Chapter 4 - The Ledger Beneath the Chapel
Warrick refused an ambulance.
Nathan ignored him and drove him to a private surgical clinic in Providence owned by a physician who understood discretion.
The bullet had passed through the outer shoulder without striking bone.
By one in the morning, Warrick had twelve stitches, a prescription for antibiotics, and explicit instructions not to carry anything heavier than ten pounds.
He immediately tried putting on his coat.
The doctor stopped him.
“I said nothing heavy.”
Warrick looked at Nathan.
“He qualifies.”
Nathan did not smile.
His attention remained on the photograph.
SHE SURVIVED ONCE.
Whoever had sent it either knew Lydia was alive now or wanted Nathan to believe she was.
Both possibilities were dangerous.
Detective Doyle arrived at the clinic carrying the black ledger inside a sealed evidence bag.
Nathan looked at it.
“You logged it?”
“No.”
Warrick lifted an eyebrow.
Doyle shut the door.
“If I log this through Newport tonight, Deputy Chief Mercer knows we have it before sunrise.”
Nathan leaned against the wall.
“You finally distrust your department.”
“My father distrusted it first.”
Doyle placed the ledger on a table.
“I spent six years believing he died ashamed. If this book is real, he died trying to expose them.”
Nathan studied him.
“Then help me finish it.”
Doyle looked toward Warrick.
“That sentence becomes complicated when the other person in the room has probably committed twelve felonies since breakfast.”
Warrick sat down.
“Four.”
Doyle stared.
“Five if you count the chapel firearm.”
Nathan opened the ledger.
“We need Lyle.”
Prescott Lyle answered his phone at 1:42 a.m.
Nathan said six words.
“I know Lydia called you too.”
Silence.
Then:
“Where are you?”
“Your hotel.”
“I’m not at a hotel.”
Nathan looked through the clinic window at the black sedan parked outside.
“I know.”
Twenty-seven minutes later, Prescott Lyle arrived.
No driver.
No bodyguard.
He entered the clinic wearing dark trousers and a cashmere sweater beneath his coat.
When he saw the ledger, all color left his face.
“Where did you get that?”
Nathan closed the door.
“My house.”
Lyle laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Of course.”
“You recognize it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Lyle sat.
For several seconds he stared at his hands.
“In 2019 I was trying to buy the Ostrander estate because Gideon asked me to.”
Doyle frowned.
“You said you withdrew.”
“I did.”
“Why would the owner ask a buyer to purchase his own home?”
“Because the mansion wasn’t the valuable part.”
Lyle looked at Nathan.
“The ledger was.”
Warrick stopped moving.
Lyle continued.
“Gideon Ostrander inherited the book from his father. For decades the Ostrander family acted as bankers, fixers, donors, and middlemen for people who preferred not to appear in public records.”
Nathan looked down at the names.
“And you?”
“My father paid them.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“Why did Gideon want out?”
Lyle’s face tightened.
“Because he discovered the network had changed.”
Nathan waited.
“Bribery became theft. Theft became smuggling. Then people began disappearing.”
Doyle leaned forward.
“Who was running it?”
Lyle looked at him.
“Malcolm Voss.”
The retired judge.
Nathan had expected the name.
He had not expected what followed.
“And Ronald Mercer.”
Doyle’s superior.
Doyle looked away.
Lyle continued.
“Gideon wanted immunity. He planned to turn over the ledger and every supporting record.”
“To whom?”
“Thomas Doyle.”
Whitaker Doyle closed his eyes.
His father.
Lyle nodded.
“Your father was the only detective Gideon believed hadn’t been bought.”
“Then why is your name on Lydia’s photograph?”
“Because she was watching me.”
“You met her.”
“Yes.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“Tell me everything.”
Lyle’s gaze moved toward him.
“Your sister came to my office pretending to represent a preservation group. She knew about my offer on the estate. She asked why I withdrew.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
Nathan remembered Lyle’s warning after the auction.
Someone called me.
“That voice you heard in 2019.”
Lyle nodded.
“Lydia.”
The room went silent.
“She called at one fourteen in the morning. Told me not to go near the house. Told me Gideon had been attacked and that men were inside.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“What else?”
“She said Celeste was alive.”
Doyle leaned forward.
“Gideon’s wife?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to her?”
“I don’t know.”
Nathan slammed one hand on the table.
Lyle did not flinch.
“You told me at the auction the voice made you withdraw.”
“It did.”
“But you never said it was my sister.”
“Because six years ago she made me promise not to.”
Nathan gave a cold laugh.
“Apparently Lydia collected promises from every man around me.”
“She was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
Lyle pointed toward the ledger.
“From inheriting this.”
Nathan stared at him.
“This has nothing to do with my father.”
“Not directly.”
“Choose your next words carefully.”
Lyle sighed.
