Chapter 5
I stared at the photograph of Camille until the screen dimmed.
Bound wrists.
Split lip.
Blood at her temple.
Marcus behind her.
Smiling.
I hated Camille.
At that moment, I hated her with a clarity that felt almost clean.
She had watched me walk into dinner bruised and bleeding.
She had called me dramatic.
She had tried to make Adrian doubt me.
She had opened the gate for Marcus.
None of that made her deserve what was happening in the photograph.
I looked at Detective Bennett.
She already had her phone out.
“Trace came back on the earlier message. Burner routed through three relay services. Location pin is probably bait.”
I wrote:
BUT PHOTO IS REAL.
“Likely.”
Adrian stood at the end of the metal table, staring at the image.
“He took her from my study?”
Bennett shook her head.
“Camille left police custody with counsel forty minutes ago.”
Adrian’s head snapped up.
“What?”
“She had not yet been charged. We lacked grounds to hold her.”
“She admitted providing access to Marcus.”
“Her attorney framed it as coercion.”
Adrian looked ready to break something.
Instead, he said, “Find her.”
Bennett’s jaw tightened.
“We are.”
I pointed at the photograph.
Behind Camille was corrugated metal.
A yellow warning sign.
A narrow stripe of green paint.
Adrian leaned closer.
“What?”
I enlarged the image.
On the wall behind Marcus’s shoulder, barely visible, were four faded letters.
R-O-M-A.
Adrian went still.
“Romano freight.”
Bennett looked at him.
“You own freight warehouses?”
“Not anymore.”
He grabbed his phone.
“My father did.”
Thomas answered on the first ring.
Adrian said, “Find every decommissioned Romano freight property in the city.”
Bennett started to object.
Then stopped.
Thomas returned the answer in less than a minute.
“Three.”
Adrian put him on speaker.
“Locations?”
“Brooklyn Navy Yard lease surrendered fourteen years ago. Bronx facility demolished. Queens distribution building sold through a shell company.”
I looked at the location Marcus had sent.
Queens.
Bennett heard it too.
“Address.”
Thomas gave it.
It matched the pin.
Bennett began issuing orders before the call ended.
No one asked me whether I was going.
They all assumed I would stay.
They were wrong.
I wrote on the notebook and pushed it toward Bennett.
I CAN IDENTIFY HIM.
“So can Adrian.”
HE IS THE TARGET.
Adrian looked at me.
I continued.
MARCUS WANTS ME THERE.
“That is exactly why you should not be.”
I wrote:
IF I DON’T GO HE MAY HURT CAMILLE.
Adrian’s eyes darkened.
“And if you do go, he may hurt you.”
Bennett rubbed her forehead.
“Both of you stop deciding this as if we’re choosing a restaurant.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
She pointed at me.
“You stay in the command vehicle.”
Then at Adrian.
“You stay beside her.”
He started to speak.
“That is not negotiable.”
Twenty-five minutes later, we were parked two blocks from the abandoned freight warehouse.
Rain hammered the roof of the unmarked van.
Police tactical teams moved through the dark in body armor.
The warehouse sat behind rusted fencing and stacks of empty shipping containers.
The green stripe from the photograph was visible through a broken side door.
My pulse beat painfully in my throat.
Adrian sat beside me.
Neither of us spoke.
Obviously, I could not.
But Adrian seemed to understand that silence was safer than conversation.
Finally, he said, “Nora protected me on that tape.”
I looked at him.
“I didn’t deserve that.”
I frowned.
“She knew what the transfer did to her life. She still made sure you knew I didn’t understand.”
I wrote:
MAYBE SHE THOUGHT TRUTH MATTERED MORE THAN BLAME.
Adrian read it.
“That sounds like you.”
I looked away.
It was too intimate a thing to say.
The radio crackled.
“Entry team in position.”
My stomach clenched.
Bennett’s voice came through next.
“Go.”
Then everything happened quickly.
A distant crash.
Shouting.
Another crash.
A flash of light through a warehouse window.
Then gunfire.
Three shots.
I stood automatically.
Adrian caught my arm.
“No.”
We waited.
Thirty seconds felt like ten minutes.
Then Bennett’s voice came over the radio.
“Room clear.”
A pause.
“Female located.”
I exhaled.
“Marcus not on site.”
Of course.
Adrian closed his eyes.
Then another officer said, “We have a device.”
Everyone around the van stiffened.
“Explosive?” Bennett asked.
“Negative. Laptop. Live video feed.”
Adrian and I looked at each other.
Five minutes later, Camille was brought out.
She had a blanket around her shoulders.
Her wrists were raw.
Her face was swollen.
When she saw me, she stopped.
Shame moved across her face.
Then she looked at Adrian.
“I’m sorry.”
He did not answer.
Bennett walked her toward the ambulance.
Camille grabbed her sleeve.
“No hospital yet.”
“You may have a concussion.”
“He’ll call.”
Bennett frowned.
“Who?”
“Marcus.”
Camille looked at me.
“He said he would call when Hannah arrived.”
As if summoned, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
Every officer nearby went silent.
Bennett nodded once.
I answered and put it on speaker.
Marcus laughed softly.
“You brought the cavalry.”
I could not respond.
Adrian said, “She can’t speak because of you.”
There was a pause.
Then Marcus’s tone changed.
“Adrian.”
“Where are you?”
“Disappointed.”
“You wanted Hannah. You got me.”
