Chapter 5 - THE RESTORATION KNIFE
Elena wanted to go home alone.
Adrien refused to pretend that was sensible.
This time, she didn’t fight him.
“Fine,” she said. “But Daniel talks to me first.”
Adrien studied her.
“If he moves toward you—”
“I know.”
“No. You don’t.”
His voice remained calm.
“You still think you know the limits of the man you married.”
That hurt because it was true.
They reached Elena’s townhouse shortly after sunrise.
Adrien and Marcus remained out of sight near the rear entrance while Elena walked in through the front.
Daniel sat at the kitchen table.
The green ledger lay before him.
So did Samuel Reed’s restoration knife.
Daniel looked exhausted.
No expensive suit jacket.
No polished smile.
Just a man Elena had slept beside for eight years.
“You brought Vale.”
“Yes.”
“I asked for you.”
“You lost the right to make requests somewhere around the twelve-million-dollar forgery.”
Daniel flinched.
“Elena—”
“Did you marry me because of my father?”
He looked down.
That was answer enough.
Her throat tightened.
“Say it.”
“Yes.”
The word landed quietly.
Almost worse than shouting.
“At first.”
Elena laughed once.
“You don’t get to add ‘at first’ like it repairs eight years.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She pointed toward the ledger.
“You opened accounts in my name.”
“Yes.”
“You forged my authorization.”
“Yes.”
“You let me stand outside that mansion because you were afraid Adrien would speak to me.”
Daniel’s eyes filled with something that looked painfully like shame.
“Yes.”
Elena forced herself to remain standing.
“Then tell me one true thing.”
Daniel looked at her.
“I loved you.”
She almost slapped him.
Instead, she pulled out a chair.
“Try again.”
Daniel pushed the restoration knife toward her.
“Your father knew who I was.”
Elena froze.
Daniel said he had approached Samuel Reed months before he approached Elena.
He had been twenty-eight, angry, obsessed with finding Thomas.
Samuel knew Daniel was Thomas Carter’s son.
He also knew Daniel was searching for the Vale records.
“Your father told me to leave you alone.”
“And you ignored him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought you had the ledger.”
The answer was ugly enough to sound true.
Daniel continued.
Samuel became ill soon afterward.
Before his final hospitalization, he summoned Daniel.
“He gave me the knife.”
“No.”
“He did.”
“Why?”
“He said if I ever became enough like my father to understand what fear could make a man do, I should return it to you.”
Elena stared at him.
“My father didn’t know you.”
“He knew Thomas.”
That stopped her.
Daniel opened the ledger.
The pages inside were financial entries in Margaret Vale’s handwriting.
But the back cover remained intact.
“You never opened it.”
“I tried.”
“You would have destroyed what was inside.”
“That’s why I stopped.”
Elena almost hated him more for that small act of restraint.
“Why steal it from my studio now?”
“Because Gabriel wanted it.”
“And Vanessa?”
Daniel rubbed both hands over his face.
“Vanessa was supposed to copy a security code from Adrien’s office. Gabriel went with her.”
“So Gabriel is behind the twelve million?”
“No.”
Elena stared.
“I am.”
There it was.
No excuse.
Daniel had planned to transfer the money into temporary accounts, expose Gabriel as the beneficiary, then reverse most of it after Adrien moved against him.
“Most?”
Daniel looked away.
“I was keeping enough to disappear.”
“With Vanessa?”
“No.”
“Then why was she helping you?”
“Because Gabriel threatened her brother.”
Elena shook her head.
“You’re all using each other and calling it protection.”
Daniel had no answer.
“Why frame me?”
His eyes finally met hers.
“I didn’t intend for the authorization to remain under your name.”
“But it did.”
“Yes.”
“And if something went wrong?”
Silence.
Elena understood.
She had been his emergency exit.
The person he claimed to love had also been the person he was prepared to sacrifice.
Daniel pushed the ledger toward her.
“I stopped the transfer.”
“You expect credit?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I expect you to open that cover.”
Elena examined it.
Her father’s old knife fit beneath the pastedown as naturally as if Samuel had designed the repair for her hands.
Slowly, she separated the paper from the board.
Inside was no bank record.
No account number.
There was a letter.
Addressed to Margaret Vale.
Elena read it aloud.
Samuel wrote that Richard Vale had indeed moved the original money.
But not to steal it.
Someone inside his companies had been extorting him.
Richard created hidden accounts to trace payments without alerting the extortionist.
Margaret knew.
She helped.
Adrien closed his eyes from the doorway.
Elena turned.
He had heard everything.
Daniel stood abruptly.
“I told you to stay outside.”
Adrien’s expression became ice.
“You should know by now how poorly that works.”
Elena continued reading.
Richard had discovered the person manipulating the accounts.
He planned to expose him.
But he died before he could.
Samuel had hidden one final item proving the extortionist’s identity.
Not in the ledger.
Somewhere else.
At the bottom of the letter were the words:
Margaret, if anything happens to Richard, look at the photograph from Daniel’s ninth birthday. The man wearing Richard’s watch is the beginning of it.
Daniel stared.
“My ninth birthday?”
Thomas had kept childhood photographs in the Baltimore unit.
Adrien immediately called Marcus.
“Find it.”
Daniel looked confused.
“My father worked for Richard. Why would someone from Vale’s company be at my birthday?”
Elena remembered the boxes.
A blue house.
A backyard.
The child’s drawing.
Then another detail.
In one photograph, a man had stood behind Thomas with his arm partly cropped from the frame.
A silver watch visible at his wrist.
Adrien’s phone rang.
Marcus had found the photograph and sent it.
Adrien opened the image.
Nine-year-old Daniel stood beside a birthday cake.
Thomas was behind him.
And beside Thomas stood a younger man Elena now recognized.
Gabriel Mercer.
On Gabriel’s wrist was Richard Vale’s distinctive silver watch.
Adrien stared at it.
“My father wore that watch the day he died.”
Daniel whispered, “Then Gabriel killed him.”
“No,” Elena said.
Everyone looked at her.
She enlarged the photograph.
The date stamped at the bottom was six months before Richard’s death.
Then she noticed the reflection in the window behind Gabriel.
A fifth person had taken the photograph.
The glass caught his face.
Daniel leaned closer.
His expression changed completely.
“No.”
Elena looked at him.
“You know him?”
Daniel backed away from the table.
“That’s impossible.”
“Who is it?”
Daniel’s voice dropped.
“That’s the man who taught me how to build the accounts.”
Adrien’s eyes hardened.
“Name.”
May you like
Daniel looked at him.
“Marcus.”
