Chapter 6 - THE UNCLE WHO NEVER DIED
For ten full seconds, nobody moved.
Nicholas stared at my phone.
I stared at nothing.
Gabriel DeLuca.
My biological father.
Supposedly murdered in 1989.
Had just spoken.
Nicholas finally said, “We find the source of that call.”
Michael was already working.
“Burner phone. But I can get tower location.”
I sat down on an overturned crate.
Every dead man in my life seemed determined to come back.
Anthony.
Thomas.
Now Gabriel.
Nicholas crouched in front of me.
“Rachel.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“No, I’m really not.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
I laughed once through tears.
“My whole life has become a cemetery where nobody stays buried.”
Nicholas almost smiled.
Then Michael spoke.
“Call originated near Bucks County.”
Nicholas stood.
“Specific?”
“Within three miles of an old property.”
“Whose?”
Michael looked at him.
“Your family’s.”
Nicholas frowned.
“We don’t own anything there.”
“Not anymore. Sold in 2004.”
“To whom?”
Michael turned the screen.
“Gabriel Holdings LLC.”
Nicholas stared.
“Subtle.”
The property was a farmhouse surrounded by woods outside New Hope.
Police involvement became complicated.
Nicholas did not trust the department.
Detective Malloy did not trust Nicholas.
So Nicholas told Malloy enough to keep him involved without explaining everything.
We drove north with Michael and two officers.
The farmhouse looked abandoned.
It wasn’t.
Fresh tire tracks led around back.
Smoke came from one chimney.
Nicholas told me to remain in the car.
This time I agreed.
For approximately thirty seconds.
Then a gunshot came from inside.
I got out.
By the time I reached the porch, Nicholas was already shouting.
“Rachel, back!”
Then the front door opened.
Anthony stumbled outside.
Blood covered his sleeve.
Nicholas rushed to him.
“Dad.”
Anthony grabbed his son’s coat.
“Gabriel took Thomas.”
Nicholas stared.
“You saw Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
“He’s alive?”
Anthony laughed bitterly.
“Apparently this family has terrible commitment to funerals.”
“Where did he go?”
Anthony looked at me.
“He knew Rachel would come.”
I stepped closer.
“Why?”
“He wants something.”
“What?”
Anthony pulled a small envelope from his coat.
“Your mother left this.”
Laura.
My biological mother.
My hands trembled as I opened it.
Inside was a child’s birth certificate.
Mine.
Father:
GABRIEL ANTHONY DELUCA.
Mother:
LAURA MARGARET SHAW.
I stared at it.
Nicholas looked over my shoulder.
Anthony said, “There’s more.”
Inside the envelope was a photograph of Laura holding me as a baby.
Behind her stood Gabriel.
My father.
Young.
Dark-haired.
Smiling.
I looked like him.
That hurt more than I expected.
Anthony sat down on the porch steps.
“He didn’t die in 1989.”
“Then why did everybody think he did?”
“Because I helped him disappear.”
Nicholas turned sharply.
“You told me he died at seventeen.”
“I lied.”
“You’ve made a career of that.”
Anthony accepted the blow.
“Gabriel discovered people were using our company for things far worse than stolen money.”
“What things?”
Anthony looked toward the police.
“Later.”
Nicholas’s expression hardened.
“No more later.”
Anthony sighed.
“Weapons.”
Silence.
“Illegal shipments hidden inside legitimate maritime cargo.”
Nicholas stared.
“You’re saying DeLuca Maritime moved weapons?”
“Decades ago.”
“For whom?”
“Private brokers. Foreign buyers. Criminal groups.”
Nicholas looked sick.
“I never knew.”
“I made sure you didn’t.”
“Who ran it?”
“Victor helped with documents. Evelyn moved money. Raymond handled security.”
“And Gabriel?”
Anthony’s answer surprised us.
“He ran the operation.”
I stared at him.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
Anthony continued.
“At first, Gabriel thought it was just business. Then one shipment ended up connected to a bombing overseas.”
His voice dropped.
“Children died.”
Gabriel wanted out.
He collected evidence.
He planned to expose everyone.
But before he could, Laura was threatened.
“So he disappeared,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And left my mother.”
“He thought she’d be safer.”
“He was wrong.”
Anthony closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“What happened to Laura?”
Margaret had said she died.
Nobody had told me how.
Anthony looked away.
“Car accident.”
I knew immediately.
“That’s not true.”
He looked at me again.
“No.”
“What happened?”
“Someone forced her car off a bridge.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Who?”
