Chapter 3 - What Talia Saw
By midnight, Pharaoh estate no longer felt like a home.
It felt like a fortress.
Every external gate was locked.
Security doubled.
Jacoby replaced the guards at the rear entrance with men whose loyalty he had personally verified. Phones belonging to estate staff were collected, checked, and returned. Anyone who had worked the property during the previous six months was reviewed.
Damen trusted almost no one.
Talia trusted him completely.
That was becoming a problem.
She refused to sleep unless she could see the hallway outside the guest room.
Yolanda sat beside her bed, exhausted.
Damen stood in the doorway.
“She thinks they’ll come back,” Yolanda said quietly.
“They won’t.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No.”
Damen watched Talia sleeping beneath a heavy quilt.
“But I can make them regret trying.”
Yolanda gave him a warning look.
“She’s eight.”
“I know.”
“She hears more than people think.”
“So do I.”
That earned the smallest smile.
It disappeared quickly.
“Why are you helping us?”
Damen looked at her.
“Someone used my property.”
“That’s not the reason.”
“Someone compromised my security.”
“Still not the reason.”
Damen disliked being analyzed.
Especially accurately.
“You work here.”
“Seven months.”
“That’s enough.”
“For you to walk out of the biggest meeting you’ve had all year?”
He did not answer.
Yolanda studied him.
Then she seemed to decide not to push.
“Thank you.”
The words made him uncomfortable.
He nodded and left.
Downstairs, Jacoby was waiting.
“Patrick talked.”
Damen entered the study.
“What did he say?”
“Not much.”
“Then he didn’t talk.”
“He admitted Caleb Ward paid him.”
“How long?”
“Five months.”
Damen’s expression hardened.
“For what?”
“At first, camera schedules. Deliveries. Staff rotations.”
“And later?”
“The boathouse.”
Damen walked to the window.
The small plastic boat Talia had once left there still sat on the sill.
He had found it in the hallway months ago.
She had told him it belonged there because his office needed something fun.
He had never moved it.
Jacoby continued.
“Patrick claims he didn’t know they were taking Yolanda today.”
“Do you believe him?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
“There’s more.”
Damen turned.
“Patrick says Caleb wasn’t trying to kill her.”
“That’s comforting.”
“He wanted something.”
“The photographs.”
“Probably.”
Damen folded his arms.
“And Elias?”
“Patrick swears he never dealt directly with Elias.”
“Which means nothing.”
“Pretty much.”
Damen looked at the contracts still stacked on the conference table.
“Victor Santoro?”
“No evidence.”
“Yet.”
Jacoby hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
Damen waited.
“Patrick says the operation is called Northstar.”
Damen stopped breathing for half a second.
Jacoby noticed.
“You know it?”
“My father used that word.”
“When?”
“Years ago.”
Damen walked toward an old cabinet.
He unlocked a drawer and removed a leather notebook.
His father’s handwriting filled the pages.
Numbers.
Ship names.
Initials.
Damen flipped until he found a mark in the margin.
NORTHSTAR.
Beside it was a date from eleven years earlier.
The year before Damen’s father died.
Jacoby leaned closer.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.”
Damen hated those words.
He searched further.
Another Northstar reference.
Then another.
Always beside container transfers.
Always beside payment codes.
Always connected to ports outside normal company routes.
“What was your father doing?”
“I thought I knew.”
A small voice behind them said, “That man was in here.”
Damen turned.
Talia stood in the doorway wearing socks and holding her blanket around her shoulders.
“Talia.”
She pointed at the desk.
“The ring man.”
Damen approached.
“When?”
“Before.”
“Today?”
She shook her head.
“Lots of sleeps ago.”
“How many?”
She frowned, thinking.
“Before Mommy made pumpkin cookies.”
Damen looked at Jacoby.
“That was three weeks ago.”
The same night Yolanda had seen Caleb outside.
Damen crouched.
“Where were you?”
“Looking for my boat.”
She pointed to the windowsill.
“You came in here?”
“The door was open.”
