Chapter 5 - The Man in the Harbor Photograph
“Run.”
Roman grabbed Nora.
Nine.
Dominic hit the tunnel door.
Eight.
Locked.
Seven.
Roman fired at the hinges.
Six.
Nora screamed Caleb’s name.
Five.
The wall opened.
Not exploded.
Opened.
Roman stopped.
Four.
Behind it stood Caleb.
Alive.
Tied to a chair.
Three.
A device was strapped to his chest.
Two.
Roman understood.
“Don’t touch him.”
One.
Zero.
Nothing happened.
A speaker crackled.
Charles laughed.
“Still impulsive, Roman.”
Nora rushed toward Caleb.
Roman caught her.
“The device.”
“It’s fake,” Caleb cried. “I think.”
Roman examined it.
No explosive.
Only a transmitter.
He removed it.
Nora fell to her knees and wrapped Caleb in her arms.
The boy buried his face against her.
“You came.”
“I promised.”
“I knew you would.”
Roman turned away.
The reunion touched something he kept locked deeper than any harbor vault.
Caleb looked over Nora’s shoulder.
“You’re him.”
Roman raised an eyebrow.
“Apparently.”
“The scary boss.”
Dominic coughed to hide a laugh.
Nora closed her eyes.
“Caleb.”
“What? Mrs. Adler said it.”
Roman crouched.
“Are you hurt?”
Caleb shook his head.
“They gave me sandwiches.”
“Who?”
“The old man. And the pretty lady.”
“Evelyn?”
“No.”
Roman showed him a photograph.
Caleb shook his head.
“Older.”
“Did she tell you her name?”
“She said I should call her Aunt Maggie.”
Nora stiffened.
“My mother had a sister named Margaret.”
“You told me you had no family,” Roman said.
“She died before Caleb was born.”
Caleb shook his head.
“She’s not dead.”
Nora stared.
“How do you know?”
“She said everybody thinks she is.”
Roman looked at Dominic.
Another ghost.
Caleb reached into his sock.
“I stole this.”
He produced a photograph.
Roman took it.
Three men stood at Pier Nine twenty-two years earlier.
Vincent Calder.
Charles Sterling.
And a third man.
On the back:
GABRIEL.
Roman remembered Sarah’s recording.
The hospital archive under the name Gabriel.
“Who gave you this?”
“The old man dropped it.”
Roman pocketed it.
They escaped through a maintenance corridor.
Back at the mansion, Caleb refused to leave Nora’s side.
Roman arranged security.
Not his usual men.
People Dominic personally trusted.
Nora sat with Caleb in the kitchen.
She made grilled cheese.
Roman watched from the doorway.
Caleb noticed.
“Do you want one?”
Roman almost said no.
Nora looked at him.
“He does.”
“I do?”
“You haven’t eaten since yesterday.”
Caleb frowned.
“That’s bad.”
Roman entered.
“So I’m told.”
For ten minutes, they sat around the kitchen island like ordinary people.
Roman could not remember the last ordinary meal he had eaten.
Caleb opened his tin box.
“My money.”
Nora smiled.
“You still have it.”
“I was saving for your birthday.”
“My birthday is seven months away.”
“I needed a lot.”
“For what?”
Caleb looked embarrassed.
“A vacation.”
Nora stopped smiling.
“You always look tired.”
Roman looked down at his plate.
Nora’s eyes filled.
She hugged her brother.
“You ridiculous little man.”
Caleb grinned.
Then he looked at Roman.
“Do you have a brother?”
“No.”
“Sister?”
Roman thought of Evelyn.
“No.”
“Parents?”
“Gone.”
Caleb considered this.
“You’re kind of alone.”
“Caleb,” Nora warned.
“It’s true.”
Roman looked at him.
“Yes.”
Caleb ate another bite.
“You can have dinner with us sometimes.”
Nora nearly dropped her glass.
Roman’s expression softened.
“I’ll remember that.”
Later, after Caleb slept, Roman found Nora outside the guest room.
“You should sleep too.”
“I’m afraid he’ll disappear.”
“He won’t.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No.”
She appreciated the honesty.
Roman handed her the photograph.
“I found Gabriel.”
“How?”
“Dominic searched old records.”
“And?”
“Gabriel Moretti.”
Nora looked up.
“My mother’s maiden name was Moretti.”
Roman nodded.
“Gabriel was her brother.”
“My uncle?”
“Yes.”
“What does he have to do with you?”
Roman hesitated.
“He may have been my biological father.”
Nora stared.
That would make Sarah Roman’s aunt by marriage.
It would connect their families.
Not romantically.
Not by blood.
But through a history deliberately erased.
“Why hide it?”
“Because Gabriel Moretti was murdered the night my mother died.”
Nora studied the photograph.
“By your father?”
“We don’t know.”
Roman’s phone vibrated.
Dominic sent a hospital archive record.
Roman opened it.
Patient: Isabella Moretti.
Infant: Male.
Father: Gabriel field had been altered.
No.
Gabriel was listed as emergency contact.
The father’s name had been blacked out.
Nora zoomed in.
“There.”
Beneath the black ink, faint letters remained.
C.S.
Charles Sterling.
Roman went cold.
Again.
The same claim.
But Sarah had called it bait.
Why?
Nora turned the photograph toward the light.
Something had been written beneath Gabriel’s name.
She rubbed the edge gently.
A second layer separated.
Inside the photograph was a thin strip of paper.
One sentence.
CHARLES IS NOT THE FATHER. VINCENT KNOWS WHO IS.
Roman’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A man spoke.
“Your father kept one confession.”
“Charles?”
“No.”
“Who is this?”
“Someone who watched Vincent Calder die with a lie in his mouth.”
Roman’s grip tightened.
“Where?”
“Your library.”
The call ended.
Roman and Nora looked at each other.
They went downstairs.
The library was empty.
Roman searched his father’s desk.
Nothing.
Nora remembered something.
“The chair.”
“What?”
“The morning you had the nightmare. You were gripping the right arm.”
Roman stared at the leather chair.
His father’s chair.
He cut open the underside.
A key fell out.
Not metal.
A tiny digital storage drive.
Roman inserted it into his computer.
One file appeared.
VINCENT_LAST_CONFESSION.
Roman clicked.
His father appeared on screen.
Older.
Dying.
“If Roman sees this, then Charles has returned.”
Roman leaned closer.
Vincent coughed.
“I lied about the night Isabella died. I lied about Roman’s birth. And I lied about Gabriel Moretti.”
He looked directly into the camera.
“Roman, the man who fathered you is still alive.”
The video glitched.
Then another face appeared behind Vincent.
A face Roman knew.
May you like
A man who had stood beside him for fourteen years.
Dominic Vale.
