Chapter 4 - The Brother They Used as Bait
Emily read the message twice.
Then a third time.
The words did not change.
Why his father really died.
For six years, Emily had believed Daniel Dawson died from a heart attack while driving home from work.
There had been no mystery.
No investigation.
No suspicious men.
No Blackwoods.
Just a telephone call at 6:17 on a Wednesday evening and her mother collapsing onto the kitchen floor.
Now someone was suggesting even that memory had been manufactured.
“I’m going.”
Adrian looked at her.
“No.”
“They have Tyler.”
“I heard you.”
“They told me to come alone.”
“That’s why you’re not going alone.”
Emily turned on him.
“You don’t know Tyler.”
“No. But I know whoever sent that message.”
“You don’t even know who it is.”
“I know enough.”
She stepped closer.
“They already got through your security system.”
His face tightened.
“They got through because someone inside helped them.”
“And you think that makes me feel better?”
No answer.
Emily immediately regretted the words.
Adrian was trying to protect her.
Again.
But Tyler was seventeen.
He was probably pretending not to be scared because that was what boys his age did when they desperately were.
Emily could picture him making some sarcastic comment.
Trying to annoy the people holding him.
Trying to prove he was not a child.
That frightened her more.
The phone buzzed again.
An address.
An abandoned church west of Cicero.
Midnight.
Forty-three minutes away.
A second instruction followed.
Bring the 317 key.
Adrian read over her shoulder.
“That key does more than open the safe.”
“How do you know?”
“Because they wouldn’t trade a hostage for a piece of brass otherwise.”
Margaret spoke from behind them.
“It opens a bank box.”
Everyone turned.
Claire closed her eyes.
Adrian stared at his mother.
“Which bank?”
Margaret hesitated.
“First Lakeshore Trust.”
Marcus shook his head.
“That bank closed nine years ago.”
“The building did,” Margaret said. “The vault didn’t.”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“How do you know?”
“Michael Vale rented a private box there.”
Emily stared.
“My father?”
“Box 317.”
Pieces moved into place.
The same number on the key.
The archive safe.
A bank box.
Michael had created one trail leading to another.
“What’s in it?” Adrian asked.
“I don’t know,” Margaret replied. “Michael only told me it contained insurance.”
Claire laughed bitterly.
“Not insurance.”
Adrian looked at her.
“You know.”
Claire said nothing.
Adrian’s voice lowered.
“Claire.”
She finally looked up.
“Thomas kept an account book.”
Margaret’s expression changed.
“You told me it was destroyed.”
Claire ignored her.
“It recorded payments. Judges. Contractors. Police officers. Hospital administrators. Everyone.”
Marcus exhaled slowly.
“A leverage ledger.”
“Yes.”
“And Michael took it?”
“I thought so.”
Emily understood.
“My father hid evidence.”
Claire nodded.
“Evidence powerful enough to destroy people who never stopped looking for it.”
“Is that why he died?”
Claire looked at her.
“I don’t know.”
It sounded genuine.
That frightened Emily more than another lie.
Adrian took the key from the table.
“They want this because they believe the ledger is still in box 317.”
Margaret nodded.
“And Tyler is leverage.”
Emily grabbed her coat.
Adrian blocked her path.
“I said I’m going.”
“And I said you’re not going alone.”
“They’ll see you.”
“No.”
For the first time, there was the faintest trace of something almost humorless in his expression.
“They’ll see what I want them to see.”
Twenty-eight minutes later, Emily drove an old gray Honda toward Cicero.
Alone.
At least that was what anyone watching would believe.
The car belonged to one of the kitchen employees.
Her phone sat on the passenger seat.
The brass key was inside her coat.
And beneath her collar was a transmitter no bigger than a shirt button.
Adrian had wanted a tactical team surrounding the area.
Emily refused.
Too visible.
They compromised.
Marcus would place two men three blocks out.
Adrian would be closer.
She did not ask where.
The abandoned church stood between a boarded laundromat and an empty storage building.
One streetlamp flickered outside.
Emily parked.
Midnight.
Exactly.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered.
“Emily.”
The voice was male.
Older.
Calm.
“You came.”
“Where’s Tyler?”
“Inside.”
“I want to hear him.”
A pause.
Then—
“Em?”
Tyler.
Her eyes closed.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
His voice shook despite the answer.
“I’m fine.”
Someone took the phone away.
“Bring the key.”
The line disconnected.
Emily entered the church.
Dust coated the pews.
Stained-glass windows were black from outside.
A single construction light burned near the altar.
Tyler sat in a chair.
His hands were zip-tied.
Beside him stood a man in his late sixties wearing an expensive overcoat.
Emily recognized him.
Not personally.
From the photograph in Adrian’s archive.
He had been standing outside St. Catherine’s behind Margaret and Michael Vale.
She remembered seeing only part of him because the photograph had been folded.
Now she saw his face clearly.
“Who are you?”
The man smiled.
“Victor Hale.”
The name meant something.
Adrian’s family attorney.
Or former family attorney.
Hale had represented Thomas Blackwood for more than twenty years before retiring.
“What do you want?”
“The key.”
“Let Tyler go.”
Hale smiled.
“You have your father’s stubbornness.”
Emily’s heartbeat accelerated.
“You knew Michael.”
“I taught him everything that made him useful.”
“What made him useful?”
“Numbers.”
Hale glanced at Tyler.
“And fear.”
