Chapter 8 - Forty-Two Dollars and a Loaded Secret
Anthony DeLuca was taken downstairs.
Not to a dungeon.
Harper almost expected one.
Instead, Luca's security team placed him in a locked guest room under guard while Vincent investigated his claims.
“Why not call the police?” Harper asked.
Luca looked at her.
“For attempted murder?”
“Yes.”
“We don't have evidence that would survive court.”
“You have Daniel.”
“Daniel is a paid surveillance contractor employed by a missing criminal who claims he overheard a conspiracy.”
“When you say it like that…”
“Exactly.”
Harper sat on the edge of Luca's desk.
“So we find evidence.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Luca studied her.
“You keep saying we.”
Harper frowned.
“I noticed.”
“You can walk away.”
“No, I can't.”
“I could send you somewhere safe.”
“And my father?”
“We'll find him.”
“And everything involving my mother?”
“We'll investigate.”
Harper shook her head.
“No more people deciding which parts of my life I'm allowed to know.”
Luca accepted that.
“Then we investigate together.”
“Good.”
Vincent returned with a laptop.
“Anthony's phone is encrypted.”
“Can we open it?” Luca asked.
“Eventually.”
“Anything else?”
“His driver talked.”
Anthony had ordered an unscheduled trip to an abandoned logistics warehouse three days earlier.
Harper looked at Luca.
“Pier Twelve?”
“No.”
Vincent pulled up a map.
“Chelsea.”
Daniel, still under guard in another room, recognized the address.
“Rourke used it years ago,” Vincent said.
Harper's stomach tightened.
They left an hour later.
Luca insisted on coming.
Dr. Salvatore objected.
Harper objected.
Luca ignored both.
“You are infuriating,” Harper told him as the SUV crossed the Tobin Bridge.
“So I've been told.”
“By me.”
“Frequently.”
The warehouse stood near the river.
Dark.
Abandoned.
Luca's security entered first.
Harper waited inside the vehicle.
For once, she didn't argue.
Ten minutes passed.
Then Vincent returned.
“There's something you need to see.”
Inside, the warehouse smelled of dust and old machinery.
A temporary office had been assembled in one corner.
Table.
Chair.
Portable heater.
Food wrappers.
Someone had been staying there.
On the wall were photographs.
Dozens.
Harper stopped.
They were all of her.
Leaving Brennan's.
Buying groceries.
Entering her apartment.
Sitting in a laundromat.
Some dated back six months.
Harper felt physically ill.
Luca stood beside her.
“Daniel said Thomas started watching six months ago.”
“Yes.”
“But some of these aren't Daniel's.”
“How can you tell?”
“Different camera.”
Vincent pointed toward timestamps.
“Different days too.”
Someone else had been following Harper.
On the desk they found folders.
Bank records.
Work schedules.
Her nursing-school transcript.
Her mother's death certificate.
Even an old photograph of Harper at age twelve.
“Who has access to this?”
“Anyone willing to pay,” Vincent said.
Harper folded her arms around herself.
Luca noticed.
He removed his coat and placed it around her shoulders.
She almost refused.
Then didn't.
A guard called from the rear.
“Mr. Moretti.”
They followed.
Behind a false wall was a locked room.
Inside sat a chair.
Rope.
Medical supplies.
And a small table containing an old cassette recorder.
Harper's pulse accelerated.
“Was someone held here?”
“Recently,” Vincent said.
They searched further.
No Thomas.
But they found something else.
A wallet.
Inside was an old Massachusetts driver's license.
THOMAS P. ROURKE.
Harper stared at the photograph.
Older than the security image.
But unmistakably the same man.
Her father had been there.
On the back of the license, someone had written numbers.
Vincent recognized them.
“A storage locker.”
“Where?”
“South Station.”
They went immediately.
Locker 318 contained one duffel bag.
No money.
No weapons.
Just documents.
And a small metal box.
