Chapter 6 - THE SECOND MAN
Robert called back six times.
No answer.
Nathan was already running.
They reached the street in less than three minutes.
Police vehicles screamed north toward Connecticut.
Robert climbed into the first SUV.
“Move!”
Nathan jumped behind the wheel.
Robert called the Ellington House security team.
No answer from the main line.
A guard finally responded on his personal phone.
“Sir?”
“Where is my wife?”
“West wing, sir.”
“Sam?”
“I thought he was with Mrs. Ellington.”
“Is Julian Mercer inside?”
Silence.
“Sir, Mr. Mercer hasn’t been here since this afternoon.”
“Check every room.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nathan looked over.
“Robert.”
“What?”
“If Julian was twenty-one floors above Manhattan five minutes ago, he isn’t in Connecticut.”
Robert knew.
But Sam had sounded certain.
“Then who did he see?”
Nathan accelerated.
Forty-seven minutes later, the SUV tore through the estate gates.
Robert was out before it fully stopped.
“Elizabeth!”
He ran through the main hall.
Security staff were everywhere.
“Library!”
Robert reached the library.
Elizabeth sat in her wheelchair near the fireplace.
Sam stood behind her.
Both were alive.
Robert crossed the room and dropped beside them.
“What happened?”
Sam looked embarrassed.
“I thought it was him.”
“Who?”
“A man outside.”
Elizabeth held up her phone.
“The camera caught him.”
Robert watched the footage.
At 12:19 a.m., a man crossed the garden near the French doors.
Tall.
Dark coat.
Same build as Julian.
But when he turned, the face was different.
Robert stared.
“Who is that?”
Elizabeth answered.
“I don’t know.”
Sam did.
“I do.”
Everyone looked at him.
“He was in the picture.”
Robert’s blood cooled.
“The fourth man?”
Sam nodded.
The photograph from E-17.
Elizabeth.
Julian.
Nora.
And the unknown man.
Nathan entered.
“We found an open service gate near the greenhouse.”
Robert looked at Sam.
“Tell us everything you remember about him.”
Sam frowned.
“I only saw the picture.”
“Think.”
Sam looked toward the window.
“He was at my mom’s funeral.”
Robert’s breath caught.
“You remember that?”
“There weren’t many people.”
“Did he speak to you?”
“No.”
“He watched me.”
Elizabeth’s hands tightened.
“I know his name.”
Robert turned.
“You said you didn’t.”
“I didn’t remember.”
She closed her eyes.
“Graham Pike.”
Nathan repeated it.
“Who is he?”
“He was an outside auditor.”
Robert recognized the name faintly.
“Foundation?”
“Yes.”
Elizabeth’s memory was returning in pieces.
“Nora trusted him.”
“Then why is he sneaking around our property?”
“I don’t know.”
Nathan immediately searched the name.
Graham Pike, forty-eight.
Former forensic accountant.
No current business address.
No listed phone number.
Officially, he had left the Ellington Foundation two weeks after Elizabeth’s accident.
“He disappeared,” Nathan said.
“Maybe he was afraid,” Elizabeth replied.
Robert looked toward the garden.
“Or maybe he was part of it.”
At 1:04 a.m., Nathan received the call he had been waiting for.
Emily Dean had been found.
Alive.
The storage room was beneath an abandoned warehouse in Queens.
The masked kidnapper had fled minutes before police arrived.
Nathan closed his eyes.
For the first time that night, the hard security chief looked like a father.
“She okay?”
“Dehydrated. Bruised. No major injuries.”
Robert put a hand on his shoulder.
“Go.”
Nathan hesitated.
“Go to your daughter.”
“I should be here.”
“Your daughter needs you.”
Nathan left.
Robert finally allowed himself to breathe.
Julian Mercer remained missing.
But Emily was alive.
The evidence existed.
The police knew enough to issue warrants.
It should have felt like progress.
Instead, Robert kept looking toward the garden.
At three in the morning, Elizabeth refused to sleep.
“So will you,” she told Robert when he objected.
Sam was curled beneath a blanket on the library sofa.
Robert and Elizabeth sat by the dying fire.
“I accused him,” Robert whispered.
Elizabeth knew exactly who he meant.
“You were frightened.”
“I looked at Sam and saw every warning people gave me when I brought him here.”
“Robert.”
“I saw where he came from before I saw who he was.”
Elizabeth studied him.
“You corrected yourself.”
“After hurting him.”
“You apologized.”
“That doesn’t erase it.”
“No.”
She reached for his hand.
“But loving someone doesn’t mean never hurting them. It means being willing to see the hurt you caused and change what you do next.”
Robert looked at Sam.
“He saved you.”
“Yes.”
“I owe him everything.”
“No.”
Elizabeth squeezed his hand.
“You owe him what every child is owed.”
“What?”
“A chance to stop earning his right to be loved.”
Robert looked at her.
That sentence stayed with him.
At 3:27, the library telephone rang.
Robert grabbed it.
“Hello?”
A man answered.
“Mr. Ellington?”
Robert stood.
“Who is this?”
“Graham Pike.”
Elizabeth’s head snapped up.
Robert activated speaker.
“You broke into my property.”
“I needed to see whether the boy was alive.”
“Why?”
“Because if Sam is alive, Nora’s evidence may be too.”
“We already found E-17.”
Silence.
Then Graham whispered, “Then Mercer knows.”
“He knows.”
“Listen carefully. Julian is dangerous, but he isn’t the top of this.”
Robert went still.
“What does that mean?”
“Nora discovered eleven million missing.”
“We know.”
“No.”
Graham’s voice hardened.
“She discovered eleven million that Julian moved.”
Robert waited.
“But the theft was twenty-six million.”
Elizabeth stared at the phone.
“Who took the rest?” she asked.
Graham heard her.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes.”
For several seconds, Graham said nothing.
Then he sounded almost relieved.
“You’re alive.”
“Who took the money?”
“You need to remember the meeting.”
“What meeting?”
“The night before your accident.”
Elizabeth pressed her fingers to her temple.
“Graham, I can’t.”
“You were there. Nora was there. I was there.”
“And Julian?”
“Yes.”
“Who else?”
Graham hesitated.
Then footsteps sounded behind him.
He inhaled sharply.
“Someone found me.”
“Where are you?”
No answer.
“Graham!”
A crash came through the phone.
Elizabeth covered her mouth.
Robert shouted, “Graham!”
The line remained open.
Someone was breathing.
Then another voice came through.
Calm.
Cultured.
Familiar.
“Robert.”
Robert went motionless.
It was a voice he had known since childhood.
“Uncle Thomas?”
Elizabeth’s face went white.
Thomas Ellington.
Robert’s father’s younger brother.
Chairman emeritus of the Ellington Foundation.
The man who had taught Robert to fish.
The man who had paid for Elizabeth’s rehabilitation clinic.
The man who had personally recommended Julian Mercer for his first job seventeen years earlier.
Thomas chuckled softly.
“You’ve made this far more complicated than it needed to be.”
Robert could barely speak.
“Where is Graham?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether you finally learn to stop digging.”
The line disconnected.
Robert stared at the receiver.
Elizabeth whispered, “Thomas?”
Robert did not answer.
Because suddenly he remembered something he had dismissed years earlier.
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The day after Elizabeth’s accident, Thomas Ellington had been the first person to tell Robert that the crash was simply bad luck.
And he had said it before the police report had even been completed.
