Chapter 3 - The Box Beneath Apartment 417
The metal box should not have existed.
Claire remembered the apartment clearly.
The yellow kitchen.
The radiator that hissed all winter.
Daniel sleeping in the smaller bedroom because he said he did not care, even though they both knew he did.
Their father's old desk beside the living room window.
But she did not remember a metal box.
Daniel zoomed in on the photograph.
Vincent studied the contents visible beneath the raised lid.
A cassette tape.
Two keys.
A photograph.
And something wrapped in plastic.
"Who took this picture?" Vincent asked.
Daniel answered reluctantly.
"A contact."
"Inside Rourke's crew?"
"Yes."
"Name?"
"No."
Vincent's expression cooled.
Daniel looked at him.
"If I tell you, that person is dead before sunrise."
Vincent almost admired the answer.
Almost.
Claire leaned toward the phone.
"Can you enlarge the photograph?"
Daniel did.
The old picture inside the box showed Patrick Sullivan with two other men.
Claire recognized her father immediately.
Younger.
Thinner.
Smiling.
She recognized the second man too.
Her stomach turned.
"That's Rourke."
Daniel nodded.
Patrick Sullivan stood beside Damian Rourke twenty years earlier.
The third man had his face partially turned away.
Vincent reached for the phone.
Daniel let him take it.
Vincent stared.
"Marco."
Marco stepped closer.
"Yeah."
"Tell me I'm wrong."
Marco looked.
He went silent.
Claire noticed.
"Who is he?"
Vincent handed the phone back.
"No one."
Daniel laughed.
"That's a lie."
Vincent turned.
"Careful."
Daniel looked at the photograph again.
"You know him."
Claire stepped between them.
"Who is he?"
Vincent remained silent.
Marco looked toward his boss.
Vincent finally answered.
"My father."
Claire stared.
Vincent Moretti's father, Lorenzo, had died nine years earlier.
At least officially.
A heart attack while vacationing in Sicily.
Vincent rarely spoke of him.
He had inherited half an empire and all of its enemies.
Now an old photograph connected Lorenzo Moretti to Patrick Sullivan and Damian Rourke.
Three fathers.
Three families.
One buried box.
Claire sat slowly.
"This can't be coincidence."
"No," Vincent said.
Daniel looked at him.
"What did your father do with Sullivan?"
"I don't know."
"You expect us to believe that?"
Vincent stepped closer.
"My father kept secrets from everyone. Especially me."
"That's useful."
"Daniel."
Claire's tone stopped her brother.
She rubbed her temple.
"We need the box."
Daniel nodded.
"Rourke has it."
"Then we've already lost."
Vincent looked at the photograph again.
"Not necessarily."
They turned toward him.
"The box was found where Rourke expected."
Daniel frowned.
"So?"
"If Patrick Sullivan wanted to hide the ledger, why leave a box labeled with his daughter's name in a place tied directly to her childhood?"
Claire looked up.
"A decoy."
"Maybe."
Daniel considered it.
"The cassette?"
"Could be instructions."
Claire shook her head.
"My father loved puzzles."
Vincent glanced toward her.
"Give me an example."
"When I was a child, he never told me where birthday presents were. He'd leave clues."
"Numbers?"
"Sometimes."
"Music?"
Claire paused.
Daniel noticed.
"What?"
She looked again at the cassette.
"Our mother used to record us."
"Home videos?"
"Audio tapes."
Daniel's face changed.
"The bedtime stories."
Claire nodded.
Their mother had recorded herself reading books when Patrick traveled for work.
Claire had listened to the tapes until the ribbons warped.
One story more than the rest.
"The Secret Garden," she whispered.
Daniel remembered.
"Page numbers."
Vincent looked between them.
"What?"
Their father had once turned a copy of the novel into a treasure hunt.
Numbers hidden around the apartment corresponded to pages, lines, words.
Claire suddenly looked at the bracelet.
4-1-7.
"Apartment 417 may not have meant the apartment."
Daniel understood.
"Page four. Line one. Word seven."
Vincent stared at the bracelet.
"What text?"
Claire looked at him.
"The recording."
Daniel frowned.
"How do you get a page number from audio?"
"You don't."
Claire stood abruptly.
"You use the book."
Daniel froze.
Their childhood copy.
Claire had kept it.
Not because she understood its significance.
Because it belonged to her mother.
Vincent immediately saw her expression.
"Where is it?"
Claire hesitated.
"Storage."
"Where?"
"My apartment."
Daniel shook his head.
"No."
"It's in a box in my closet."
"Rourke knows your apartment."
"Then we go now."
"No."
Claire turned toward him.
"You vanished for seven years. You don't get to start giving orders."
Daniel lowered his voice.
"Claire, if Rourke connected 417 to the building, he'll connect it to you."
Vincent looked at Marco.
"Send a team."
Marco nodded.
Claire objected.
"They won't know what they're looking for."
"You'll describe it."
"It's an old green hardcover."
"Title?"
"The Secret Garden."
Marco relayed the information.
Vincent walked toward the broken window.
Outside, Chicago glittered beneath them.
Somewhere in the city, Damian Rourke had opened a box Patrick Sullivan buried years earlier.
Somewhere else, Grant Holloway sat inside Rourke's vehicle.
Vincent wondered how much Grant knew.
And whether he had ever cared about Claire at all.
His phone rang.
Marco answered.
"Yes?"
Silence.
His face hardened.
"What do you mean?"
Vincent turned.
Marco listened.
Then disconnected.
"Team reached Claire's apartment."
"And?"
