Chapter 6 - PIER 19
Cassian was moving before Lydia finished reading.
His security men followed.
Margaret grabbed his arm.
“Cassian.”
He pulled free.
“If he touches her—”
“He won’t.”
Everyone turned toward Margaret.
She looked terrified.
Not surprised.
Terrified.
“You knew he would take her,” Cassian said.
“No.”
“But you know where.”
Margaret looked toward the old loading docks.
“Dominic always comes back here when he thinks he has control.”
Cassian stared at her.
“You have thirty seconds to explain.”
“I can’t explain twenty-four years in thirty seconds.”
“Try.”
Margaret’s voice broke.
“My husband owed Dominic money.”
Lydia had never heard Margaret Aldridge sound small.
“He used the Aldridge shipping company to move cargo your father never approved. When Celeste found out, she came here with Helen.”
Cassian glanced at the photograph.
“And you?”
“I came to stop her.”
“Why?”
“Because Dominic told me Evelyn would disappear if I didn’t.”
Evelyn had been a child then.
Cassian’s face hardened.
“You chose him.”
“I chose my daughter.”
“No. You chose silence.”
Margaret absorbed that without defending herself.
Cassian turned toward the dock.
Lydia followed.
“Where are you going?”
“To get Grace.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
Lydia stopped.
Cassian looked at her.
“This is not an argument.”
“It became one the moment you started giving me orders.”
His jaw tightened.
Lydia stepped closer.
“You don’t know what Dominic wants. You’re angry. He knows that.”
“I can control myself.”
“You’re carrying two guns.”
Cassian looked down.
Then back at her.
“Fair point.”
Margaret stared at them as if they had both lost their minds.
Cassian handed one weapon to his security chief.
He kept the other.
They moved along the marina.
Pier 19 had been partially converted into storage units and boat slips. Old warehouse doors still lined the river.
Lydia saw the blue rectangle from Grace’s drawing in her mind.
A boat ticket.
A blue boat.
She looked toward the slips.
Most boats were white.
One was navy blue.
“Cassian.”
He followed her gaze.
The boat was tied beside the far end of the pier.
A child’s pink jacket lay across one seat.
Cassian ran.
They found Grace inside the old harbor office beside the boat.
She was sitting in a chair eating peanut-butter crackers.
Dominic stood beside the window.
Grace looked up.
“Uncle Cash!”
Cassian crossed the room and dropped to his knees in front of her.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did anyone touch you?”
“No.”
“Did Uncle Dominic scare you?”
Grace looked confused.
“He said you said I could go sailing.”
Cassian pulled her against him.
His eyes closed.
For several seconds, nothing else mattered.
Then Lydia saw two women standing near the rear doorway.
Evelyn.
And Anna Morelli.
Anna looked exactly like the woman from the security footage.
Older now.
Thinner.
But alive.
Cassian stood slowly.
“Anna.”
Her eyes filled.
“Hello, Cass.”
He crossed half the room.
Stopped.
Did not touch her.
“You’re alive.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You let me believe—”
“I thought you wanted me dead.”
Pain crossed his face.
Dominic sighed.
“This reunion would be touching if everyone weren’t being ridiculous.”
Lydia looked at Evelyn.
“You ran.”
Evelyn nodded.
“And you knew your mother might put me in that dress.”
Evelyn’s face crumpled.
“I hoped she wouldn’t.”
“But you wrote Cassian my name.”
“Because if she did, you were the only person in that house she could force.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
“It shouldn’t.”
At least Evelyn had the decency not to make excuses.
Cassian turned toward Anna.
“Who entered my house that night?”
Anna looked at Dominic.
Nobody spoke.
Cassian’s voice dropped.
“Anna.”
“Two men.”
“Whose?”
“I thought yours.”
“Why?”
“They knew the security code. They knew where you kept documents. They knew our annulment was being filed the next morning.”
Cassian looked at Dominic.
Anna continued.
“They told me you had changed your mind. That you were afraid I knew too much.”
“And you believed them?”
“They showed me an order with your signature.”
Cassian went pale.
“I never signed anything.”
“I know that now.”
Dominic gave a weary sigh.
“You all have spent years inventing monsters.”
Anna reached into her coat.
Cassian’s security men moved.
She froze.
“Photograph.”
Slowly, she removed it.
The picture showed Dominic at Pier 19 twenty-four years earlier.
Beside him stood two cargo containers.
On the far edge of the frame was Lydia’s father.
Lydia knew him instantly.
Daniel Carter had died when she was six.
She had only a handful of photographs.
But she knew that face.
“What was my father doing here?”
Dominic looked at the picture.
Then at Lydia.
“Working.”
“He was an electrician.”
“Exactly.”
Lydia turned toward Margaret.
Her expression gave everything away.
“No.”
Margaret whispered her name.
“No.”
Lydia backed away.
“My father died on a construction site.”
Helen had told her that story her entire life.
A fall from scaffolding.
An accident.
Dominic’s voice was almost gentle.
“He saw something he wasn’t meant to see.”
Cassian moved toward him.
Lydia caught his sleeve.
“Don’t.”
Dominic smiled.
“There it is.”
Cassian stopped.
“What?”
“The Vale temper.”
Dominic pointed toward Grace.
“This is what I’ve spent thirty years containing.”
Grace looked frightened now.
Cassian immediately stepped back.
That decision mattered.
Lydia saw it.
Dominic saw it too.
“You manipulated Anna,” Cassian said.
Dominic shrugged.
“I showed a frightened woman evidence. What she believed was her choice.”
“The signature was forged.”
“Prove it.”
Margaret stepped forward.
“The signature came from me.”
Everyone turned.
She swallowed.
“Dominic made me copy Cassian’s signature from a wedding contract.”
Dominic’s face finally changed.
“Careful, Margaret.”
“No.”
She looked at Evelyn.
Her daughter was staring at her with tears running silently down her cheeks.
Margaret continued.
“I have been careful for twenty-four years.”
Dominic’s pleasant expression vanished.
Cassian took a step toward him.
Dominic moved behind Grace’s chair.
Not touching her.
But close enough.
Cassian froze.
Grace whispered, “Uncle Cash?”
Lydia crouched beside her.
“Come here, sweetheart.”
Dominic looked at Lydia.
“You think Cassian Vale is the hero in this story?”
“No.”
That surprised him.
Lydia held Grace’s gaze.
“I think heroes are mostly something adults invent when they don’t want to admit people are complicated.”
Grace slid out of the chair.
Dominic did not stop her.
She ran to Lydia.
Cassian’s shoulders loosened.
Dominic looked almost disappointed.
“You always were sentimental, Cassian.”
Then he stepped through the side door.
Two security men started after him.
Cassian lifted one hand.
“Let him go.”
Everyone stared.
Cassian looked at Grace clinging to Lydia.
“I’m not turning this room into a gunfight.”
Dominic disappeared onto the pier.
Cassian had chosen Grace over revenge.
Lydia would remember that.
Then Dominic called back through the open doorway.
“One more thing, Lydia.”
She looked up.
May you like
He smiled from the rain.
“If you want the truth about Pier 19, ask Helen who signed the order that killed your father.”
