Chapter 6 - The Dinner That Was Never About Victor
“MOM!”
Molly ran into the corridor.
No answer.
Victor followed.
Evelyn had been standing beside Molly less than a minute earlier.
Nobody had heard her leave.
They searched the hallway.
The stairwell.
Room 317.
Nothing.
Then Molly spotted her mother’s scarf on the floor near an old service elevator.
The elevator was supposed to be dead.
Its indicator showed B.
Basement.
Victor pressed the button.
Nothing.
Thomas wheeled closer.
“There’s another stairway.”
They followed him through a maintenance corridor.
Molly’s breathing came fast.
Victor stayed beside her.
“You need to slow down.”
“My mother was taken twice in one night.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Victor looked at her.
“My father was murdered in this building.”
Molly stopped.
For one second their fear met without argument.
Then she nodded.
“Okay.”
They continued.
The basement was enormous.
Old laundry rooms.
Boilers.
Storage chambers.
A narrow passage disappeared beneath the street.
Thomas pointed.
“That tunnel leads toward Crystal House.”
Molly understood.
Anthony Bell had moved between both buildings.
The abandoned hotel and restaurant were connected.
He had controlled both scenes from underground.
The fake delivery.
Claudia’s kidnapping.
Ethan’s captivity.
Evelyn’s disappearance.
Everything.
They entered the tunnel.
Victor’s flashlight swept across old brick walls.
Halfway through, they found a shoe.
Evelyn’s.
Molly picked it up.
“She’s here.”
Victor touched her shoulder.
“We’ll find her.”
Molly almost asked why he cared.
Then she remembered the fork.
Victor Hastings should have died tonight.
Instead he was walking through a filthy tunnel to rescue the mother of a waitress he had met hours earlier.
People were rarely one thing.
Maybe that was the lesson neither of them wanted tonight.
They reached a metal door.
Music played behind it.
Restaurant piano music.
Molly looked at Victor.
“Crystal House.”
He nodded.
They opened the door.
The basement was dark.
A single bulb illuminated Ethan Mercer.
He was tied to a chair.
Adrian rushed toward him.
“Ethan!”
A voice stopped him.
“Don’t.”
Anthony Bell stepped from behind a shelf.
He held Evelyn by the arm.
Molly froze.
“Mom.”
Evelyn looked frightened but unharmed.
Anthony was sixty.
Silver hair.
Perfect suit.
The kind of man who appeared on charity boards and business magazines.
Victor stared at him.
“You.”
Anthony smiled.
“Finally.”
Dominic stood behind Victor under guard.
He looked furious.
“You used me.”
Anthony laughed.
“Of course.”
“You said we were exposing them.”
“We were.”
“You said nobody would die.”
Anthony looked toward Victor.
“That part was never true.”
Molly’s mother spoke.
“Anthony, enough.”
He tightened his grip.
Victor noticed something.
“You know him.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Molly’s world shifted again.
“Mom?”
Evelyn looked at her daughter.
“Anthony helped arrange your father’s disappearance.”
Thomas entered the room.
Anthony’s expression hardened.
“You should have stayed dead.”
Thomas looked at him.
“So should the truth?”
Anthony smiled.
“The truth is whatever survives.”
Molly stepped forward.
“Then you made a mistake.”
Anthony looked at her.
“What?”
“You left too many survivors.”
Victor glanced at Molly.
She continued.
“Adrian knows you coerced him.”
“Adrian knows Dominic coerced him.”
“Claudia saw you.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“My father knows.”
“Your father has been legally dead for twenty-four years.”
“Judge Kellerman knows.”
Anthony laughed.
“Kellerman signed documents that would destroy his career.”
Molly held up her phone.
“And Dominic confessed.”
Anthony’s smile thinned.
“Dominic confessed to his own crimes.”
Victor finally spoke.
“You forgot me.”
Anthony looked at him.
“You’ll never go to police.”
“That was Dominic’s assumption too.”
“And?”
Victor smiled coldly.
“Tonight has changed my priorities.”
Anthony’s face hardened.
For the first time, uncertainty appeared.
Victor continued.
“You built everything around what you thought I wouldn’t do.”
He pulled out his phone.
“Thirty minutes ago, I sent copies of Molly’s recording, the photographs, reservation list, and restaurant security footage to an attorney.”
Anthony stared.
Victor continued.
“He was instructed to deliver everything to federal investigators if I failed to contact him by one.”
