Chapter 3 - The Woman From Warehouse Fourteen
The woman at Carlo’s back door was seventy years old.
Her coat was soaked despite the clear night.
Vincent noticed that immediately.
No rain had fallen in Chicago for two days.
Someone had driven her there.
“Name,” Rocco demanded.
“Evelyn Shaw.”
Vincent recognized it.
“You worked for my father.”
Evelyn looked at him.
“I kept his books.”
Carlo appeared behind Vincent.
The moment Evelyn saw him, her face hardened.
“You’re still alive.”
Carlo’s response was equally cold.
“So are you.”
Vincent looked between them.
“Inside.”
Nobody sat.
Evelyn placed an old leather folder on Carlo’s desk.
“I was told Claire Bell survived.”
“Who told you?” Vincent asked.
“The same person who told me someone would try to silence Carlo tonight.”
Carlo swore softly.
Evelyn opened the folder.
Inside were photocopied ledgers.
Payments.
Property transfers.
Names of city officials.
Vincent scanned them.
“Whose records?”
“Your father’s companies.”
“I can see that.”
“But your father didn’t authorize most of these transactions.”
Vincent looked up.
“Who did?”
Evelyn stared at Carlo.
“He knows.”
Carlo poured another drink.
Vincent knocked it from his hand.
The glass shattered.
“No more riddles.”
Carlo looked at the broken glass.
Then at Vincent.
“Your father had a partner.”
“I know.”
“No. Not the men you know about.”
Carlo sat heavily.
“A silent partner.”
“Name.”
“Marcus Vale.”
Vincent frowned.
He knew the name.
Everyone in Chicago knew it.
Marcus Vale owned construction firms, hotels, television stations, and half a dozen supposedly charitable foundations.
He appeared at hospitals with giant donation checks.
Mayors thanked him publicly.
Newspapers described him as a civic visionary.
Vincent’s father had never mentioned him.
“Vale worked with my father?”
Carlo nodded.
“Thirty years ago. Before Vale became respectable.”
“What did they do?”
“Development. Gambling. Political favors. Whatever made money.”
“And Anna?”
Evelyn answered.
“Anna discovered Vale was using Moretti companies to move millions without Dominic’s knowledge.”
“Why?”
“To buy influence.”
Carlo looked sick.
“Judges. inspectors. police commanders.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Dominic confronted him?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
The year Anna disappeared.
Evelyn slid forward another document.
A meeting schedule.
Dominic Moretti.
Carlo Moretti.
Anna Bell.
Marcus Vale.
Warehouse 14.
Vincent read the date.
Three days before Anna vanished.
“What happened at that meeting?”
Nobody answered.
Vincent looked at Carlo.
His uncle’s hands were shaking.
Finally Carlo said, “Vale offered your father a choice.”
“What choice?”
“Keep taking the money. Or lose everything.”
“My father refused.”
“Yes.”
“Then?”
“Anna had copied the records.”
Carlo looked at Evelyn.
“We planned to get her out.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Dominic wanted her protected.”
Vincent felt something shift inside him.
His father had not believed Anna was a thief.
The story had been a lie.
“Why tell everyone she stole?”
“To hide her from Vale.”
Carlo’s voice became rough.
“We thought if everyone believed she had run with money, Vale might stop looking.”
“But she died.”
Evelyn looked away.
Carlo closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“You were there.”
“At Warehouse Fourteen.”
“What happened?”
Carlo breathed slowly.
“Anna never arrived.”
Vincent looked at the meeting schedule again.
“But her name is here.”
“She called me ten minutes before the meeting.”
“What did she say?”
“That someone had followed her.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t know.”
“What child was the message talking about?”
Carlo’s face went pale again.
Evelyn turned sharply.
“What message?”
Vincent showed her Carlo’s phone.
Evelyn read it.
Her eyes moved to Carlo.
“You never told him?”
“Tell me what?”
Carlo said, “Not here.”
Vincent nearly lost patience.
Then his own phone rang.
Rocco answered instead.
His expression changed.
“The clinic.”
Vincent took the phone.
“Moretti.”
A guard spoke rapidly.
Vincent went still.
“When?”
He ended the call.
“Claire’s gone.”
Evelyn gasped.
“Taken?”