Harper opened it.
Inside was a photograph of Katherine holding a newborn baby.
Harper.
Thomas stood beside her.
Younger.
His expression wasn't cold.
He was smiling.
Harper had never seen a photograph of herself with both parents.
She touched her mother's face.
Then Thomas's.
Her eyes filled despite everything.
Luca quietly stepped away, giving her privacy.
At the bottom of the box lay another letter.
This one addressed to Harper.
Her hands trembled.
She opened it.
Harper,
If you're reading this, something has gone wrong.
Harper swallowed.
The letter was dated six months earlier.
Thomas wrote that he had stayed away because of a promise to Katherine.
He claimed he had watched from a distance only after learning someone was investigating Harper.
He didn't ask forgiveness.
He didn't describe himself as a good man.
In fact, one sentence stood out.
Your mother was right to leave me. I became the kind of man who thought fear was the same thing as respect.
Harper stopped reading briefly.
Then continued.
Thomas admitted he had committed crimes.
Had hurt people.
Had spent decades believing distance was the only gift he could give his daughter.
Then he mentioned Anthony.
Anthony DeLuca contacted me because he wanted Luca Moretti removed. I refused. Not because I'm noble, but because Antonio once saved your mother and you when I couldn't save either of you from myself.
Harper looked toward Luca.
He was watching her carefully.
“What?”
She handed him the letter.
Luca read.
His jaw tightened.
Another paragraph followed.
Thomas claimed Antonio had not been his partner.
They had been enemies at first.
Later they became reluctant allies because both wanted Katherine safe.
Anthony had lied.
Harper reached the final lines.
There is something Anthony wants badly enough to kill Luca for it. Evidence Antonio kept from him. Your mother knew where it was. I believe she left the answer with you without telling you what it meant.
Harper frowned.
“What answer?”
Vincent reread the line.
“Did your mother leave you anything unusual?”
“Everything she owned.”
“Jewelry?”
“Cheap jewelry.”
“Keys?”
Harper stopped.
“Yes.”
Luca looked at her.
“What?”
“When Mom died, there was one key on her necklace.”
“Do you have it?”
Harper's face fell.
“My apartment.”
Vincent said, “We recovered jewelry.”
Harper shook her head.
“It wasn't in the jewelry box.”
“Where?”
Harper remembered.
She always hid important things in places nobody would think to look.
“My nursing textbook.”
“What?”
“I hollowed out the back cover when I was seventeen because our building had break-ins.”
Luca was already calling someone.
“Retrieve every book from apartment 3B.”
Harper suddenly remembered the photographs from the destroyed apartment.
Books scattered everywhere.
What if the intruders had found it?
Twenty minutes later, Luca's man called.
The textbook was still there.
Inside the cover was the key.
Small.
Brass.
A number stamped into it.
214.
Vincent examined it.
“This isn't a residential key.”
“What is it?”
“Safe-deposit box.”
Harper looked at Luca.
“Where?”
“That,” he said, “is what we need to find out.”
His phone rang.
Vincent answered.
Harper saw his expression change.
“What?”
Vincent slowly lowered the phone.
“Anthony's gone.”
Luca's face became cold.
“How?”
“One guard was attacked. The other disappeared.”
“Who was the second guard?”
Vincent looked sick.
“Marcus.”
Luca stared.
Marcus had worked for him for nine years.
Another betrayal.
Vincent continued.
“And they took Daniel.”
Harper felt the floor shift beneath her.
Anthony now knew they were getting close.
The safe-deposit key suddenly felt heavier in Harper's hand.
Luca looked at it.
Then at her.
“We find that box before Anthony does.”
Harper closed her fingers around the key.
For the first time, she understood why people had died trying to bury the past.
Some secrets were worth money.
Some were worth power.
And some were dangerous because they could destroy an empire.
May you like
Whatever Katherine Hayes had hidden inside box 214 appeared to be all three.
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