“We believed Raymond.”
Nicholas said, “Believed again.”
Anthony nodded.
“That’s why I disappeared in 2002. I finally found evidence tying Raymond to Laura’s death.”
Nicholas paced.
“So Raymond killed Laura. Gabriel went underground. You faked your death. Thomas hid Rachel. Victor kept stealing. Mom helped cover accounts.”
“Yes.”
“And Camille?”
“Used by Victor.”
“That doesn’t excuse her.”
“No.”
“But she wasn’t the mastermind.”
“No.”
Nicholas stopped.
“So why is Gabriel back now?”
Anthony looked at me.
“Because he wants his daughter.”
I felt anger instead of comfort.
“He had thirty-seven years.”
“Rachel—”
“No.”
I held up the birth certificate.
“This piece of paper doesn’t make him my father.”
Anthony looked at me sadly.
“No. It doesn’t.”
Michael came from inside the farmhouse carrying a laptop.
“We found surveillance footage.”
On-screen, Gabriel entered the farmhouse that morning.
Thomas was already inside.
They argued.
No audio.
Then Raymond appeared.
Except something was wrong.
Raymond entered with two armed men.
Gabriel and Thomas both reacted with surprise.
A struggle followed.
Anthony arrived later.
Then another group.
The footage ended.
Nicholas replayed it.
“Gabriel wasn’t working with Raymond.”
“No,” Michael said.
“And Thomas wasn’t either.”
“No.”
Anthony looked grim.
“Raymond found all of us.”
I remembered my father’s warning.
Raymond cannot find Anthony.
“Then where is Raymond now?”
Michael turned the laptop.
The camera outside showed a vehicle leaving twenty minutes earlier.
Raymond was driving.
Thomas sat in the passenger seat.
Gabriel sat in back.
Both appeared restrained.
“They were taken,” I said.
Anthony nodded.
Then Nicholas noticed another figure.
“Pause.”
Michael froze the image.
A woman sat beside Gabriel.
Blond hair.
Bandaged wrist.
Camille.
Nicholas stared.
“She left the hospital?”
Malloy checked his phone.
“No.”
Then his face changed.
“She disappeared during a transfer for imaging.”
Nicholas looked at Anthony.
“What does Raymond want?”
Anthony answered quietly.
“The same thing everyone has wanted since 1989.”
“Gabriel’s evidence?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
Anthony looked directly at me.
“I don’t know.”
Then his eyes dropped to the necklace around my throat.
My hand automatically touched it.
A small silver locket.
My mother Susan had given it to me when I turned eighteen.
Anthony stood.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mom.”
“Susan?”
“Yes.”
“Did she say where she got it?”
“No.”
Anthony reached toward it but stopped before touching me.
“Rachel…”
“What?”
“Laura was wearing that necklace the night she died.”
My heart pounded.
I opened the locket.
Inside was the same tiny photograph it had always held.
Me as a baby.
Anthony examined the edge.
“May I?”
I gave it to him.
He pressed a hidden ridge.
The back panel popped open.
Inside was a microscopic brass key.
Nicholas stared.
“What does that open?”
Anthony whispered:
“The evidence Gabriel thought was destroyed thirty-seven years ago.”
Michael’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face drained.
“What?”
He put the call on speaker.
Camille was crying.
“Nick?”
Nicholas closed his eyes.
“Camille.”
“Raymond has us.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
A man shouted in the background.
Then Camille rushed:
“He knows Rachel has the key.”
Nicholas looked at me.
“How?”
“I told my father about the necklace years ago. I didn’t know what it was.”
A crash sounded.
Camille screamed.
Then Raymond Pike took the phone.
“Good morning, Nicholas.”
Nicholas’s voice became ice.
“If you touch any of them—”
“You’ll do what?”
Raymond laughed.
“I taught half the men protecting you.”
“What do you want?”
“Rachel.”
I froze.
Nicholas answered immediately.
“No.”
“Then Thomas, Gabriel, Victor’s daughter, and your father all die one at a time.”
Anthony grabbed the phone.
“Raymond.”
“Anthony. Still difficult to kill, I see.”
“Where?”
Raymond laughed.
“You know where.”
Anthony’s face changed.
Nicholas noticed.
“Dad?”
Raymond said one final sentence before disconnecting.
“Bring Rachel to Pier Nine before sunset.”
Anthony looked at Nicholas.
“No.”
“What’s at Pier Nine?”
May you like
Anthony stared toward the river beyond the trees.
“The place Gabriel was supposed to die in 1989.”
