Chapter 11 - Talia Remembers the Blue Ring
Talia hated secrets.
That was ironic, considering every adult around her seemed to have one.
Damen sat with her at the kitchen table the following morning.
No guards in the room.
No investigators.
Only hot chocolate.
He placed the blue-ring photograph of Caleb in front of her.
“Do you remember anything else?”
Talia studied it.
“He was scared of Grandpa.”
“Silas?”
She nodded.
“How do you know?”
“When Grandpa came to the garden, Blue Ring was there.”
Damen leaned forward.
“They were together?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“Blue Ring saw him.”
“And?”
“He walked away really fast.”
That mattered.
Caleb feared Silas.
Which meant Caleb might know where Silas operated.
Federal investigators questioned him again.
At first Caleb refused.
Then Damen entered.
“Silas is going to erase you.”
Caleb laughed nervously.
“He needs me.”
“No.”
Damen placed a photograph of Patrick Vale on the table.
Patrick had been arrested that morning at a motel.
Then another photograph.
Anthony Marrow.
Arrested trying to cross into Canada.
“You’re not an operator,” Damen said. “You’re cleanup.”
Caleb’s confidence faded.
“You don’t know him.”
“I’m starting to.”
“He sees everything.”
“No. He makes people think he does.”
Caleb looked away.
Damen continued.
“He made you kidnap a mother.”
Silence.
“He made you use an eight-year-old child.”
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
“You think that makes you important?”
No answer.
“It makes you disposable.”
Caleb finally said, “There’s a ship.”
Damen waited.
“Name?”
“Mercy Bell.”
“Where?”
“Moves between private docks.”
“Registered?”
“Panama.”
“The boat that never docked.”
Caleb looked surprised.
“You know that?”
“Where is it now?”
Caleb hesitated.
“New Bedford.”
Damen stood.
Then Caleb said, “Silas won’t be there.”
“Why?”
“He never stays aboard.”
“Then what is Mercy Bell?”
“The archive.”
Damen stopped.
Every Northstar record.
Thirty years of leverage.
Stored offshore.
Mobile.
Difficult to seize.
The boat that never docked.
Now it made sense.
By afternoon, authorities located Mercy Bell.
But before warrants were complete, the ship left New Bedford.
Destination unknown.
Damen watched tracking data.
“It’s heading south.”
Jacoby frowned.
“New York?”
“Maybe.”
Yolanda entered.
“Talia remembered something else.”
Damen looked.
“What?”
“She saw a drawing on Silas’s cane.”
“A drawing?”
“Lighthouse.”
Damen and Jacoby exchanged a glance.
Rhode Island had dozens.
Then Talia clarified.
“It had red stripes.”
One lighthouse fit.
Sakonnet.
Near the mouth of Narragansett Bay.
The Mercy Bell changed course.
Toward Sakonnet Point.
Damen knew.
“That’s where he’s going.”
They moved.
May you like
The final hunt had begun.
---
