Chapter 2 - THE MAN RUBY BURIED
Ruby did not hug her father.
She slapped him.
The sound cracked across the half-empty ballroom.
Daniel Callahan accepted it without moving.
Ruby stared at the face she had kissed goodbye in a funeral home eight years earlier, and something inside her seemed to tear open.
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“You let Evan bury you.”
Daniel’s eyes lowered.
“That part cost more than you know.”
“No.”
Ruby stepped backward.
“You don’t get to tell me what it cost you.”
Marcus had not moved.
Men throughout the ballroom were watching him now, waiting for a signal.
He gave none.
His attention remained on Daniel.
“My father.”
Daniel glanced at him.
“Anthony Varela is alive.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Marcus’s expression barely changed, but Ruby saw his hand close slowly around the back of a chair.
Daniel reached for the phone containing Evan’s recording.
Marcus moved first.
“Don’t.”
Daniel stopped.
“You hear the rest in this room, Calvin will know exactly how much Evan discovered.”
“Calvin already knows you’re alive,” Ruby said.
Daniel’s silence answered her.
Ruby laughed once, bitterly.
“Of course he does.”
“He doesn’t know I’m here.”
“You walked into a ballroom with two hundred people.”
“After the lights went out.”
Marcus looked toward the service corridor.
“The outage wasn’t yours?”
“No.”
That changed everything.
Marcus turned to Luis.
“Close the building.”
Daniel immediately said, “Don’t.”
Marcus looked back.
“If Calvin realizes he’s trapped, he’ll destroy whatever is left.”
“Whatever is left where?”
Daniel pushed the second brass key toward Ruby.
“B-117.”
Ruby stared at it.
“You sent Evan the first key?”
“No.”
That stopped her.
“Then who did?”
“I gave both keys to Evan six months ago.”
Daniel’s voice tightened.
“One for him. One for someone he trusted.”
Ruby looked at the envelope.
“Evan mailed this?”
“He must have arranged it before he died.”
Marcus picked up the key.
“Where is B-117?”
“Lakefront Storage. West Forty-Ninth.”
Luis spoke quietly.
“Varela Shipping leased units there years ago.”
Daniel nodded.
“So did the relief fund.”
Ruby looked at him sharply.
“Why?”
“That is what Evan discovered.”
They left through the kitchen.
Marcus insisted Ruby ride with him and Daniel.
Ruby almost refused simply because she was tired of men deciding things for her.
Then Marcus opened the rear door.
“You can stay here if you want.”
That stopped her.
He wasn’t ordering her.
He was giving her a choice.
Ruby got in.
Daniel sat opposite her.
For ten minutes, nobody spoke.
Finally Ruby asked, “Whose body did we bury?”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“A dockworker named Thomas Bell.”
Ruby felt sick.
“He had no family. There’d been a warehouse fire. Anthony arranged the identification.”
“Anthony Varela?”
“Yes.”
Marcus’s voice became colder.
“My father helped fake your death?”
“He saved my life.”
“And abandoned his son.”
Daniel looked at him.
“You think I don’t understand that?”
“No,” Marcus said. “I think you understand it perfectly.”
At Lakefront Storage, Marcus’s men secured the corridor.
B-117 had two locks.
Ruby understood why there were two keys.
Daniel inserted one.
Ruby inserted Evan’s.
The door rolled upward.
No cash.
No guns.
No dramatic wall of secret files.
Just three metal shelves, two banker’s boxes and an old brown wool coat.
Ruby froze.
“Dad’s coat.”
Daniel stared at it.
“I haven’t seen that in years.”
Ruby approached.
Evan had kept it.
Inside one box were relief fund ledgers.
Ruby sat on the concrete floor and began turning pages.
Within minutes, she found the pattern.
“The money wasn’t stolen all at once.”
Marcus crouched beside her.
“What was it?”
“Reimbursements.”
Small payments had been issued for medical transportation, temporary housing and emergency prescriptions.
Most were legitimate.
Some were not.
Ruby pointed.
“Look at the last two digits.”
.11.
.23.
.41.
.63.
Pennies.
Evan had been marking suspicious transactions.
Marcus understood.
“He followed your father’s rule.”
Ruby swallowed.
“Every false payment eventually feeds the same clearing account.”
Daniel said, “And that account?”
Ruby traced it.
Then stopped.
“Mercer Community Trust.”
Calvin’s family charity.
It seemed obvious.
Too obvious.
Marcus saw Ruby’s expression.
“What?”
“Calvin’s an accountant too.”
“So?”
“He wouldn’t leave his own name on the account.”
Daniel went pale.
Ruby looked deeper.
The trust had received the money.
But within twenty-four hours, every payment had left again.
Destination:
CALLAHAN-VARELA BENEFICIARY HOLDING.
Ruby slowly raised her head.
“Our names.”
Marcus stared at the page.
“Someone built this to point at both families.”
Daniel whispered, “That was the plan.”
Ruby stood.
“You knew?”
“I knew someone was moving money. I didn’t know Calvin was involved until Evan found him.”
“Who is ‘someone’?”
Daniel looked at Marcus.
Before he answered, Ruby noticed something in the coat pocket.
A photograph.
Two young men stood on a Cleveland dock twenty-eight years earlier.
Daniel Callahan.
Anthony Varela.
Between them stood a smiling blond teenager.
Ruby turned the photograph over.
Three names were written on the back.
Daniel.
Anthony.
And Richard Mercer.
Calvin’s father.
Marcus stared at Daniel.
“You said Calvin was the problem.”
“No.”
Daniel’s face looked suddenly exhausted.
“I said Calvin knew about the problem.”
Ruby’s stomach tightened.
“Richard Mercer died twelve years ago.”
Daniel shook his head.
“No, Ruby.”
He touched the photograph.
“Richard Mercer is the reason Anthony and I disappeared.”
Then something fell from the back of the frame.
A recent parking ticket.
Issued six days earlier.
Ruby picked it up.
The registered owner was printed clearly across the bottom.
May you like
ANTHONY VARELA.
And the violation location was only four blocks from Evan’s apartment.
