Chapter 6 - The Last Dinner at Rowe’s House
Tessa watched the video three times.
Damian took the phone after the third.
“That’s enough.”
“My mother is tied to a chair.”
“I know.”
“They’ll kill her.”
“They won’t if they need the ledger.”
“And after they get it?”
Damian said nothing.
Exactly.
Tessa looked toward Marco.
Paramedics were treating the cut on his head.
He refused transport.
“Tessa,” he said. “There’s a basement entrance.”
She looked at him.
“At Rowe’s House?”
“My father showed me years ago.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“He used it to meet Moses without Elias knowing.”
Tessa opened the recipe notebook.
The missing pages.
The address.
Suddenly she understood.
“My grandmother knew.”
“Knew what?” Damian asked.
“The important things weren’t in the ledger.”
She searched the remaining pages.
Certain words were underlined.
Salt.
Bay.
Three.
Copper.
Sunday.
None made sense separately.
But Mae had loved word games.
Tessa pulled out the torn page Marco recovered.
A faint imprint showed writing from the missing sheet.
Damian held it beneath a lamp.
Numbers appeared.
14-8-22.
Marco frowned.
“A date?”
“No.”
Tessa counted letters.
N.
H.
V.
Nothing.
Then she remembered how Mae labeled pantry shelves.
Numbers corresponding to recipe lines.
“Page fourteen, line eight, word twenty-two.”
They began decoding.
One reference at a time.
It took twenty minutes.
The final message read:
BEHIND BRICK OVEN. SECOND BOX. ORIGINAL TAPES.
Damian stared.
“The ledger was bait.”
Tessa nodded.
“Grandpa kept the real proof somewhere else.”
“Rowe’s House.”
“Yes.”
Marco sat upright.
“That’s why Laurent took Ruth there.”
“He found the same clue.”
“Or forced her to explain it.”
Tessa shut the notebook.
“We go.”
Damian shook his head.
“You stay.”
She turned on him.
“My mother is there.”
“And that’s why you’re not thinking clearly.”
“I’m thinking perfectly clearly.”
“You’re walking into a hostage situation.”
“So are you.”
“I know how to handle one.”
“Do you?”
The question stopped him.
Tessa lowered her voice.
“My grandfather spent his life telling people violence wasn’t strength.”
Damian looked away.
“You carry a gun because everyone expects Damian Voss to solve things with a gun.”
“Tessa.”
“What if this time you don’t?”
“You want me to ask Mercer nicely?”
“I want us to win without becoming him.”
Damian stared at her for a long time.
Then he unloaded his pistol.
Rafe objected.
“Boss.”
“Stay outside unless I call.”
“Damian—”
“That’s an order.”
Tessa noticed he hated the word as soon as he said it.
At 11:37, they reached Rowe’s House.
The old sign still hung above the door.
ROWE’S HOUSE.
Half the letters were faded.
Tessa had not been inside since she was fourteen.
She remembered standing there after Moses’s funeral while Ruth locked the door.
Now a dim light glowed inside.
Tessa carried the ledger.
Damian walked beside her.
No visible weapons.
Marco and federal agents waited two blocks away.
Elena Shaw had reluctantly agreed to the plan after learning about the hidden tapes.
If Tessa could locate them, the case could be built without relying solely on Moses’s ledger.
Tessa opened the front door.
The old bell rang.
For one impossible second, she was eight again.
Moses shouting from the stove.
Mae laughing.
Customers arguing over baseball.
Then she saw Ruth.
Tied to a chair.
Laurent stood behind her.
Elias sat at one of the old tables.
A pistol rested beside his hand.
“You came,” Elias said.
“You expected me.”
“I expected Damian.”
He looked at Voss.
“But bringing the girl was careless.”
“She brought me.”
Elias smiled.
“Moses would have liked that.”
“Don’t say his name.”
Tessa’s voice was steady.
Elias studied her.
“You have his temper.”
“I have his ledger.”
She placed it on a table.
Laurent stepped forward.
Damian moved slightly.
Elias lifted one finger.
Everyone stopped.
“Open it.”
Tessa did.
“Now step away.”
“No.”
Elias smiled.
“No?”
“My mother first.”
Laurent grabbed Ruth’s shoulder.
Ruth winced.
Tessa’s heart slammed.
Elias leaned back.
“You think this is negotiation?”
“I think you need what I have.”
“And you need your mother.”
“So we both need something.”
Damian’s expression shifted.
He was proud.
Elias seemed almost amused.
“Moses taught you well.”
“He taught me not to trust men who compliment you while pointing guns at your family.”
Ruth nearly smiled.
Elias’s face hardened.
“Untie her.”
Laurent stared.
“What?”
“Untie Ruth.”
“We get the ledger first.”
Elias looked at him.
“You forget who you’re speaking to.”
Laurent laughed.
That was the moment everything changed.
