Chapter 3 - THE MAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
I took the photograph from Mia so quickly that she frowned.
“Did I do something?”
“No, baby.”
“You look scared.”
Children know when adults are lying.
I forced my voice steady.
“I’m surprised.”
“Is that different?”
“Sometimes.”
She accepted that answer because she was six.
I didn’t.
Victor Kane had been standing twenty feet behind Daniel in a photograph taken seven years ago.
And until that morning, I had believed Daniel had never known the Kane family.
I called Adrian.
Not the mansion.
Him.
He answered after one ring.
“Emma?”
“I found something.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Adrian was inside my apartment.
He came alone.
That surprised me.
So did the way he paused at the door, as if entering my small home required permission his mansion never did.
Mia ran over.
“You got a Band-Aid.”
He raised his palm.
The star-covered bandage was still there.
“I was given excellent medical care.”
She smiled.
I handed him the photograph.
The humor vanished.
Adrian stared at Daniel for a long time.
His thumb touched the edge of his brother’s image but not the face.
“He hated having his picture taken.”
“He told me that.”
“He hated trucks too.”
I blinked.
“What?”
Adrian pointed at Daniel’s pickup.
“He couldn’t drive one without grinding the gears.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
“He told me the transmission was bad.”
“It probably begged for death.”
For one brief second, Daniel was alive between us.
Then Adrian saw Victor.
His expression closed.
“Where was this taken?”
“Queens. Seven years ago.”
Adrian turned it over.
Nothing.
I handed him Daniel’s note.
TRUST ADRIAN. NOT VICTOR.
Adrian read it twice.
Then a third time.
“He knew,” he whispered.
“Knew what?”
“That something was going to happen.”
I showed him the brass key.
That got another reaction.
“Do you recognize it?”
“No.”
“Daniel gave it to me the night before he died.”
Adrian looked toward Mia.
She was on the floor making her stuffed elephant wear a doll’s hat.
“Did he know about the baby?”
“Yes.”
“Did he know she was a girl?”
I remembered Daniel’s certainty.
“He said he did.”
Adrian closed his eyes briefly.
When he opened them, he asked, “Did he ever tell you why he left his family?”
“No. Because he never told me he had one.”
That hurt him.
I could see it.
Good.
Part of me wanted it to.
“You don’t get to look betrayed,” I said.
His eyes met mine.
“He lied to me too.”
“You’re his brother.”
“And you loved him.”
The words stopped me.
I hadn’t said that.
Adrian looked at the photograph.
“I know what it looks like when someone builds a life around a man.”
My anger softened, but only slightly.
“What happened between you?”
Adrian sat at my tiny kitchen table.
“When our father died, Victor took control of everything. The businesses. The organization. Us.”
“How old were you?”
“Twenty-one. Daniel was seventeen.”
“He raised you?”
“He controlled us.”
That distinction mattered.
“Daniel hated the business,” Adrian continued. “He wanted out. I thought he was naïve.”
“And you stayed.”
“I thought staying meant I could protect him.”
A bitter smile touched his mouth.
“I was wrong.”
Two years before Daniel met me, Adrian said, his brother discovered money disappearing through one of the family’s shipping companies.
Victor blamed an accountant.
Daniel didn’t believe him.
“He started collecting records,” Adrian said.
“For the police?”
“I thought so.”
“You thought?”
Adrian’s gaze hardened.
“That’s what Victor told me.”
There it was.
The reversal.
Adrian had believed Daniel betrayed the family.
Daniel had apparently believed Victor betrayed Adrian.
“What happened when Daniel disappeared?”
“I searched.”
“Not very well.”
His eyes flashed.
“I searched for three years.”
“And never found a death certificate?”
“There wasn’t one under Daniel Kane.”
Of course.
Daniel Reed.
I suddenly understood why a false surname had mattered.
“Victor knew the name,” I said.
Adrian looked at the photograph.
“Yes.”
A sick feeling spread through me.
Mia climbed onto the chair beside him.
“Was my daddy your brother?”
Adrian looked at me.
I nodded.
He turned toward her.
“Yes.”
She considered this.
“So you’re my uncle?”
His throat moved.
“Yes.”
“Do uncles have to buy birthday presents?”
I covered my mouth.
Adrian almost laughed.
“I believe it’s legally required.”
“Mine is in March.”
“I’ll prepare.”
Then she asked the question neither of us was ready for.
“Did you love my daddy?”
Adrian’s face changed.
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t he tell me about you?”
Adrian looked at the floor.
“I don’t know.”
Mia reached over and touched his star bandage.
“Maybe he was scared.”
Adrian stared at her small hand.
“So was I,” he said.
After Mia went to bed, Adrian examined the key again.
Then he noticed a number stamped near the teeth.
“That isn’t a locker number,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ve seen keys like this.”
He stood.
“Where?”
“Grand Central.”
Daniel had once taken me there on our first date.
Not to catch a train.
Just to stand beneath the painted stars.
“He said it was his favorite place in New York.”
Adrian nodded slowly.
“It was.”
The next morning, we went together.
The key opened an old private storage compartment maintained through a legacy baggage service.
Inside was no money.
No gun.
No ledger.
Just Daniel’s dark wool coat.
A child’s drawing.
And a cassette recorder.
The drawing showed four stick figures beneath blue stars.
One was labeled DADDY.
One MOMMY.
One BABY.
The fourth figure stood slightly apart.
UNCLE A.
My eyes filled.
Daniel had imagined Mia knowing Adrian.
Adrian picked up the recorder.
There was one tape inside.
He pressed PLAY.
Static crackled.
Then Daniel’s voice filled the little room.
“Adrian, if Emma has brought this to you, then I didn’t make it back.”
Adrian gripped the recorder.
Daniel took a breath on the tape.
“Victor knows about the baby.”
May you like
I stopped breathing.
“And if he ever learns she survived,” Daniel continued, “he’ll come for her too.”
