Chapter 5 - THE MAN ADRIAN COULD NEVER FORGIVE
Nora held the locket so tightly its edges cut into her palm.
“What happened to my father?”
Adrian looked toward the entrance.
“Not here.”
“You knew him.”
“Nora.”
“You knew him.”
Another burst of gunfire tore through the metal door.
Adrian grabbed her around the waist and pulled her down.
“Stay behind me.”
“I don't need—”
A bullet punched through a cardboard box six inches above her head.
She stopped arguing.
Marcus shouted into his radio.
“North corridor! Two shooters!”
The Bellamy guards returned fire.
Adrian pushed Nora toward the rear wall.
“Is there another exit?”
“No.”
Caleb pointed.
“Ventilation door.”
A narrow maintenance panel sat behind shelving.
Marcus kicked it twice.
Metal bent.
A third kick broke the latch.
“Move!”
Caleb crawled through first.
Nora followed.
Adrian came behind her, his burned hand wrapped against his chest.
They emerged into an alley behind the storage complex.
A black SUV skidded around the corner.
For one terrifying second, Nora thought it belonged to the shooters.
Then Marcus opened the door.
“Get in!”
They escaped as sirens approached from the highway.
Nobody spoke for several minutes.
Nora sat opposite Adrian.
The locket remained in her hand.
“What happened to my father?”
Adrian looked at Marcus.
“Take Caleb to the secondary house.”
“No.”
Caleb straightened.
“I stay with Nora.”
Adrian nodded once.
“Fine.”
Then he looked at Nora.
“Your father was Thomas Blair.”
“Yes.”
“He worked for mine.”
Nora stared.
“My father sold insurance.”
“No. That was his legitimate job.”
She laughed in disbelief.
“Everybody in my childhood was secretly involved with the mafia?”
“No.”
“Just my parents?”
Adrian's jaw tightened.
“Thomas wasn't mafia. He was an accountant.”
“For your father.”
“Yes.”
Nora remembered her father only in fragments.
Brown shoes by the door.
Peppermint gum.
A terrible singing voice.
He had died in a car accident when she was nine.
At least that was what Claire had told her.
“He died driving home from work.”
Adrian said nothing.
Nora's stomach turned.
“No.”
“He discovered discrepancies in my father's businesses.”
“What kind?”
“Money being diverted to shell corporations. Payments to public officials. Payments to police.”
“And?”
“He confronted my father.”
Nora waited.
“My father told him the truth.”
“About everything?”
“Enough.”
“Then my father helped him.”
“Yes.”
Nora looked at the locket.
“And someone killed him.”
Adrian nodded.
“His car was forced off the road.”
Caleb whispered, “Jesus.”
Nora couldn't speak.
Twenty-two years of memory rearranged themselves.
Her mother's terror whenever unfamiliar cars parked outside.
The sudden move after her father's funeral.
The locket Claire had insisted Nora wear.
It had never been sentimental.
It had been protection.
“Who killed him?”
“We believed Victor Sloane ordered it.”
“Who is Victor Sloane?”
Adrian's expression darkened.
“My father's closest friend.”
Marcus said, “And Evelyn's father.”
Nora looked between them.
Everything connected.
The marriage.
The fire.
The archive.
“Your wife married you because of this?”
“I married Evelyn twelve years ago because our families needed peace.”
“That sounds romantic.”
“It wasn't.”
“Did she know her father killed mine?”
“I don't know.”
Nora laughed.
“You really don't know anything about your wife.”
“No.”
The admission contained no defensiveness.
Only regret.
Adrian leaned forward.
“But Evelyn knows the archive exists.”
“The briefcase?”
“The Zurich case contains my father's half.”
“You had it?”
“I recovered it three months ago.”
“And didn't tell her.”
“I didn't tell anyone except Daniel and Marcus.”
Marcus looked troubled.
Adrian noticed.
“What?”
Marcus slowly said, “Then we have another problem.”
“What?”
“If only Daniel and I knew…”
Adrian's eyes hardened.
“One of you told her.”
Marcus nodded.
“And Daniel is dead.”
Silence.
Meaning the traitor might be Marcus.
Nora looked at him.
Marcus noticed.
“If I wanted Adrian dead, Miss Blair, he would have died twenty years ago.”
“That isn't exactly evidence.”
“No.”
Adrian almost smiled.
“She learns quickly.”
Nora looked at the locket.
“Open it.”
Adrian hesitated.
Then Marcus produced a pocketknife.
The locket's seam was almost invisible.
He worked the blade into it.
The back popped free.
Inside was no photograph.
There was a tiny brass object.
Not much larger than a fingernail.
Caleb frowned.
“What is that?”
Adrian stared.
“A key.”
“To what?”
“I don't know.”
Nora picked it up.
A number had been engraved along the edge.
Marcus's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed immediately.
“When?”
He listened.
“Understood.”
He hung up.
Adrian asked, “What?”
“The police found Evelyn's sedan.”
“Where?”
“Riverfront.”
“Evelyn?”
“Gone.”
“Luis?”
“Dead.”
Nora closed her eyes.
“How?”
“Shot.”
Adrian leaned back.
“Someone is cleaning up.”
Marcus nodded.
“And there's something else.”
He handed Adrian his phone.
A photograph showed the sedan.
The driver's door stood open.
On the windshield, someone had written three words in blood.
BRING THE GIRL.
Nora felt Caleb grip her shoulder.
Adrian stared at the photograph.
“No.”
Marcus said, “Sir—”
“No one brings Nora anywhere.”
Nora looked at him.
“Maybe that's what they want.”
“Obviously.”
“No. Maybe they don't want the archive.”
Adrian frowned.
“What else would they want?”
She held up the brass key.
“My mother said she hid something nobody would look for. Maybe this isn't the archive.”
“What is it?”
Nora turned the key between her fingers.
“317.”
Caleb suddenly went pale.
“Nora.”
“What?”
“Dad's grave.”
She stared at him.
“What about it?”
“The cemetery.”
Caleb swallowed.
“Section three. Row seventeen.”
The SUV went silent.
Nora looked at the tiny key.
Then Adrian's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered on speaker.
A man's voice said:
“Bring Nora Blair to Thomas Blair's grave before sunrise.”
Adrian's face became stone.
“And if I don't?”
A pause.
Then came a sound Nora recognized.
A frightened gasp.
Hector.
The missing housekeeper.
May you like
The man on the phone laughed.
“If you don't, your maid gets to listen while I bury the old man beside her father.”