"Door was open."
Claire's pulse accelerated.
Marco continued.
"Place was searched."
"The book?"
"They're checking."
Claire grabbed her purse.
"I'm going."
Vincent blocked her.
"No."
"Move."
"No."
"That is my home."
"Which is why you're the last person who should walk into it."
Claire glared at him.
"You are not in charge of me."
"No."
His voice remained calm.
"I'm in charge of whether armed men use my elevators to kill someone tonight."
She stared.
Daniel interrupted.
"He's right."
Claire laughed sharply.
"Of course you're on his side."
"I'm on the side where you're alive tomorrow."
She looked away.
Vincent watched her closely.
The harder frightened people tried to appear angry, the more dangerous the moment usually was.
He softened his tone.
"What does the book look like?"
Claire described it.
Green cloth cover.
Gold lettering faded almost completely.
A coffee stain across the back.
Her mother's initials written inside.
E.S.
Five minutes later, Marco received another call.
He put it on speaker.
"Found a green book."
Claire stepped forward.
"Open the cover."
Rustling.
"Initials E.S."
Claire exhaled.
"Bring it."
"No."
The guard's voice changed.
Vincent straightened.
"What?"
"We've got company."
A crash sounded through the speaker.
Then shouting.
Gunfire.
Claire covered her mouth.
Vincent grabbed the phone.
"Status."
No answer.
"Status."
Static.
Then a man's voice.
Not one of Vincent's guards.
"Mr. Moretti."
Vincent became very still.
Claire recognized the control in his face.
It was more frightening than anger.
"Rourke."
A chuckle.
Damian Rourke sounded older than Claire remembered from court photographs.
Calm.
Educated.
Almost pleasant.
"I've heard good things about you, Vincent."
"You shot through my window."
"I didn't."
"Four armed men entered my building."
"Also not mine."
Claire looked at Daniel.
Daniel looked equally confused.
Rourke continued.
"Someone wants you to believe we're enemies tonight."
Vincent's jaw tightened.
"We are enemies."
"Business competitors."
"You kidnapped my men."
"No. I found them after someone else attacked Claire's apartment."
Vincent looked at Marco.
Marco checked another phone.
No confirmation.
Rourke spoke again.
"Claire."
She froze.
Vincent glanced at her.
Rourke knew she could hear him.
"You've become difficult to find."
Claire swallowed.
"Good."
"I don't want to hurt you."
Daniel silently mouthed, Don't answer.
Claire ignored him.
"You killed my father."
A pause.
"No."
Her eyes narrowed.
"You're lying."
"Patrick Sullivan destroyed many lives. Mine wasn't one of them."
"Then why are you hunting me?"
"Because someone else is."
Claire stopped.
Rourke continued.
"The men outside Vincent's building weren't mine."
"Then whose?"
"I was hoping you could tell me."
Vincent stepped closer to the phone.
"You expect me to believe this?"
"No."
Rourke sounded amused.
"I expect Claire to recognize the pattern."
Claire frowned.
"What pattern?"
"Milwaukee."
The word struck her.
Vincent saw it.
"What happened there?"
Rourke answered for her.
"Someone murdered a federal witness and made it look like my organization."
Claire's breathing changed.
Daniel stared at her.
"You told me Milwaukee was a failed extraction."
Claire whispered, "That's what I was told."
Rourke continued.
"Your federal friends lied."
Vincent's voice hardened.
"Where is the book?"
"Safe."
Claire moved closer.
"You have it?"
"No."
"Then who?"
Rourke paused.
"Your brother."
Every eye turned toward Daniel.
Daniel went still.
Claire shook her head.
"He's standing beside me."
Rourke chuckled.
"Then ask him why his fingerprints were found inside your apartment forty minutes before Moretti's men arrived."
Daniel's face changed.
Claire saw it.
"No."
Daniel reached for her.
"Claire—"
She backed away.
"Don't."
"There's an explanation."
Vincent stepped between them.
"I'm listening."
Daniel raised his hands.
"I went to Claire's apartment before coming here."
Claire stared at him.
"You followed me?"
"I was checking whether Rourke found you."
"You went inside?"
"The lock was already broken."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because the book wasn't there."
Claire looked at Vincent.
Then back at Daniel.
"But they found it."
Daniel stopped.
The room went silent.
Vincent understood first.
"If Daniel searched the apartment and the book wasn't there..."
Claire whispered, "Someone put it back."
Rourke heard them through the phone.
"Now you're catching up."
Vincent's gaze sharpened.
"Who?"
"That's what Patrick wanted you to discover."
Claire stared at the speaker.
"What does that mean?"
Rourke exhaled.
"The photograph in the buried box wasn't random."
Vincent looked at the old image on Daniel's phone.
Patrick Sullivan.
Damian Rourke.
Lorenzo Moretti.
Rourke's voice lost its amusement.
"There were four men at that meeting."
Vincent frowned.
"The photograph shows three."
"The fourth took the picture."
Claire felt cold.
"Who?"
Rourke did not answer immediately.
Then someone shouted behind him.
A loud impact followed.
The line crackled.
"Damian?"
Gunfire erupted.
Then silence.
Claire stared at the phone.
"Damian?"
A different voice came through.
Male.
Quiet.
Familiar.
Claire's face drained before he said her name.
"Hello, sweetheart."
She could not breathe.
Daniel whispered, "Who is that?"
Claire stared into the darkness beyond the shattered windows.
Because the man speaking on Rourke's phone had been declared dead eight years earlier.
May you like
And Claire knew his voice better than anyone's.
"Dad?"