Damen’s stomach tightened.
“What did you see?”
“A man.”
“Caleb?”
She nodded.
“What was he doing?”
Talia pointed toward the bookshelf.
“He pushed it.”
Jacoby and Damen looked at each other.
“What do you mean?”
“He pushed the big books.”
Damen crossed the room.
His father’s study had been renovated twice, but one wall remained lined with antique built-in shelves.
Damen began pulling books.
Nothing.
Jacoby joined him.
Talia watched.
“No.”
She walked over.
“This one.”
She touched an oversized maritime atlas.
Damen removed it.
Behind it was a brass switch.
He stared.
Jacoby muttered, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Damen pressed it.
A section of shelving released with a quiet click.
Behind it was a narrow compartment.
Empty.
Almost.
A small blue fiber clung to the wooden floor.
Jacoby picked it up.
“Suit fabric?”
“Maybe.”
Damen examined the compartment.
Something large had been stored there.
Perhaps a box.
Perhaps records.
“What did he take?” Jacoby asked.
Damen looked at the empty space.
“I don’t know.”
Talia tugged his sleeve.
“He didn’t take everything.”
Damen crouched again.
“What?”
“He dropped a paper.”
“Where?”
“I put it somewhere safe.”
Jacoby nearly smiled.
Damen asked, “Where?”
“My secret place.”
Of course.
Children had a remarkable ability to complicate criminal investigations.
Talia led them through the lower floor to the kitchen.
She opened a cabinet containing baking pans, crawled underneath, and pulled out a folded sheet from behind a stack of trays.
Damen unfolded it.
It was a shipping manifest.
The date was two years earlier.
The port was Providence.
At the bottom was the name of a dockworker killed during an unloading accident.
Mateo Reyes.
Yolanda’s husband.
Damen stared.
Talia looked up.
“That’s Daddy’s name.”
Yolanda appeared in the kitchen doorway.
She saw the paper.
All color left her face.
“Where did you get that?”
“Talia found it in my study.”
Yolanda crossed the room and took it.
She read.
Her hand covered her mouth.
Damen saw another name near the bottom.
A supervisor.
Caleb Ward.
“Your husband worked under Caleb?”
“I didn’t know.”
Damen pointed.
“There.”
Yolanda looked.
Tears filled her eyes.
“He told me his supervisor was someone named Carl.”
“Probably an alias.”
The manifest listed one container separately.
No cargo description.
Only a code.
NS-17.
Northstar.
Damen felt the pieces beginning to align.
His father.
Caleb Ward.
Mateo Reyes.
Missing shipments.
The hidden ledger.
The boathouse.
“What happened the night Mateo died?” Damen asked.
Yolanda sat.
“He called me around eleven.”
Her voice became distant.
“He said he was staying late.”
“Did he sound afraid?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me if anything happened, I should take Talia and leave Rhode Island.”
“Anything else?”
“He kept saying one sentence.”
“What?”
Yolanda looked at the manifest.
“He said, ‘There are two books.’”
Damen’s pulse changed.
“Two ledgers?”
“I didn’t understand.”
Now he did.
One ledger could be falsified.
Two meant comparison.
A clean book.
And the real one.
Damen looked at the hidden compartment.
“Caleb took one.”
Yolanda stared at him.
“And the one I found?”
“Might be the other.”
She whispered, “Then everyone connected to this will want it.”
Damen nodded.
“Where is it?”
“I told you. I photographed it.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Yolanda met his eyes.
Damen understood.
She had not merely photographed the ledger.
She had taken it.
Before either could speak, Jacoby’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed instantly.
“What?”
Damen straightened.
Jacoby ended the call.
“Patrick Vale is gone.”
Damen stared.
“That’s impossible.”
“Two guards unconscious. Back service door opened.”
“Cameras?”
“Looped.”
Damen looked toward the dark windows.
Someone inside the estate was still working for Caleb.
And now they knew Damen had begun asking the right questions.
May you like
Upstairs, somewhere in the house, a door quietly closed.
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