Chapter 8 - The Message Emily Left Behind
Dominic did not lower his eyes.
He had learned long ago that fear was useful only when it made a person think clearly.
“Let her go,” he said.
Richard Hale tilted his head.
“She's not in my custody.”
“Then why show me the picture?”
“To remind you how many people you failed to protect.”
Dominic studied the screen.
Emily was sitting in the corridor outside Antonio's room. Her cardigan was folded across her lap, and her right hand was hidden beneath the blanket.
The image looked ordinary.
Almost too ordinary.
Then Dominic noticed the clock in the background.
It showed 6:18 p.m.
The current time was 9:07.
The photograph was not live.
It was old.
He looked up at Hale.
“You're bluffing.”
Hale's smile disappeared.
For the first time, Dominic saw genuine anger in his face.
“You think you're clever.”
“No. I think you wouldn't need an old photograph if you knew where Emily was.”
Dominic pressed the small emergency switch hidden inside his coat.
Outside, investigators moved toward the building.
Hale heard the faint vibration from Dominic's phone.
His hand moved toward his jacket.
Dominic stepped forward.
“Don't.”
For a second, neither man moved.
Then the warehouse lights went out.
A crash sounded near the loading doors.
Someone shouted.
Dominic dropped behind a workbench as a flashlight swept across the floor. He heard footsteps running toward the side exit, followed by the sharp command of an investigator identifying himself.
When the emergency lights came on, Hale was gone.
Vanessa remained beside the table, shaking.
Dominic approached her.
“Where is Emily?”
“I don't know.”
“Who took the photograph?”
“I don't know.”
“Stop lying.”
Vanessa looked at him with desperate anger.
“You have no idea what he is capable of.”
“Then tell me.”
She laughed, but the sound broke into a sob.
“Hale has been controlling my family since I was a child. My father owed him money. When my father died, Hale told me the debt belonged to me.”
“So you agreed to help him destroy my family?”
“I agreed to find the ledger. I didn't know he would threaten your father.”
“You knew about the medication.”
“I knew he wanted Antonio to stop asking questions. I didn't know what was in the bottle.”
Dominic studied her.
“Did you replace it?”
Vanessa looked away.
“I gave Daniel the bottle. Hale told me it was a harmless sedative, something to keep your father calm while we found the ledger. I never saw a prescription.”
“Did you tell Daniel to replace the original?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him to hide the bottle?”
“Yes.”
“Did you threaten Antonio?”
Vanessa's silence was answer enough.
Dominic stepped back.
For a moment, he remembered the woman he had met at a charity dinner three years earlier. She had been funny, generous, and remarkably attentive to his father. He had mistaken attention for kindness.
Now he understood that a person could perform tenderness while calculating exactly what it was worth.
“Where is Hale going?” he asked.
Vanessa shook her head.
“He has another location. An old property outside the city. He said the ledger was hidden there.”
“Where?”
“I don't know the address.”
Dominic stared at her.
“You expect me to believe you helped him for eighteen years without knowing where he keeps his evidence?”
“I helped him because he said he could clear my family's debt. I thought the ledger would prove Thomas had stolen the money. I didn't know the story was false until recently.”
“What changed?”
Vanessa looked at him.
“Emily.”
Dominic said nothing.
“She found the medication records. She noticed the dates. She kept writing everything down. Hale said she had to be discredited before you listened to her.”
“And you kicked away her blanket.”
Vanessa's face crumpled.
“I wanted you to think she was lazy. I thought if you fired her, Hale would leave my family alone.”
“You tried to destroy the only person who was telling the truth.”
“I know.”
“No. You know now that you were caught.”
An investigator approached and informed Dominic that Emily was safe.
She had left the hospital after receiving a message claiming Antonio had been transferred to another facility. A nurse recognized that the transfer had not been authorized and alerted hospital security.
Emily had refused to leave the building.
Instead, she had gone to the hospital's security office and handed over her phone.
The message had been sent from a number connected to one of Hale's known associates.
Dominic exhaled for the first time in minutes.
Then the investigator added, “There's something else. Miss Carter left you a voice message before she went to security.”
Dominic played it.
Emily's voice came through, quiet but steady.
“Dominic, if you hear this, don't trust anyone who says they know where the blue box is. I found something in your father's old room. It's a photograph of my grandfather standing beside a wall of safe-deposit boxes. One of them has the same three letters engraved inside my ring.”
A pause followed.
Then Emily whispered, “There's a second name on the photograph.”
Dominic leaned closer to the phone.
“It's Daniel's.”
He froze.
The message continued.
“I don't know whether he was helping my grandfather or following him. But there's a date written on the back. Tomorrow.”
The recording ended.
Dominic looked at the investigator.
“What date is tomorrow?”
“October twenty-fourth.”
Dominic checked the clock.
It was already past midnight.
October twenty-fourth had begun.
He looked toward the warehouse exit, where officers were searching the grounds for Hale.
Then his phone rang.
This time, the caller ID showed Daniel's number.
Dominic answered.
A woman's voice spoke.
“Mr. Romano, your head of security has been arrested.”
Dominic's stomach tightened.
“On what charge?”
“Attempted murder.”
He gripped the phone.
“Whose?”
May you like
The woman hesitated.
Then she said, “Thomas Carter's.”