“Your father refused to join the Ostrander network in 1996. Three months later, he died.”
Warrick stood so quickly his chair scraped backward.
“Enough.”
Nathan looked at him.
Warrick’s expression confirmed it before Lyle spoke again.
“You were told Vincent Vance died because of a gambling dispute.”
Nathan’s voice became quiet.
“He did.”
“No.”
Lyle looked directly at him.
“Your father was murdered because he refused to let them use the docks.”
Nathan turned toward Warrick.
The old man said nothing.
Nathan understood.
“You knew.”
Warrick’s good hand closed into a fist.
“I suspected.”
“For twenty-six years?”
“I had no proof.”
Nathan looked at the ledger.
Suddenly the mansion was no longer about Lydia.
It was about his father.
Doyle stepped between them.
“We can destroy each other later. Right now somebody took a shot at us because we found this.”
He pointed at the book.
“Which means they know it’s out.”
Lyle reached into his coat.
Warrick’s hand moved toward his waist.
“Easy.”
Lyle removed a key.
Old brass.
Engraved with a small cross.
He placed it on the table.
“Celeste gave me this three weeks before the fire.”
Nathan picked it up.
“What does it open?”
“I never found out.”
“Why give it to you?”
“She said if anything happened, I should listen for St. Brigid’s bell.”
They all looked at one another.
Nathan held up the key.
“We were already under the chapel.”
Lyle shook his head.
“Not under it.”
“What?”
“Inside the bell.”
They returned to Newport before dawn.
The estate stood black against the ocean.
Nathan left Warrick in the car.
Warrick objected.
Nathan locked the doors.
“Childish,” Warrick muttered through the window.
Nathan, Doyle, and Lyle entered the chapel.
The bell tower could only be reached through a narrow staircase hidden behind the choir loft.
At the top stood the bronze bell.
Nathan ran his flashlight across it.
Nothing.
Then Doyle saw the keyhole inside the wooden support beam.
Nathan inserted the brass key.
A panel opened.
Inside was a waterproof steel case.
This one had not been searched.
Nathan removed it.
Inside were three flash drives.
A passport.
Thirty thousand dollars in cash.
And a small handheld video camera.
Doyle inserted a battery from his equipment kit.
The camera came alive.
One file.
September 16, 2019.
Nathan pressed play.
The image shook violently.
Lydia’s face appeared.
Blood ran from a cut above her eyebrow.
Behind her, a woman was crying.
Celeste Ostrander.
“They’re inside,” Lydia whispered.
A crash sounded.
Celeste covered her mouth.
Lydia looked directly into the camera.
“Gideon is dead.”
Nathan felt the muscles in his neck tighten.
“Malcolm Voss shot him.”
Doyle inhaled sharply.
“And Mercer brought the men.”
The camera shook.
Celeste whispered something.
Lydia nodded.
“We’re going through the old sea tunnel.”
Nathan stared at the screen.
Alive.
She had been alive after Gideon’s murder.
Then Lydia said:
“Thomas has the second copy. If they killed him too, everything is on these drives.”
A door crashed open in the distance.
Lydia looked behind her.
“We have to go.”
The image tilted.
Then Lydia’s face returned for one final second.
“Nathan, if you ever see this…”
She stopped.
Her expression changed.
Someone had entered the room behind the camera.
Lydia whispered a name.
“Prescott?”
Nathan slowly turned.
Lyle stood behind him.
His face unreadable.
On the video, Lydia screamed.
The camera fell.
The recording ended.
Nathan looked at Prescott Lyle.
Lyle lifted both hands.
“Nathan.”
“You said you never went to the house.”
“I didn’t.”
Nathan took one step toward him.
“My sister just said your name.”
“I know what you heard.”
Doyle drew his weapon.
Lyle backed into the stone wall.
“It wasn’t me.”
“Then who?”
Lyle stared at the frozen screen.
And suddenly fear—not guilt—appeared in his face.
“My brother.”
Nathan stopped.
Lyle swallowed.
“Daniel and I were identical twins.”
Doyle frowned.
“Were?”
“Daniel disappeared the morning after the fire.”
Nathan felt something cold move through him.
Lyle continued.
“For six years everyone assumed he was dead.”
He pointed at the video.
“But if Lydia saw my face inside that house…”
Lyle looked toward the open chapel doors.
“…then Daniel Lyle may be the man who has been hunting her this entire time.”
Rook growled from outside.
Nathan turned.
The mastiff was staring toward the mansion.
A light had appeared in an upstairs window.
None of them had turned it on.
Then a woman stepped behind the glass.
For one second, Nathan could see her silhouette.
Long hair.
Thin shoulders.
One hand against the window.
Nathan ran.
By the time he reached the mansion, the light was gone.
But written across the dust on the inside of the upstairs glass were two words.
May you like
NATHAN.
RUN.