“No.”
Vincent looked at Rocco.
“She walked out.”
“She can barely walk.”
“She left with Lily.”
Carlo stood.
“Why?”
“They found a note.”
Vincent showed them a photograph sent from the clinic.
Three words written on hospital stationery.
SORRY. TRUST NOBODY.
Vincent drove back to the clinic personally.
The guard outside Claire’s room had not been attacked.
The security cameras had simply gone dark for four minutes.
Claire and Lily disappeared during that window.
Rocco examined the stairwell.
“No sign of a struggle.”
Vincent entered the room.
The blanket was folded.
Lily’s paper napkin bird sat on the bedside table.
Next to it was a plastic cup.
Under the cup was another note.
This one was addressed to him.
VINCENT—
THE PERSON WHO HURT ANNA KNOWS I HAVE HER RECORDS.
I THOUGHT YOU COULD PROTECT LILY.
NOW I KNOW THEY ARE INSIDE YOUR FAMILY.
I’M SORRY.
C.
Vincent read it twice.
Inside your family.
He thought of Carlo.
Then of the shooter.
Then of the mysterious stranger at the restaurant.
“Security footage before blackout,” he said.
Rocco pulled it up.
Claire had been alone with Lily.
A nurse entered.
Female.
Dark hair.
Blue scrubs.
She stayed thirty seconds.
Then left.
Claire immediately began dressing.
“Find the nurse.”
Ten minutes later they had an answer.
“No nurse by that name works here,” Rocco said.
“Face recognition?”
“Running.”
Evelyn, who had followed them, looked over his shoulder.
“Stop.”
“What?”
“Go back.”
Rocco replayed the footage.
The woman entered again.
Evelyn pointed at her hand.
“She’s wearing a ring.”
Vincent zoomed in.
A gold crest.
A V surrounded by laurel leaves.
Vale Foundation.
Vincent called someone who owed him access to traffic cameras.
Within twenty minutes they found Claire.
She had taken a taxi to Union Station.
Vincent arrived before midnight.
He saw Lily first.
Pink dress.
Small backpack.
Holding Claire’s hand.
Claire was moving slowly, fighting pain.
Vincent approached without his men.
Claire spotted him.
Fear flashed across her face.
“Don’t.”
“I’m alone.”
“You’re never alone.”
“True.”
He stopped five feet away.
“Why did you run?”
Claire looked around.
“Because someone came into my room and told me Carlo Moretti arranged my sister’s death.”
Vincent said nothing.
“She showed me proof.”
“What proof?”
“A recording.”
“Of Carlo?”
“Yes.”
“Saying what?”
Claire swallowed.
“Saying Anna couldn’t leave Warehouse Fourteen alive.”
Vincent felt cold.
“Did you hear his voice?”
“Yes.”
“Where is the recording?”
“The woman took it.”
“You trusted a stranger with a recording and ran?”
“She knew things only Anna knew.”
“Such as?”
Claire hesitated.
Vincent saw it.
“Claire.”
“She knew Lily’s middle name.”
Vincent looked at the child.
“Which is?”
“Anna.”
That alone meant nothing.
But Claire continued.
“She knew what was engraved inside Anna’s wedding ring.”
“What?”
“Always north.”
Vincent remembered the photograph in the locket.
Anna wore a ring.
“Who was Anna married to?”
Claire looked down.
“She wasn’t.”
“Then why did she have a wedding ring?”
“I never knew.”
Vincent heard approaching footsteps.
Rocco appeared at the far end of the platform.
“Vincent.”
He was holding a tablet.
“Face recognition found the fake nurse.”
Vincent looked at the screen.
The woman had a name.
Rebecca Vale.
Marcus Vale’s only daughter.
Claire stared.
“That’s her.”
Vincent’s phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
A video arrived.
He opened it.
Carlo was sitting in his mansion study.
Alone.
A gun lay on the desk.
The camera angle suggested someone had secretly recorded him.
Carlo looked directly toward whoever was filming.
Then he said:
“Vincent can never know who Lily’s father is.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Vincent slowly turned toward the little girl.
Lily stared back at him.
Then a train roared into the station.
When it passed, Claire was no longer beside him.
May you like
Someone had pulled her through an open service door.
And Lily was screaming.
