Chapter 2 - THE MAN STANDING BESIDE HER FATHER
Sophie did not take her eyes off Julian.
The basement seemed suddenly smaller.
The dust.
The old ledgers.
Cassandra’s torn red coat.
The steel case with SOPHIE CARTER painted across the front.
Everything disappeared behind one sentence.
“Your father was there.”
Julian’s face remained still.
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Do not lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
Sophie laughed once, but there was no humor in it.
“Your father was standing beside mine when he disappeared, Julian.”
“I heard the same recording you did.”
“And your mother was taken because of something these men did twenty years ago.”
“My mother was taken because someone wants that report.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No,” Julian said quietly. “It’s the only fact we have.”
Cassandra moved toward the case.
“Don’t touch the phone.”
Julian looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because it isn’t twenty years old.”
That stopped everyone.
Sophie turned back.
“What?”
Cassandra pointed through the half-open lid.
The device inside looked old at first glance because someone had placed it beneath yellowed papers.
But Julian lifted it carefully.
Modern battery.
Modern circuit board.
A tiny wireless receiver.
Someone had put it there recently.
Sophie felt cold.
“My father’s voice?”
“Could still be real,” Julian said.
Cassandra nodded.
“Transferred from an old recording.”
Sophie stared at her.
“You knew about this?”
“No.”
“You knew my father’s name.”
“Yes.”
“You knew Anthony wanted me.”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
Cassandra’s jaw tightened.
“I spent twelve years trying to find out who killed my sister.”
“By terrorizing Julian’s mother?”
Pain crossed Cassandra’s face.
Not guilt alone.
Something uglier.
Shame.
“I believed Evelyn knew where Vittorio hid the report.”
“So you locked her in an elevator?”
“I put her there to scare her.”
Julian stepped forward.
Cassandra did not retreat.
“I did not bruise her face.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“I expect you to believe I hated your family enough to do something cruel. Because I did.”
Silence.
Then Cassandra added, “But I never meant for anyone to take her.”
Sophie looked back inside the case.
There were no inspection reports.
Only four objects.
A black-and-white photograph.
A cracked silver wristwatch.
A child’s bracelet made of blue plastic beads.
And an old PATH train ticket.
Sophie reached for the bracelet.
Her breath caught.
Three beads spelled:
S-O-P.
“I made this.”
Julian watched her.
“When?”
“I was eight.”
She turned the bracelet over.
A tiny plastic dolphin charm hung from one end.
“My dad wore it on his key ring because I told him it would keep him safe.”
Her fingers shook.
“So he kept it.”
Julian picked up the photograph.
Two men stood outside Riverside Towers.
One was Vittorio Marconi.
The other was David Carter.
They were not arguing.
They were shaking hands.
On the back, David had written:
V.M. BELIEVED ME. A.M. DID NOT.
Sophie read it twice.
Then a third time.
“V.M.,” Julian said.
“Vittorio Marconi.”
“And A.M.?”
Nobody needed to answer.
Anthony Marconi.
The accusation inside Sophie shifted.
Not disappeared.
Shifted.
“My father said your father was standing beside him.”
Julian nodded.
“He didn’t say my father caused his disappearance.”
Cassandra stared at the photograph.
“I spent years assuming Vittorio buried Melissa’s death.”
Julian looked at her.
“You built our entire relationship around that assumption?”
Cassandra did not answer quickly enough.
That was answer enough.
Sophie picked up the wristwatch.
The crystal was cracked at 9:17.
On the back were the initials D.C.
“My father’s.”
She turned the crown.
Nothing.
Then noticed something strange.
The second hand was missing.
No.
Not missing.
Painted onto the face beneath the glass.
Pointing between the four and five.
Julian leaned closer.
“That was intentional.”
Sophie examined the PATH ticket.
Hoboken to World Trade Center.
November 14.
Twenty years earlier.
Someone had circled the time:
9:17 PM.
Julian looked at the watch again.
“Same time.”
Cassandra whispered, “That’s not a memory.”
Sophie looked up.
“It’s directions.”
Julian’s security chief, Marco, came down the basement stairs.
“We found the high-rise from the photograph.”
Julian turned instantly.
“Where?”
“Jersey City waterfront. Riverside North redevelopment.”
Cassandra went pale.
“That’s Anthony’s project.”
Of course it was.
A new tower rising less than a mile from where three people had died twenty years earlier.
Built by the same construction division Anthony now controlled.
Julian took the photograph of Evelyn from Sophie’s phone.
The concrete wall behind her had a vertical line of painted numbers.
Most people would have ignored them.
Sophie didn’t.
“Four seventeen.”
Julian looked at her.
“What?”
“On the wall. Look.”
A faded construction marking read:
4–17.
She looked at the painted second hand on her father’s watch.
Between four and five.
Then at the train ticket.
Platform notation: 17.
“Fourth floor,” Sophie said.
“Column seventeen.”
Marco nodded.
“We can get inside.”
Julian shook his head.
“Not yet.”
“Boss—”
“They photographed Caleb.”
Sophie’s stomach tightened.
Julian turned to her.
“Where is he now?”
“With Mrs. Dawson, our neighbor.”
“You’re sure?”
“I called before we came here.”
“Call again.”
Sophie did.
Mrs. Dawson answered on the second ring.
Caleb was safe.
Eating frozen pizza.
Complaining that the Knicks game was blacked out.
Sophie closed her eyes.
“Mom?” Caleb said when Mrs. Dawson handed him the phone. “You okay?”
“I’m okay.”
“You sound weird.”
“Long night.”
A pause.
“Is Mr. Marconi there?”
Sophie looked at Julian.
“Yes.”
“Tell him his team still stinks.”
Julian almost smiled.
“I heard that.”
Caleb laughed.
For three seconds, Sophie remembered what normal sounded like.
Then she ended the call.
Julian told Marco to put two trusted men outside Mrs. Dawson’s house.
“No visible weapons. Caleb notices everything.”
Sophie looked at him.
“You don’t get to turn my son’s life into yours.”
“I’m trying to keep my life from reaching him.”
“You already failed.”
Julian accepted that without defending himself.
That made it harder to stay angry.
Marco’s phone buzzed.
He looked down.
“Security feed from Riverside North.”
A camera image appeared.
Evelyn was still there.
Alive.
But now someone stood beside her.
A man in a construction jacket.
Gray hair.
Broad shoulders.
Sophie had seen his face only in Marconi family photographs.
Anthony.
He bent beside Evelyn and placed something in her lap.
A framed photograph.
Julian enlarged the image.
It showed three younger men standing outside Vittorio’s restaurant.
Vittorio.
David Carter.
Anthony.
And between them stood a teenage Cassandra Blake.
Cassandra stared at it.
“I’ve never seen that photograph.”
Julian looked at her.
“You knew my father when you were a teenager?”
“No.”
“Yes, you did,” Sophie whispered.
Cassandra’s face emptied.
Then her eyes fixed on the date written beneath the photograph.
The day before Riverside Towers collapsed.
Cassandra stepped backward.
“My sister took me to meet someone that night.”
“Who?” Julian asked.
She looked at him.
“I thought it was a city inspector.”
Her voice dropped.
“But it wasn’t Anthony.”
Sophie felt the room tighten again.
Cassandra pointed at the fourth man in the photograph.
A man nobody had noticed because his face was partly turned away.
Julian picked up the picture.
Slowly, his expression changed.
He knew him.
“Who is that?” Sophie asked.
Julian stared at the image.
May you like
Then said the name Sophie least expected.
“My father’s attorney.”
