Chapter 3 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Grant Mercer did not run.
That surprised Mason.
People who were guilty often ran.
People who were innocent usually became angry.
Grant simply sat down.
“Claire,” he said. “Before you decide what that phone means, let me explain.”
Claire remained standing.
“Nine years.”
“I know.”
“Nine years you stood outside my home. You attended Zoe’s birthdays. My father trusted you.”
“I know.”
“And Caleb Voss is messaging you.”
Grant looked at Mason.
“I don’t work for Voss.”
Mason placed the burner phone on the table.
“Then who sent ‘Did Reed take the bait?’”
Grant rubbed his face.
“Daniel Hart.”
Claire froze.
Mason frowned.
“Daniel has the phone’s twin.”
“Daniel is missing.”
“Yes.”
“You’re saying your missing auditor is communicating through a phone linked to Voss?”
“No. I’m saying Daniel was investigating Voss.”
Mason watched his pupils, his hands, his breathing.
Grant appeared terrified.
But not of being exposed.
Of being too late.
Grant continued.
“Three months ago Daniel came to me with irregularities in our overseas freight accounts. Companies that didn’t exist. Aircraft parts routed through customs brokers that had been dissolved years ago. Insurance policies paid to entities with no physical address.”
Claire sat slowly.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Daniel asked me not to.”
“I’m your CEO.”
“You’re also chairman of the board’s daughter.”
“My father is dead.”
Grant’s eyes shifted.
“Exactly.”
Mason caught it.
“What aren’t you saying?”
Grant hesitated.
Then he looked directly at Claire.
“Your father did not die from a heart attack.”
Claire’s face emptied.
For several seconds she seemed not to understand the sentence.
“My father collapsed at his home.”
“I know.”
“I was there.”
“After he collapsed.”
Claire’s voice sharpened.
“Stop.”
Grant lowered his tone.
“Daniel believes your father discovered the same operation.”
“Stop talking.”
“He was preparing to expose it.”
Claire stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
“My father had heart disease.”
“Yes.”
“He had two procedures.”
“Yes.”
“You were at the funeral.”
Grant nodded.
“I was also the person who discovered his security files had been wiped before the coroner arrived.”
Claire looked as though someone had removed the ground beneath her.
Mason hated Grant for dropping the information in the middle of a crisis.
But he also understood why.
They were out of time.
“What does this have to do with Vienna?” Mason asked.
Grant looked at him.
“Everything.”
Mason’s skin tightened.
Grant continued.
“Twelve years ago Halston Aerologistics was not just shipping commercial aircraft components. A small subsidiary handled secure logistics for international financial investigations.”
Mason remembered Vienna.
The investigator his team had been protecting.
The route leak.
The ambush.
“What subsidiary?”
Grant swallowed.
“Northstar Transit.”
Mason’s heart stopped.
Northstar.
He knew the name.
Elena had said it the night before she died.
Something about Northstar bothers me.
Mason had forgotten.
Or forced himself to forget.
“What happened to Northstar?”
“Closed eleven years ago.”
“After Vienna.”
“Yes.”
Mason leaned toward him.
“Who owned it?”
Grant looked at Claire.
She shook her head.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“Your father owned forty percent.”
The marketplace seemed suddenly too loud.
Claire stared at Grant.
“My father?”
“Through holding companies.”
Mason asked, “Who owned the rest?”
Grant took a breath.
“That is what Daniel was trying to prove.”
The burner phone buzzed again.
Everyone looked down.
A new message.
LOCKER FIRST. QUESTIONS LATER.
Mason frowned.
That did not sound like a threat.
Grant noticed too.
“Daniel.”
“You’re sure?”
“He uses phrases like that.”
Mason thought.
“What was the bait?”
Grant pointed at the drive.
“You.”
Mason stared.
Grant continued.
“Daniel knew he couldn’t get inside Halston headquarters without triggering internal monitoring. But he also knew someone from Vienna was living in Seattle.”
Mason’s anger rose.
“He used me?”
“He selected your delivery route.”
“How?”
