Chapter 7 - A Debt That Money Couldn’t Pay
Thomas Reynolds opened his eyes at 3:16 that afternoon.
Gabriel was sitting beside his hospital bed.
Adrian stood outside the door.
Sarah had insisted on coming but eventually agreed to remain at the townhouse with Lucy after Gabriel promised to put her on speaker the moment Reynolds was coherent.
The older man looked confused.
Then remembered.
"Gabriel."
"Who did this?"
Reynolds swallowed.
"Water."
Gabriel helped him drink.
"Who?"
Reynolds looked toward the closed door.
"Victor."
Gabriel's expression hardened.
"You saw him?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
"He called me."
"When?"
"After you left."
"What did he want?"
"The key."
Gabriel held up the brass key.
"He didn't get it."
Reynolds gave a weak laugh.
"Then I suppose my concussion was for nothing."
Gabriel didn't smile.
"What blue box did Daniel give you?"
Reynolds's eyes immediately shifted.
Gabriel noticed.
"So there was one."
"Who told you?"
"Lucy."
Reynolds closed his eyes.
"That girl remembers too much."
"Where is it?"
"Gone."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Gabriel stood.
"I'm getting tired of that answer."
Reynolds glared at him.
"And I'm getting tired of being treated like one of your father's employees."
Gabriel stopped.
Reynolds continued.
"Daniel didn't trust any of us completely. Not me. Not you. Certainly not Victor."
"What's in the box?"
"I never opened it."
"But you had it."
"For one night."
"Then?"
"Daniel came back."
"When?"
"The night before his accident."
Gabriel leaned closer.
"And took it?"
"Yes."
"Where did he go?"
"He didn't say."
Gabriel pulled out his phone.
"Sarah."
He called.
She answered instantly.
"Is Reynolds awake?"
"Yes."
He put her on speaker.
Reynolds's expression softened.
"Mrs. Mercer."
"Don't call me that like we're strangers. Apparently you knew my husband longer than I did."
Reynolds looked ashamed.
"That's fair."
Sarah asked the question Gabriel hadn't.
"Did Daniel seem afraid that night?"
Reynolds thought.
"No."
"Angry?"
"Yes."
"At who?"
"Victor."
"Anything else?"
Reynolds hesitated.
"He asked me to promise something."
"What?"
"If anything happened to him, I was to keep Gabriel away from you."
Sarah looked at Gabriel through the video screen.
Gabriel frowned.
"Why?"
Reynolds continued.
"Until Lucy was old enough to remember the song."
Sarah went silent.
"The song?" Gabriel asked.
"Daniel said those exact words."
Sarah whispered, "The treasure song."
Reynolds nodded though he couldn't see her.
"He said when Lucy remembered it on her own, she would be ready."
"Ready for what?"
"I don't know."
Sarah exhaled sharply.
"Again."
Reynolds almost smiled.
"Daniel was frustrating."
"That's one word for it."
Gabriel sat again.
"Did he tell you about Victor's network?"
"Some."
"Did he tell you why Victor wanted the Mercer file?"
Reynolds's face became serious.
"Because it wasn't about money."
Gabriel waited.
"The file contained names of people Victor controlled through threats."
"Officials?"
"Some."
"Business owners?"
"Some."
"Who else?"
"Families."
Sarah's voice came through the phone.
"What does that mean?"
Reynolds closed his eyes.
"Victor collected weaknesses."
"Explain."
"Debts. Affairs. Addiction. Financial problems. Anything that could make someone obey."
Sarah's voice cooled.
"Daniel was collecting proof."
"Yes."
"Then why name it the Mercer file?"
"He didn't."
Gabriel stared.
"Victor did."
Reynolds looked at him.
"Because Daniel became the one person Victor couldn't control."
Gabriel almost laughed.
"Daniel? The man had a mortgage on a toolbox."
"Exactly."
Reynolds smiled faintly.
"Victor offered him money. Daniel refused."
"Threatened him?"
"He disappeared."
"Threatened people he cared about?"
"Daniel hadn't met Sarah yet."
Gabriel began to understand.
"So Victor had nothing."
"Until Daniel had a family."
Sarah went silent.
Reynolds looked toward the phone.
"Mrs. Mercer, your husband hid you because he knew the moment Victor learned your importance, you became leverage."
Sarah whispered, "He found us anyway."
"Yes."
"But didn't hurt us."
"No."
