Chapter 4 - The Missing Fifty-Three Minutes
Declan's brother had been named Daniel.
Nobody talked about him.
Not because he was dead.
Because according to every public record I could find later that night, Daniel Morrow had never existed.
No birth announcement.
No school record.
No corporate filing.
No photograph in the hundreds of Morrow family pictures displayed across company offices.
Nothing.
“That's impossible,” I said.
Declan poured water into a glass and handed it to me.
“Drink.”
“You just told me about a secret brother and your response is water?”
“You're dehydrated.”
“I'll remain dehydrated until you explain.”
His mouth almost moved.
Almost a smile.
Wrong night for it.
He sat opposite me.
“Daniel was eleven years older.”
“Same mother?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?”
“He left.”
“When?”
“2009.”
“After my father died.”
“Yes.”
“Coincidence?”
“I don't know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I don't know.”
That was one thing about Declan I had learned to respect.
He rarely pretended certainty.
Powerful men usually treated uncertainty like weakness.
Declan treated it like information.
“Why erase him?” I asked.
“My father.”
“Why?”
“Daniel challenged him.”
“Over what?”
“Money. Operations. People Patrick trusted.”
“Sheldon?”
Declan's silence answered.
“Daniel didn't trust him.”
“No.”
“Your father did?”
“At first.”
“And later?”
“Later my father trusted almost nobody.”
I looked at the file.
“Maybe because my father warned him.”
“Maybe.”
The word made me angry.
“Stop saying maybe.”
“Then give me facts.”
“I came here with a broken leg.”
“And that is a fact.”
“I heard Sheldon.”
“Fact.”
“He knew the amount.”
“Fact.”
“He escaped during a planned blackout.”
“Fact.”
“So?”
“So none of those facts explain the man who helped you in the garage.”
I stopped.
Or how I had entered Declan's building from underground without remembering arriving.
The missing fifty-three minutes.
10:28.
Attackers leave.
11:21.
My next clear memory was sitting in the back seat of a dark vehicle with my head against cold glass.
11:53.
Elevator doors open.
Between those moments: fragments.
A man's voice.
Headlights.
Pain.
“Your father was right about Morrow.”
I closed my eyes.
“What if it was Daniel?”
Declan didn't answer.
“Would you recognize his voice?”
“After seventeen years?”
“Yes.”
“I don't know.”
“Do you have a recording?”
“No.”
“Photograph?”
Declan stood.
He went to the safe again.
This time he removed a smaller envelope.
Inside was a single picture.
Two young men stood beside a sailboat.
One was unmistakably Declan, maybe twenty-two.
The other was older, taller, with the same eyes.
Daniel.
On the back, someone had written:
Lake Geneva, 2007.
I studied the photograph.
“Why keep this?”
Declan looked toward the windows.
“Because erasing someone publicly doesn't mean you can erase them privately.”
There was pain in that sentence.
I didn't ask about it.
Not yet.
The security guard returned.
“Still no sign of Farris.”
“He left through service access?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Someone released stairwell locks from the control room.”
“Find whoever.”
“We're working on it.”
Declan looked at him.
“B2 footage?”
“Recovered.”
My pulse jumped.
“And?”
The guard hesitated.
“You should see it.”
He connected a tablet to the television.
The footage began at 11:44.
Underground parking.
Camera angle facing the private elevators.
Nothing for twenty seconds.
Then a black SUV entered.
No front plate.
It stopped outside the elevator.
Passenger door opened.
A man stepped out.
Hat.
Dark coat.
Face hidden.
He walked around to the rear door.
And there I was.
I looked dead.
My stomach turned.
The man lifted me carefully.
Not like an attacker.
Like somebody afraid of hurting me.
Another person remained in the driver's seat.
“Zoom,” Declan said.
The image enlarged.
No clear face.
The man carried me toward the elevator.
Then stopped.
He looked directly at the camera.
For one second.
My breath caught.
Declan stepped closer to the screen.
The man was older.
Mid-to-late forties.
Dark hair streaked gray.
Strong jaw.
Morrow eyes.
Declan didn't speak.
I looked at the old sailboat photograph.
Then at the screen.
“Is that him?”
Declan's voice came out rough.
“Yes.”
Daniel Morrow was alive.
He had carried me into the building.
But before we could process that, the video continued.
Daniel pressed the elevator button.
I stirred in his arms.
He leaned down.
The camera had no sound.
But I saw his lips move.