“No, little brother. I always had you.”
Adrian’s face tightened.
Marcus continued.
“Did she hear Nora’s tape?”
Nobody answered.
“I’ll take that as yes.”
Bennett motioned for the trace team.
Marcus laughed again.
“You won’t trace this one.”
Adrian said, “You assaulted your own daughter.”
The line went quiet.
Then Marcus said, “Careful.”
“You held a blade against her throat.”
“She was in the way.”
I felt something inside me go cold.
Not break.
Settle.
Whatever fantasy might have existed in the word father died right there.
Adrian’s voice became dangerous.
“She is not a file. She is not leverage. She is your daughter.”
Marcus answered, “Blood is leverage.”
My mother’s voice echoed in my memory.
Do not believe that blood makes him family.
I closed my eyes.
Marcus said, “Ask Camille her real name.”
Every face turned toward her.
Camille went white.
Adrian stared.
“What does he mean?”
Marcus continued.
“Go on, sweetheart. Tell your fiancé who you are.”
Camille started shaking.
Bennett looked at her.
“Camille?”
She whispered, “My name is Camille.”
Marcus laughed.
“Last name.”
She closed her eyes.
“Vale.”
Adrian did not move.
“Camille Vale.”
A muscle moved in his jaw.
“Simon Vale’s daughter.”
She nodded.
Adrian stepped back as if she had struck him.
Simon Vale.
The man who had received the three million dollars Adrian signed away.
The man my mother had feared.
The fixer Vittorio used to erase people.
Camille’s voice broke.
“My mother changed our names after he died.”
“Simon Vale is dead?” Bennett asked.
Camille looked at her.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Seventeen years ago.”
Marcus interrupted through the phone.
“Not quite.”
Camille’s face changed.
“What?”
“Oh, Camille. Did you really think your father died in that fire?”
She stared at the phone.
Marcus’s voice softened cruelly.
“He taught me better than that.”
Camille’s knees nearly gave out.
An officer caught her.
Adrian looked at the phone.
“What do you want?”
Marcus stopped laughing.
“The same thing I wanted eleven years ago.”
“The trust?”
“The truth.”
“You keep hurting people while claiming you want truth.”
“Because truth without power is just a confession.”
I took the notebook and wrote quickly.
Bennett read the sentence.
Then nodded.
I held the phone closer and tapped the notebook twice for Adrian.
He read aloud for me.
“Hannah asks why you hurt Evelyn.”
Silence.
For the first time, Marcus had no immediate answer.
I wrote another line.
Adrian read it.
“Nora said you killed her.”
Marcus’s breathing changed.
Camille stared at the phone.
Then Marcus said, very softly, “Nora always loved dramatic endings.”
My fingers tightened.
Adrian’s voice sharpened.
“Did you kill Evelyn?”
“No.”
“Did you hurt her?”
A long pause.
“Yes.”
There it was.
One word.
No excuse yet.
No denial.
Camille covered her mouth.
Marcus continued.
“Evelyn found records she wasn’t supposed to see. She was leaving. I tried to stop her.”
“How?” Adrian asked.
“She fell.”
My skin crawled.
“From where?”
“The west staircase.”
Adrian’s face drained.
The Romano townhouse had a west staircase.
But twenty-six years ago, the family had lived in another Manhattan property with the same architectural plan.
Marcus said, “She survived the fall.”
I stared at the phone.
Adrian whispered, “What?”
“The car accident came later.”
“Who caused it?”
Marcus laughed without humor.
“Ask our father.”
Vittorio had died six years ago.
Conveniently beyond questioning.
Then Marcus said, “Or ask Simon.”
Camille looked sick.
“My father is dead.”
“No. He is patient.”
The line crackled.
“Tell Hannah I left her something where Nora used to hide.”
My heart kicked.
Adrian looked at me.
“Where?”
Marcus answered, “If she is really Nora’s daughter, she’ll know.”
The call disconnected.
I did not know.
At least I thought I did not.
Then a memory came back.
My mother kneeling beside my bed when I was seven.
A cheap apartment in Pennsylvania.
She had held my gold bird locket.
“If you ever lose me,” she had said, “go where the stories sleep.”
At the time, I thought she meant books.
She had worked nights at a small public library.
She used to take me there after closing.
There was one room downstairs that she never let me enter.
Archive storage.
I looked at Adrian.
He saw recognition immediately.
“You know.”
I nodded.
Camille whispered, “Where?”
I turned toward her.
For the first time, she looked less like the polished woman who had ruled Adrian’s dining table and more like someone who had discovered her entire life had been built on lies.
I wrote:
MY MOTHER’S LIBRARY.
Bennett read it.
“Where?”
I wrote the town.
She immediately called Pennsylvania authorities.
Adrian looked toward the warehouse.
“Marcus won’t send us there unless he wants us to find something.”
I nodded.
Bennett said, “Or unless he wants you out of New York.”
My phone buzzed again.
A photo.
A library shelf.
Dusty.
Old.
A small black bird drawn on the end panel.
And underneath:
BEFORE SIMON GETS THERE.
Camille looked at the screen.
Her face went white.
“He knows.”
Adrian looked at her.
“Knows what?”
She swallowed.
“My father used to draw that bird.”
I stared at my locket.
Camille whispered, “It wasn’t Vittorio’s symbol.”
May you like
She looked at me.
“It was Simon Vale’s.”