Tyler looked furious.
“Don’t listen to him.”
Hale placed one hand on Tyler’s shoulder.
Emily stiffened.
“Take your hand off him.”
Hale’s smile faded.
“There she is.”
“What?”
“The Vale temper.”
Emily reached slowly into her coat.
The key felt cold.
“Why did you kill my father?”
Hale tilted his head.
“Which one?”
Emily froze.
Tyler stared at him.
Hale almost seemed pleased.
“Michael Vale died fifteen years ago.”
Emily swallowed.
“Daniel Dawson died six years ago.”
“Yes.”
Hale watched her carefully.
“You called one your biological father. You called the other Dad.”
Emily wanted to cross the room and hit him.
Instead she forced herself to breathe.
“What happened to Daniel?”
“He became curious.”
“About?”
“You.”
Tyler turned toward Emily.
Hale continued.
“Daniel Dawson was a good man. That was unfortunate.”
“Stop talking.”
“He found an envelope your mother had hidden. He searched Michael Vale’s name. He found St. Catherine’s.”
Emily’s hands shook.
“He called someone.”
“Me.”
She felt physically sick.
Hale smiled faintly.
“He asked the wrong questions.”
“You killed him.”
“I didn’t touch him.”
“Who did?”
Hale did not answer.
Footsteps sounded somewhere behind the church.
Hale’s eyes shifted.
Emily noticed.
So did whoever was listening through her transmitter.
She hoped.
Hale extended his hand.
“The key.”
“Tyler first.”
“One wrist.”
He cut one zip tie.
Tyler’s right hand came free.
“The other.”
“The key.”
Emily took it from her pocket.
Hale stared.
Something hungry entered his face.
He stepped forward.
Emily did not move.
A noise sounded above them.
Metal scraping.
Hale looked toward the choir loft.
“Who came with you?”
“No one.”
He grabbed Emily’s wrist.
“Who?”
The church suddenly went dark.
Tyler shouted.
A body struck the floor.
Emily jerked backward.
Three seconds later, emergency light from the street spilled through broken windows.
A man was standing between Emily and Hale.
Adrian.
He had entered so quietly that Hale had never seen him coming.
Adrian did not raise the gun in his hand.
He did not need to.
“Let her go.”
Hale’s face changed.
“Thomas’s boy.”
Adrian’s expression did not.
“I’m thirty-nine.”
Hale smiled.
“To me, you’re still the boy who stood beside an empty coffin.”
Adrian’s eyes became colder.
“You’re going to tell me where Benjamin is.”
Hale laughed.
“You still don’t understand.”
“Then help me.”
“You think your sister is the villain.”
Claire’s name hung between them.
“She did terrible things,” Hale said. “But Claire never started this.”
“Who did?”
Hale looked at Margaret’s key.
“Your father.”
Adrian said nothing.
“Thomas created St. Catherine’s system. Claire merely learned how to use it.”
“For what?”
“To make people disappear.”
A sound came from behind the altar.
Marcus entered with two men.
Hale realized the room was lost.
He stepped backward.
Tyler immediately moved toward Emily.
She wrapped an arm around him.
Hale looked at Adrian.
“You want Benjamin?”
“Yes.”
“Ask Emily.”
Emily stared.
“I don’t know where he is.”
Hale smiled.
“Yes, you do.”
“No.”
“Your father didn’t trust your mother. He didn’t trust Margaret. He certainly didn’t trust Thomas.”
He pointed at Emily.
“So he gave the location to the one person nobody would question.”
“I was sixteen.”
“Exactly.”
Emily felt something inside her memory shift.
The boy in the basement.
Her father kneeling in front of her before they moved.
A song playing from an old radio.
His hand placing something into hers.
A coin?
No.
A small silver airplane.
She stopped breathing.
Noah’s toy.
Not Noah’s actual toy.
The shape.
The memory.
Her father had given her a wooden airplane.
On the bottom, he had carved something.
She had forgotten.
No.
She had forced herself to forget.
Hale saw recognition.
“There it is.”
Emily whispered, “I don’t have it anymore.”
“Where is it?”
She thought of her mother’s storage unit in Indiana.
Boxes untouched since Daniel died.
Her childhood things.
“I don’t know.”
Hale laughed softly.
“You should find it before someone else does.”
Marcus moved toward him.
Hale raised both hands.
“I’ll cooperate.”
That surprised everyone.
Adrian narrowed his eyes.
“Why?”
“Because after tonight, I’m no longer the person you need to fear.”
A church bell rang suddenly.
Not the building’s dead bell.
A phone.
Hale’s phone.
He looked down.
The screen showed an incoming video call.
C.B.
Claire Blackwood.
Adrian answered it.
Claire appeared.
She was crying.
Behind her was Noah.
A man stood with a gun pressed against the boy’s shoulder.
Adrian stopped moving.
Claire looked directly into the camera.
“Adrian, listen to me.”
His voice became dangerously quiet.
“Where is my son?”
Claire swallowed.
“I didn’t take him.”
“Where.”
“I tried to get him out.”
The armed man behind Noah pulled him closer.
Claire shut her eyes.
Then whispered the one sentence that changed everything.
“Victor lied to you.”
Everyone looked at Hale.
Claire continued.
“He isn’t working for our father’s organization.”
Her voice broke.
“He is Thomas Blackwood’s organization.”
The screen went black.
May you like
And when Adrian turned around—
Victor Hale was gone.