The phrase looked familiar.
Stay awake.
Then he placed something inside the pocket of my tan coat.
“Stop.”
The guard froze the video.
Declan turned toward the coat.
We had searched the outer pockets.
Not the lining.
I remembered the attackers yanking at it.
The inside seam had torn.
Declan picked up the coat and ran his hand along the lining.
Something clicked against his fingers.
He pulled out a small object.
A key.
Old-fashioned.
Brass.
Attached to it was a paper tag.
Three numbers.
317.
“What is that?” I asked.
Declan stared.
“I don't know.”
“Daniel gave it to me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
I glared.
He actually looked apologetic.
The guard rewound the recording.
“There's something else.”
“What?”
“Watch the timestamp.”
Daniel entered at 11:46.
The camera went dead thirty seconds later.
It resumed at 11:53.
But the SUV was already gone.
Daniel had somehow entered Declan's building, accessed a private parking level, activated the elevator, and disappeared while the security system shut itself down.
“He knows your building,” I said.
“He helped design the first security layout.”
I stared.
“You left that part out.”
“I didn't think he was alive.”
“Fair.”
Barely.
Declan looked at the key.
“317.”
“Hotel room?”
“Locker?”
“Safe-deposit box?”
The guard's phone buzzed.
He answered.
His expression changed.
“Where?”
Declan looked at him.
The guard listened for several seconds.
Then hung up.
“They found Sheldon.”
“Where?”
“His car.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“Gone how?”
“Car abandoned at Lower Wacker.”
My stomach tightened.
“Any signs of a struggle?”
“No.”
“Phone?”
“The one he gave us is still here.”
“Other phone?”
“Unknown.”
Declan's gaze moved back to my father's file.
Everything connected to everything.
Thomas Cole.
Daniel Morrow.
Sheldon.
The stolen phone.
Eighteen million dollars.
The key.
317.
I reached for the old letter.
There was one detail we hadn't discussed.
“My father wrote he needed three more days.”
“Yes.”
“He died three days later.”
Declan watched me carefully.
“Gemma.”
“If Daniel knew what my father found, maybe that's why he disappeared.”
“Possibly.”
“And if Sheldon knew both of them were investigating him—”
“We don't know Sheldon was.”
“He knew the amount.”
“I know.”
I picked up the surveillance photograph I had been carrying when I arrived.
It showed one of the shell-company properties.
An old warehouse near the river.
There were three vehicles outside.
I had been studying the picture for days.
Something suddenly bothered me.
I turned it over.
Property code:
LM-317.
My eyes went to the brass key.
317.
“Declan.”
He saw it too.
The room went quiet.
“Lakefront Municipal Logistics,” I whispered.
“One of the companies from the audit.”
“The company my father may have been investigating.”
Declan took the photograph.
The warehouse address was printed at the bottom.
South Branch.
Less than four miles away.
The guard immediately said, “I'll send a team.”
“No,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“If Sheldon is involved, he knows your people.”
Declan nodded slowly.
“He'll know how they move.”
“And Daniel gave the key to me.”
“Which means?”
“Maybe he doesn't trust your organization either.”
That hurt Declan.
I saw it.
But he didn't deny it.
He looked again at the picture.
LM-317.
Then at the key.
“We go quietly.”
I stared at my leg.
“You go.”
“We.”
“Declan, my leg is currently held together by medical equipment and spite.”
“You're not going.”
“Then why did you say we?”
“You and I are going somewhere else.”
“Where?”
“Hospital.”
“No.”
“Gemma.”
“No.”
He leaned closer.
“I've negotiated with senators, prosecutors, union bosses, billionaires and men who have threatened to bury me under highways.”
“Congratulations.”
“You are the most difficult person I've ever met.”
“Also congratulations.”
His phone rang.
Unknown number.
We both stared at it.
Declan answered.
No greeting.
A man's voice came through.
Even from several feet away, I heard it.
“Declan.”
Declan froze.
Seventeen years disappeared from his face.
“Daniel?”
A pause.
Then:
“If you want Gemma Cole to survive the next twenty-four hours, do not go to warehouse 317.”
The call disconnected.
I looked at Declan.
He was staring at the phone.
Then a text arrived.
One photograph.
A room.
A chair.
Sheldon Farris sitting in it.
Alive.
Beneath the image were six words:
HE IS NOT THE ONE RUNNING THIS.
May you like
And suddenly the obvious villain wasn't obvious anymore.
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