“No,” Laurent said. “You forget you’re seventy-two.”
Elias’s hand moved toward the gun.
Laurent already had his weapon out.
He pointed it at Elias.
Damian pulled Tessa behind the counter.
Ruth screamed.
Laurent kicked Elias’s gun away.
“For twenty years, I cleaned up your mistakes.”
Elias stared.
“You were a waiter when I found you.”
“I built Vesper.”
“With my money.”
“With money I earned.”
“You poisoned Moses because I told you to.”
Tessa froze.
There.
A confession.
Elena was listening through the microphone hidden inside Tessa’s vest.
Laurent realized too late.
His eyes moved toward Tessa.
“You’re wired.”
Damian stepped forward.
“Put the gun down.”
Laurent laughed wildly.
“You came unarmed?”
“Yes.”
“You really have changed.”
“No.”
Damian glanced at Tessa.
“I’m trying.”
Laurent grabbed Ruth.
Gun to her head.
“Tessa. The ledger.”
She pushed it across the counter.
Laurent took it.
“Now the tapes.”
“I don’t know where they are.”
“Liar.”
“I know there may be something behind the brick oven.”
Laurent’s eyes flickered.
Too much interest.
He knew.
Tessa saw it.
“So you never found them.”
Laurent dragged Ruth toward the kitchen.
“Open it.”
Tessa followed.
Damian behind her.
Elias remained seated, bleeding slightly from his lip.
The brick oven stood where Tessa remembered.
Moses had baked cornbread in it.
She approached.
Second box.
Behind brick oven.
She found two loose bricks.
Pulled them.
Inside was a metal compartment.
A wooden box sat within.
Laurent’s breathing changed.
“Give it to me.”
Tessa lifted the box.
Heavy.
She opened it.
Cassette tapes.
Photographs.
Letters.
And one small tape recorder.
Laurent smiled.
“Finally.”
Tessa reached for the recorder.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking something.”
“Don’t.”
She pressed play.
Static.
Then Moses’s voice filled the kitchen.
Tessa stopped breathing.
“If anyone hears this, then Elias has decided he cannot afford to let me live.”
Ruth began crying.
Moses continued.
“I am recording Laurent Delacroix because the boy came to me tonight and confessed Mercer asked him to switch my medication.”
Laurent went white.
The tape continued.
“He says he has not done it yet.”
Tessa looked at Laurent.
Ruth looked too.
Moses’s voice softened.
“I told Laurent he still had time to make the right choice.”
Laurent’s hand began shaking.
“He lied.”
Tessa stared.
“You told Grandpa before you did it.”
“Turn it off.”
“He gave you a chance.”
“Turn it off!”
“And you poisoned him anyway.”
Laurent shoved Ruth aside and lunged for the recorder.
Damian tackled him.
The gun fired.
Everyone froze.
Ruth screamed.
Tessa looked down.
Blood spread across Damian’s white shirt.
“Damian!”
He collapsed.
Laurent scrambled for the gun.
Tessa grabbed the cast-iron skillet hanging beside the ancient oven.
The same kind Moses had once carried to protect a wounded seventeen-year-old boy.
She swung.
The skillet struck Laurent’s wrist.
The gun flew.
Federal agents burst through the doors.
“Federal agents! Hands!”
Rafe followed.
Marco.
Elena.
Elias raised both hands.
Laurent tried to run.
Marco blocked him.
Laurent stopped.
For one moment they stared at each other.
The grandson of Elias Mercer.
The man who had murdered Moses Rowe.
Marco stepped aside.
Police tackled Laurent.
Tessa dropped beside Damian.
“Look at me.”
His eyes opened.
“You hit him with a skillet.”
“Shut up.”
“It was impressive.”
“Damian.”
Blood covered her hands.
Paramedics rushed toward them.
He grabbed her fingers.
“Tessa.”
“What?”
“If I die—”
“You’re not dying.”
“My chef offer still stands.”
She laughed through tears.
“You are unbelievable.”
His eyes closed.
“Damian?”
No answer.
“Damian!”
Paramedics pushed her backward.
They cut his shirt.
Ruth wrapped both arms around Tessa.
The old restaurant filled with police.
Cameras flashed outside.
Elena lifted the tape box.
Elias Mercer was placed in handcuffs.
Laurent screamed that nobody understood what he had done for the city.
Nobody listened.
Tessa only watched the paramedics lift Damian onto a stretcher.
His hand fell limp beside him.
One medic shouted for the doors to clear.
Tessa ran after them.
At the ambulance, Elena caught her shoulder.
“Tessa.”
“What?”
“There’s something else on the final tape.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will.”
The ambulance doors opened.
Damian lay motionless inside.
Tessa climbed toward him.
Elena held up another cassette.
May you like
Across its label, Moses had written four words.
FOR DAMIAN. FROM YOUR FATHER.
