Chapter 13 - A Million Dollars for Emma Shaw
Four hundred million dollars.
I repeated the number three times.
It still sounded imaginary.
Lucy was sitting at the cottage kitchen table coloring a purple elephant when I learned that someone had placed a fortune behind her stolen identity.
She was concerned primarily with whether her elephant needed shoes.
I envied her.
Detective Reyes explained that Nightjar had allegedly routed money through shell companies and fabricated beneficiary records.
Lucy's identity had been used as a central piece of the arrangement.
My father had discovered irregularities while reviewing access and equipment records that overlapped with restricted shipping schedules.
Elizabeth and Thomas had uncovered the financial trail.
Together, they'd gathered enough information to expose the scheme.
But before they could bring it forward, someone learned what they were doing.
Now Victor wanted the original records because they connected his name directly to the account.
"And the child?" I asked.
"Her identity may be essential to proving how the fraud was structured."
I looked toward Lucy.
"She's six."
"Which is why we're taking additional precautions."
I thanked Reyes and ended the call.
Elizabeth looked frightened.
"Is it bad?"
I considered lying.
Then remembered how much damage secrecy had already caused.
"Victor used Lucy's identity to hide money. The investigators believe my father's records can prove it."
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
"He never stopped."
"No."
Lucy approached us.
"Mommy?"
Elizabeth immediately smiled.
"Yes, sweetheart?"
"Can Emma stay for dinner?"
I looked at the woman.
She began laughing and crying at the same time.
"Yes, baby. Emma can stay for dinner."
That evening, I helped Lucy make spaghetti.
She insisted on adding precisely thirteen pieces of shredded cheese to her plate because thirteen was her favorite number.
"Why thirteen?"
"Because everybody says it's unlucky."
"And?"
She grinned.
"I think that's mean. Nobody should tell a number it's bad."
I nearly dropped the cheese.
My father would have adored her.
After dinner, Elizabeth gave me an envelope containing a document I'd never seen.
It was a handwritten statement from Daniel Shaw, prepared shortly before his death.
He'd listed the names of several workers he believed had been coerced into participating in fraudulent operations.
At the bottom was a sentence that made my hands tremble.
If the evidence is made public, protect the employees. Most of them are frightened people trying to feed their families.
Even at the end, my father had been thinking about strangers.
When I returned to Brooklyn, reporters were waiting outside the secure meeting location.
Someone shouted my name.
"Emma! Is it true Russo offered you money?"
"Are you romantically involved with Adrian Russo?"
"Did your father participate in Nightjar?"
Cameras flashed.
I kept walking.
Then a reporter called:
"How much would it take for you to stop cooperating?"
I stopped.
Adrian was standing beside the entrance, having arrived with his attorneys.
He looked toward me.
I turned to the reporters.
"Not everything has a price."
For a moment, the crowd quieted.
"My father worked hard his entire life. He taught me that doing the right thing doesn't become meaningless just because powerful people disagree with you."
Someone raised a microphone.
"Are you accusing Victor Hale?"
"I'm asking that the evidence be examined fairly and that the people harmed receive protection."
Then I walked inside.
I didn't know that someone had recorded the exchange.
By midnight, the short video was circulating across social media.
Millions of strangers would eventually see a tired nurse in a borrowed gray coat standing in the rain and refusing to sell her father's name.
Some supported me.
Some questioned my motives.
Others turned the situation into entertainment.
I hated all of it.
But one message caught my attention.
It came from an account with no profile photograph.
Your father saved my husband at Halcyon. I've waited eleven years to tell the truth.
I forwarded it to Detective Reyes.
The woman was identified as Miriam Cole.
Her husband, Samuel, had worked at Halcyon as a transportation dispatcher.
He'd been dismissed shortly before Daniel's death and had refused to discuss what happened afterward.
Now, with the investigation reopened, Miriam was willing to speak.
The next morning, she arrived carrying an old leather briefcase.
Inside were handwritten dispatch records, copies of delivery schedules, and a photograph of Victor Hale standing beside Vincent Caruso at Halcyon.
But the most important item was an audio recording.
Samuel had made it secretly during a meeting eleven years earlier.
The recording was imperfect.
Yet one voice was unmistakable.
Victor Hale.
Another belonged to Adrian's father.
And a third voice said something that made Adrian go completely still.
"Daniel Shaw knows too much. We need to handle him before he reaches the police."
I looked at Adrian.
He had gone pale.
"Whose voice is that?"
He swallowed.
"My brother."
I stared.
"I thought you were an only child."
Adrian slowly lowered himself into a chair.
"No," he whispered.
"I have a younger brother."
Then he added the name.
May you like
"Nicholas Russo."
And according to official records, Nicholas had been dead for nine years.
