Chapter 5 - The Man Who Watched Toby
“Kaye.”
Her mother looked almost exactly as Kaye remembered.
Older.
Smaller.
But unmistakable.
“Mom?”
Helen Mercer had disappeared from Kaye's life twenty-two years earlier.
Kaye had been told she ran away.
Helen looked past her toward Dominic.
“You brought a Vale.”
“You know him?”
“I knew his father.”
Kaye laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Apparently everyone I ever loved worked for criminals except me.”
Helen stepped aside.
“Toby isn't here.”
“Then who was upstairs?”
“A recording.”
Dominic immediately searched the house.
A projector sat beside an upstairs window.
The child's shadow had been bait.
Helen explained that she had spent decades hiding from August.
She had once kept books for Dominic's father.
That was how Evan met the Vale family.
“How many people lied to me?”
Helen's eyes filled.
“Enough.”
“That's not an answer.”
“No. It's an apology.”
Kaye refused it.
Not yet.
Helen knew about the ledger.
More importantly, she knew what Michael Vale had discovered.
August hadn't simply stolen money.
He had built a network using legitimate businesses to conceal extortion and bribery.
Michael intended to turn evidence over to federal investigators.
He died first.
“Where is Toby?”
Helen produced a key.
“Union Station locker 314.”
They drove through the night.
The locker contained the missing cookbook.
Inside its back cover was a thin storage device.
The ledger.
And a photograph.
Toby at a playground.
Taken months earlier.
Someone had been watching him long before Dominic entered Kaye's diner.
That changed everything.
Kaye looked at Evan.
“This started before Dominic met me.”
“Yes.”
“Then why Toby?”
Evan couldn't answer.
Helen could.
“Because Toby saw August.”
Kaye stared.
“When?”
“Three months ago. At your diner.”
Kaye remembered a quiet older customer.
White hair.
Cane.
He had sat in booth six.
Toby had brought him pie.
August had recognized the boy.
Not because of Evan.
Because Toby resembled Michael Vale as a child.
Dominic stared at Helen.
“What are you saying?”
Helen hesitated.
“Michael had a son.”
Dominic's face emptied.
“No.”
“He never knew.”
Kaye stepped backward.
“Stop.”
Helen looked at her.
“I'm not saying Toby is Michael's son.”
Kaye breathed again.
“Then what are you saying?”
“August thought he might be.”
Dominic understood first.
“If August believes Toby has a blood claim to something my father left—”
“He becomes valuable.”
“And dangerous,” Evan finished.
Mateo entered the station corridor.
“We found the red door.”
Everyone turned.
“Where?”
“An old church outside town.”
Kaye took the ledger.
They drove.
The church appeared at dawn.
Its basement entrance had been painted red.
Kaye heard crying behind it.
“Toby!”
“Mom!”
She ran.
Dominic grabbed her before she reached the handle.
A wire ran beneath the door.
Trap.
Mateo disarmed it.
Kaye's hands shook.
Dominic stood beside her.
“Ready?”
“No.”
He nodded.
“Neither am I.”
He reached for the door.
May you like
From the other side, Toby screamed.
Then a gunshot shattered the silence...
