”
“From the car.”
“I'm not—”
Lucas climbed into the SUV.
Then he looked back.
“Miss Emma?”
She closed her eyes.
Adrian said, “I'm not using my son to manipulate you.”
“You don't have to. He's doing it himself.”
“I heard that,” Lucas said.
Despite everything, Emma almost laughed.
She entered the SUV.
Adrian sat across from her.
They drove.
Philadelphia passed in fractured reflections across tinted glass.
Emma called her mother.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
A third time.
Voicemail.
Emma looked at Adrian.
“Something's wrong.”
“Maybe she's asleep.”
“My mother sleeps with her phone beside her.”
“What is her address?”
Emma hesitated.
Adrian lifted one eyebrow.
“You're already in my car.”
She gave him the address.
He texted someone.
“Someone will check.”
“You have people everywhere?”
“Not everywhere.”
“That's not what newspapers say.”
Lucas looked up from beside his father.
“Newspapers lie about Dad.”
Adrian stared straight ahead.
“Sometimes.”
Emma glanced at him.
“Which parts?”
“Tonight is probably not the night for my biography.”
The SUV left downtown.
Twenty-five minutes later they passed through iron gates and entered a wooded private property outside the city.
Emma expected a palace.
Instead she found an old stone estate that looked expensive but restrained.
Security was everywhere.
So were cameras.
Lucas relaxed the moment they entered.
That bothered Emma.
A woman in her sixties hurried from the foyer.
“Lucas!”
She embraced him fiercely.
“I told you I was fine, Nana Rosa.”
“You tell me many things.”
She kissed his forehead.
Then her attention moved to Emma.
Rosa's eyes widened slightly.
Adrian saw it.
“You know her?”
“No.”
Too quick.
Emma noticed.
Adrian noticed.
Rosa looked away.
“Lucas needs food.”
“I had pasta,” Lucas said.
“You had three bites.”
“I was busy escaping.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
Emma liked her immediately.
Adrian directed two men into another room.
Emma followed.
“What aren't you telling me?”
“A great many things.”
“At least you're consistent.”
Before Adrian could reply, one of his men entered.
“Her mother's house is empty.”
Emma stopped breathing.
“What?”
“No signs of forced entry.”
“Her car?”
“Still there.”
“Phone?”
“Found on the kitchen counter.”
Emma grabbed the edge of a table.
Adrian asked, “Any cameras?”
“Security system wiped at 8:53.”
Emma checked the time.
She had been attacked around nine.
Her mother disappeared less than twenty minutes earlier.
“This is connected.”
“Yes,” Adrian said.
Emma rounded on him.
“To you?”
“I don't know.”
“That answer isn't good enough.”
“It is the only honest answer I have.”
“Who wanted Lucas tonight?”
Adrian was silent.
“Tell me.”
He looked toward the closed door, ensuring Lucas couldn't hear.
“Someone who believed taking my son would force me to exchange something.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
Emma stared.
“Money?”
“Names.”
“Whose?”
“People who have spent twenty years pretending they don't work with families like mine.”
Judges.
Police.
Politicians.
Businessmen.
Emma understood.
“You have proof.”
“I inherited proof.”
“From your father?”
“Yes.”
“And someone thinks I know where it is?”
“No.”
“Then why me?”
“That is what I intend to discover.”
Rosa appeared in the doorway.
“Adrian.”
Her voice sounded wrong.
He looked at her.
“What?”
“You need to see something.”
She was holding a photograph.
Old.
Creased.
Adrian took it.
His face hardened.
Emma walked closer.
The photograph showed perhaps twelve people at a formal dinner.
Adrian was younger.
Maybe twenty-one.
Rosa stood near the back.
An older man Emma assumed was Adrian's father occupied the center.
And beside him—
Emma's father.
She stopped.
“That isn't possible.”
Adrian looked at her.
“You know him?”
“That's my dad.”
Rosa whispered something in Italian.
Emma snatched the photograph.
Her father looked younger than she remembered but unmistakable.
David Carter.
High-school history teacher.
Weekend fisherman.
Man who drove a ten-year-old Ford and complained about cable bills.
Standing at a private dinner with the Vale family.
“When was this?”
Adrian turned the photo over.
“Fourteen years ago.”
Emma's father had died eight years ago.
“How did you get this?”
“It belonged to my father.”
“Why was my dad here?”
“I don't know.”
“Don't lie to me.”
“I'm not.”
Rosa looked frightened.
Emma faced her.
“You recognized me when I walked in.”
Rosa didn't answer.
“Why?”
“Emma,” Adrian warned softly.
“No. She knows.”
Rosa gripped the back of a chair.
“You look like him.”
“Like my father?”
“Yes.”
Emma's hands began to shake.
“My father never knew the Vales.”
Rosa's eyes filled with sadness.
“He did.”
The room went quiet.
Emma sat because her knees suddenly felt unreliable.
“How?”
Rosa looked at Adrian.
He nodded.
“Tell her.”
Rosa inhaled.
“David Carter wasn't only a teacher.”
Emma laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“Yes, he was.”
“He became a teacher later.”
“Later than what?”
Rosa's voice dropped.
“He kept records for Adrian's father.”
Emma stared at her.
“No.”
“He handled accounts, legal payments, political donations.”
“No.”
“He was one of the few men Antonio Vale trusted.”
“My father hated criminals.”
“He eventually did.”
That stopped her.
“Eventually?”
Rosa continued.
“David discovered something. Something that frightened him enough to leave.”
“What?”
“I never knew.”
“Then why was he killed?”
Rosa went pale.
Emma's heartbeat became deafening.
“I didn't say he was killed.”
“You didn't have to.”
Adrian stepped between them.
“What happened to her father?”
Rosa shook her head.
“I only know what Antonio told me.”
“What?”
“That David Carter died because he tried to keep a child out of this world.”
Emma looked toward the door.
Lucas.
“No.”
Rosa shook her head quickly.
“Not Lucas.”
“Then who?”
Rosa looked directly at Emma.
“You.”
Emma felt as if the floor shifted.
“My father died in a car accident.”
“No,” Rosa whispered.
Emma's phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph arrived.
Her mother was sitting in a chair.
Alive.
Terrified.
A man's hand rested on her shoulder.
Emma couldn't see his face.
Below the picture was a message.
YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT.
Adrian took the phone.
Another message appeared.
BRING DAVID CARTER'S KEY.
Emma whispered, “What key?”
Rosa stumbled backward.
Adrian turned.
“What do you know?”
Rosa's face had lost all color.
“David's key was destroyed.”
Emma stared at her.
“What key?”
Rosa shook her head.
“It can't still exist.”
“Rosa.”
She looked toward the staircase.
Then toward Emma.
“Your father left something here before he died.”
“Where?”
Rosa's lips trembled.
“In the room Antonio ordered sealed eight years ago.”
Adrian frowned.
“There are no sealed rooms in this house.”
Rosa looked at him.
“Yes, there is.”
She walked toward the old west corridor.
At the end stood a paneled wall Emma had assumed was decorative.
Rosa pressed beneath the molding.
A hidden door clicked.
Emma stepped closer.
The door slowly opened from the inside.
May you like
And a woman's voice whispered:
“Emma?”