“Daniel had access to vendor logistics contracts.”
Claire whispered, “He arranged the package knowing Mason would deliver it.”
Grant nodded.
Mason clenched his jaw.
“He put my daughter at risk.”
“No. I don’t think he knew Voss had found Lily.”
“That distinction does not matter to me.”
“No,” Grant said quietly. “It wouldn’t matter to me either.”
Mason picked up the encrypted drive.
“What is on this?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said data.”
“Because Daniel told me he had copied evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
Grant hesitated.
“Cargo diversions. Bribery. shell-company transfers. Fraud on a massive scale.”
Claire stared.
“How massive?”
“Potentially billions.”
Mason asked, “And Voss?”
“Daniel believes Voss runs the enforcement side.”
The man Mason had blamed for Elena’s death had not vanished after Vienna.
He had built something.
Or had protected it.
Claire looked at the brass key.
“Pier 47.”
Grant nodded.
“Daniel said if anything happened to him, the truth would be in two places. One digital. One physical.”
“The drive and locker.”
“Yes.”
Mason looked at the clock.
Two hours and eighteen minutes until midnight.
“Claire leaves now.”
She stood.
“What about you?”
“Mason and I go to the pier,” Grant said.
Mason looked at him.
“You think I trust you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“But if Voss is expecting you alone, you need someone watching the perimeter.”
Mason hated that he was right.
Claire placed her hand over the brass key.
“I’m coming back once the girls are secure.”
“No,” Mason and Grant said simultaneously.
For the first time that night Claire almost laughed.
It lasted less than a second.
Then Mason’s personal phone rang.
Lily.
He answered.
“Are you with Mrs. Alvarez?”
“No.”
His heart slammed.
“Where are you?”
“The stairwell.”
“Why?”
“Because someone is inside Mrs. Alvarez’s apartment.”
Mason stopped breathing.
Claire covered her mouth.
Lily whispered.
“I heard a man talking.”
“Can you see him?”
“No.”
“Go down.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“There’s someone below me too.”
Mason stood.
“Lily, listen carefully. What floor?”
“Four.”
“You’re trapped between three and five?”
“Yes.”
He pictured the building.
Old apartment structure.
Fire stairs.
Laundry access.
Roof door.
His mind ran routes automatically.
“Go up.”
“Dad—”
“Quietly. All the way to seven.”
“The roof is locked.”
“Not the roof. Laundry room.”
He remembered the maintenance crawl passage built behind the dryer ventilation wall.
He had complained about it to management two years earlier.
The panel had never been repaired.
“Move.”
Lily climbed.
Mason could hear her breathing.
Then:
“Dad?”
“Yes.”
“The man below me said your name.”
Mason looked at Grant.
“What did he say?”
Lily stopped moving.
Her voice became barely audible.
“He said, ‘Reed will go to Pier 47. Voss wants the girl alive until then.’”
Mason’s face changed.
Grant whispered, “Alive.”
Claire stared.
Mason understood the implication.
They did not intend to hurt Lily yet.
She was leverage.
Which meant the real objective remained the locker.
“Lily, get into the laundry room.”
A door creaked through the phone.
Then Lily whispered:
“I’m inside.”
“Behind the third dryer there’s a metal panel.”
“Dad, why do you know this?”
“Because your father complains about building code violations.”
Despite her fear, Lily gave a tiny nervous laugh.
He heard metal scraping.
“I found it.”
“Get through.”
“It’s gross.”
“Complain later.”
She crawled.
Then Mason heard something else through her microphone.
A door opening.
A man’s voice.
“Lily?”
Mason’s blood went cold.
The voice sounded gentle.
Familiar.
“Your dad sent me.”
Lily froze.
Mason whispered urgently:
“He did not.”
The man continued.
“My name is Caleb.”
Mason shut his eyes.
Voss was not waiting at Pier 47.
Caleb Voss was inside Mason’s apartment building.
Twelve years after Vienna, the man Mason had believed was half a world away was now standing less than twenty feet from his daughter.
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And Mason had less than a minute to get her out.
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