Chapter 4 - The Eighth Man
Vincent locked Sterling’s Bistro in less than two minutes.
Nobody left.
Nobody entered.
Rory returned to Melissa, confused by the sudden tension.
Vincent did not tell her about the photograph.
Melissa wanted to.
Then she looked at her daughter and could not.
“Was somebody in the hallway?” Vincent asked Marco.
“Staff.”
“How many?”
“Five.”
“Names.”
Marco listed them.
Vincent ordered phones collected voluntarily.
Most employees handed them over immediately.
One refused.
A bartender named Luke.
Vincent approached him.
“I need your phone.”
“You’re not police.”
“No.”
“Then no.”
Vincent nodded.
“Fair.”
Luke looked surprised.
Vincent turned away.
Luke relaxed.
Then Vincent said, “Marco, show the officers the security footage from the hallway.”
Luke ran.
He made it three steps.
Two bodyguards caught him.
Rory screamed.
Melissa covered her eyes.
Vincent moved between Rory and the scene.
“No one hurts him.”
Luke struggled.
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Then stop running.”
The police searched him.
Two phones.
One personal.
One prepaid.
Melissa’s photograph of Rory appeared in the prepaid phone’s sent folder.
Luke stopped struggling.
“I just sent pictures.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent stared at him.
“Bad answer.”
“They paid me!”
“Who?”
“I never met them.”
“How much?”
“Two hundred dollars every time Melissa worked.”
Melissa stared.
“You’ve been photographing me?”
Luke looked ashamed.
“For months.”
Rory clung to her.
Vincent asked, “Why?”
“They wanted to know when she came in. When she left. Whether the kid was with her.”
Melissa went cold.
“They knew about Rory.”
David’s earlier claim had been a lie.
Vincent turned toward him.
David avoided his eyes.
“You said Samuel didn’t know about her.”
“I assumed.”
“You lied.”
“I didn’t know.”
Luke interrupted.
“They knew.”
Melissa looked at him.
“How?”
“They asked for pictures of both of you.”
“How long?”
“Three months.”
Melissa hugged Rory.
Vincent took the prepaid phone.
The latest incoming message read:
SHE HAS THE PHOTO. KEEP HER THERE UNTIL 7:30.
Vincent looked at the clock.
1:04 p.m.
“Why 7:30?”
Luke shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
David suddenly looked toward the windows.
Vincent followed his gaze.
The blue Porsche sat outside.
“What?”
David said nothing.
Vincent walked closer.
“What happens at 7:30?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
David’s breathing changed.
Vincent understood.
“Something at Melissa’s apartment.”
Melissa’s face went white.
David whispered, “I only heard Samuel mention it.”
“Mention what?”
“A cleanup.”
Melissa grabbed her bag.
“I’m going home.”
Vincent stopped her.
“No.”
“My apartment—”
“Is exactly where they expect you.”
“My things are there.”
“Things can be replaced.”
Rory tugged Melissa’s sleeve.
“Mr. Bear.”
Melissa closed her eyes.
Rory’s stuffed bear.
The one she slept with every night.
Vincent crouched.
“We’ll get him.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
Melissa looked at him.
“Don’t promise her something you can’t guarantee.”
Vincent met her eyes.
“I don’t.”
He sent four men to the apartment with police.
At 2:16 p.m., they called.
The front door was unlocked.
Nothing appeared stolen.
But every drawer had been opened.
Every document removed.
Birth certificates.
Tax records.
Melissa’s old family photographs.
Even Rory’s preschool enrollment papers.
On the kitchen table was a single envelope.
Vincent asked them not to touch it until police processed it.
By 3:00, the envelope arrived at the restaurant inside an evidence bag.
It contained one photograph.
Melissa at nine years old.
Her father stood behind her.
On the back, in Samuel Carter’s handwriting:
I’M SORRY I CHOSE YOU.
Melissa sat silently.
Rory climbed onto her lap.
“Is that Grandpa?”
“Yes.”
“Why is he sorry?”
Melissa could not answer.
Vincent studied the handwriting.
“Could it be old?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
Melissa pointed to the photograph.
“He wrote over my mother’s handwriting.”
On the back, beneath Samuel’s fresh black ink, was faded blue writing from decades earlier.
SUMMER 2000.
Samuel had recently possessed the photograph.
Meaning he had been inside Melissa’s apartment.
Or someone had given it to him.
Rory leaned closer.
“What did he choose Mom for?”
Melissa kissed her forehead.
“I don’t know.”
Vincent did.
At least partly.
Her identity.
Her clean history.
Her access to Sterling’s payroll.
But there was something else.
Why his own daughter?
Why disappear for twenty-six years and return only to destroy her financially?
Arthur had been studying documents.
At 4:10, he found something.
“Melissa.”
She looked up.
“Did your mother leave you anything?”
“She died six years ago.”
“Estate?”
“No money.”
“Property?”
“Nothing.”
“Insurance?”
Melissa thought.
“A small policy. Enough for the funeral.”
Arthur shook his head.
“Anything else?”
“No.”
Rory spoke.
“Grandma’s box.”
Melissa looked down.
“What?”
“The green box.”
Melissa froze.
Her mother had owned a small green metal box.
It had been stored in Melissa’s closet for years.
The men who searched the apartment had removed documents.
But the police photographs showed the green box still sitting on the upper shelf.
Vincent immediately called Marco.
“Bring it.”
An hour later, the box sat on the restaurant table.
Melissa opened it.
Old birthday cards.
A hospital bracelet.
Her parents’ marriage certificate.
Photographs.
At the bottom was a sealed envelope addressed:
FOR MELISSA — IF SAMUEL EVER COMES BACK.
Melissa stared at it.
“My mother wrote this.”
Her hands shook as she opened it.
Inside was a letter.
Melissa,
If you are reading this, then your father has returned, and the thing I feared most has happened.
Samuel did not die.
I told you he did because he begged me to protect you from the people he worked for.
He discovered what they were doing with employee identities and tried to leave.
But leaving required leverage.
Samuel took something from Richard Blackwell.
Something worth more than money.
He hid it where Blackwell could never reach it.
Melissa stopped reading.
Vincent waited.
“What?”
She continued.
Samuel believed the safest hiding place was a person no one would suspect.
I fought him.
I begged him not to do it.
But by then it was already done.
Melissa’s hands went cold.
She read the final line.
The key is connected to you.
Not your house.
Not your name.
You.
Rory whispered, “What key?”
Arthur suddenly stood.
Vincent looked at him.
“What?”
Arthur stared at Melissa.
“Your Social Security number.”
Melissa frowned.
“What about it?”
“Do you know it?”
“Of course.”
“Last four digits?”
“3187.”
Arthur went pale.
He opened the trust documents.
One shell company was called 3187 Holdings.
Melissa stared.
Vincent looked at Arthur.
“What does that mean?”
Arthur’s voice dropped.
“It means Samuel didn’t choose Melissa eleven weeks ago.”
He turned the document around.
“He chose her twenty-six years ago.”
Vincent’s phone rang.
Marco answered first.
Then looked toward the front entrance.
“Boss.”
A vehicle had stopped outside.
An old black Lincoln.
The driver’s door opened.
A gray-haired man stepped onto the sidewalk.
Melissa stood.
Her chair fell backward.
Rory looked through the window.
“Mom?”
Melissa could not breathe.
The man crossed the sidewalk.
Twenty-six years disappeared from his face when she saw his eyes.
Her father reached the restaurant door.
He placed one hand on the glass.
May you like
Then the lock clicked from the inside.
Someone had just opened it for him.