Molly looked at Victor.
He had prepared that without telling her.
Anthony’s grip on Evelyn weakened.
“You bluff.”
Victor checked his watch.
“Try me.”
A distant sound came from upstairs.
Sirens.
Anthony turned toward the ceiling.
Molly almost smiled.
Victor said, “That’s the problem with believing your own stories. Eventually you forget other people can change.”
Anthony shoved Evelyn aside and ran.
Molly caught her mother.
Victor’s men chased Anthony through the tunnel.
Adrian freed Ethan.
Father and son collapsed into each other.
Dominic sat against the wall.
Defeated.
Thomas approached Evelyn.
They stood only a few feet apart.
Molly watched.
Her mother whispered, “I thought I would never see you again.”
Thomas nodded.
“I thought that was the price.”
“No.”
Evelyn began crying.
“That was the mistake.”
Molly looked away.
Some reunions belonged first to the people who had waited longest.
Victor stood beside her.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Fair.”
She laughed once despite herself.
“You’re terrible at comforting people.”
“I’ve been told.”
“By many waitresses?”
“Mostly lawyers.”
Molly smiled.
Then the expression faded.
“What happens now?”
Victor looked toward the stairs.
“Anthony goes to prison if they catch him.”
“Dominic?”
“The same.”
“Adrian?”
Victor considered.
“He made terrible choices.”
“He was threatened.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not going to hurt him?”
Victor looked almost offended.
“You think that’s what I do?”
Molly raised an eyebrow.
Victor sighed.
“Fair again.”
Police entered the basement.
Victor stepped away from her.
He spoke to them.
Molly had expected evasion.
Instead he gave his name.
His statement.
His phone.
Everything.
When asked about his own businesses, he told them his attorney would answer.
Not perfect honesty.
But more than Anthony expected.
More than Molly expected too.
Hours passed.
Sunlight began appearing through the basement windows.
Anthony was captured three blocks away attempting to leave through the riverfront warehouses.
Ethan survived.
Claudia survived.
Adrian was taken for questioning.
Dominic was arrested.
Judge Kellerman agreed to cooperate.
Thomas Higgins sat quietly while government officials tried to determine how a legally dead witness would become legally alive again.
At six-thirty in the morning, Molly returned upstairs.
Crystal House looked ruined.
Broken glass.
Half-cleared tables.
Cold food.
A bouquet of white flowers still sat in the center of Victor’s table.
His plate remained where it had started.
Victor entered behind her.
Molly picked up the clean fork from the opposite place setting.
“Hungry?”
He looked at his abandoned dinner.
“Not particularly.”
She smiled.
“Understandable.”
He looked at her.
“You saved my life.”
Molly shrugged.
“I stopped a fork.”
“You knew enough to be afraid.”
“So?”
“You did it anyway.”
Molly placed the fork down.
“People are supposed to stop bad things when they see them.”
Victor stared at her as though the concept was unfamiliar.
Then he asked, “What do you want?”
Molly frowned.
“For breakfast?”
“No. For saving me.”
Her expression hardened.
“Nothing.”
“Everyone wants something.”
“Maybe that’s your problem.”
Victor almost smiled.
“Maybe.”
Molly looked at the dining room.
“I want my mother safe. Adrian’s son safe. Claudia safe. And I want my father to stop disappearing.”
Victor nodded.
“Those I can help with.”
She started walking away.
“Molly.”
She turned.
Victor held the black-marked fork inside an evidence bag.
“You noticed this because of one scratch?”
“Yes.”
He stared.
“I employ people whose entire job is protecting me.”
“Maybe hire restaurant workers.”
This time Victor actually laughed.
It transformed his face.
For several seconds he looked younger.
Human.
Molly smiled despite herself.
Then her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Her stomach tightened.
Victor saw.
“Answer it.”
Molly did.
“Hello?”
Silence.
Then a woman’s voice.
“Molly Higgins?”
“Yes.”
“This is Special Agent Rebecca Shaw.”
Molly relaxed slightly.
“We recovered Anthony Bell’s files.”
“And?”
“There is something you need to see.”
Molly looked at Victor.
“What?”
A pause.
“Your name appears in records dated eighteen years before you were born.”
Molly’s smile disappeared.
Victor stepped closer.
May you like
Agent Shaw continued.
“And beside your name is Victor Hastings’s father’s signature.”