"Why?"
Reynolds looked at Gabriel.
"Because Daniel made a deal."
Gabriel stood.
"What deal?"
"I don't know the exact terms."
"Try."
"Daniel gave Victor something."
"The blue box?"
"Maybe."
"In exchange for Sarah and Lucy?"
Reynolds nodded.
Gabriel's stomach turned.
Daniel had spent years trying to defeat Victor.
Then sacrificed something to protect his family.
Sarah spoke softly through the phone.
"And after the deal?"
Reynolds looked ashamed.
"Daniel came here."
"The night before he died."
"Yes."
"What did he say?"
Reynolds stared at the blanket.
"He said, 'I think I finally made the right choice.'"
Sarah began crying.
Gabriel looked away.
Reynolds continued.
"He asked me whether I thought a man could be forgiven for walking away from a fight if staying meant risking his daughter."
"What did you say?"
"I told him there wasn't anything to forgive."
Sarah covered her mouth on the screen.
Then Reynolds added:
"He also said if he survived the next day, he was taking you both away from Philadelphia."
Sarah froze.
"He never told me."
"He wanted it to be a surprise."
"Where?"
"Maine."
Sarah laughed through tears.
"Of course."
Gabriel looked at her.
"What?"
"Daniel loved Maine. We'd never been."
The tragedy of ordinary dreams filled the room.
A cabin.
Cold mornings.
A little girl by the ocean.
A man who believed he might finally escape.
All of it ended on a road outside Wilmington.
Or perhaps that was another lie.
Gabriel asked, "What was Daniel doing the next day?"
Reynolds hesitated.
"Meeting Victor."
"Where?"
"The rebuilt Kestrel warehouse."
Gabriel's eyes narrowed.
"The same place Lucy remembers."
"Yes."
Sarah spoke quickly.
"Why was Lucy there?"
Reynolds looked confused.
"I didn't know she was."
"She remembers Daniel bringing her."
"Then something changed."
Gabriel asked, "What?"
Reynolds's face tightened.
"Daniel would never bring his daughter to a meeting with Victor."
Sarah already knew that.
"So maybe Victor wasn't who he was meeting."
Gabriel looked at Reynolds.
"Who else knew about Kestrel?"
The older man went still.
"Gabriel."
"What?"
"Your father."
"My father was dead by then."
Reynolds stared at him.
"No."
Gabriel almost smiled in disbelief.
"My father died nine years ago."
Reynolds shook his head.
"Antonio Vale disappeared nine years ago."
Gabriel stopped breathing.
"There was a funeral."
"Closed coffin."
Gabriel stared.
The same trick.
The same method used for Daniel.
Reynolds whispered:
"Your father taught us how convincing a death could be when nobody sees the body."
Gabriel's face went pale.
Sarah's voice came through the phone.
"Are you saying Gabriel's father was alive when Daniel disappeared?"
Reynolds looked toward Gabriel.
"Not only alive."
His voice dropped.
"Daniel was working for him."
Gabriel stepped backward.
"No."
"Gabriel—"
"No."
Reynolds looked almost frightened.
"Your father wanted Victor gone."
"And Daniel helped him?"
"Daniel believed Antonio had evidence."
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
"My father was evidence."
"People change."
"Not him."
Reynolds didn't argue.
Instead, he whispered:
"Daniel thought so too."
Gabriel stared.
"Then why meet him?"
"Because Antonio offered the one thing Daniel wanted."
"What?"
Reynolds looked toward Sarah's phone screen.
"A guarantee that Victor would never touch Sarah or Lucy."
Silence.
Then a nurse opened the door.
"Mr. Reynolds needs rest."
Gabriel barely heard her.
His entire understanding of Daniel's last years was collapsing.
Before he left, Reynolds grabbed his wrist.
"Gabriel."
He leaned closer.
"If Antonio is alive, don't go looking for him."
Gabriel's eyes hardened.
"Why?"
"Because Victor wasn't the only man Daniel feared."
Gabriel pulled his hand free.
Outside, Adrian was waiting.
He had been listening from the hallway.
"You believe him?"
Gabriel didn't answer.
His phone buzzed.
A message from Sarah.
There was a photograph attached.
Lucy had apparently found it buried in her mother's old belongings.
Daniel standing beside a lake.
Sarah beside him.
Lucy as a toddler in Daniel's arms.
In the distant background stood an older man with silver hair.
Gabriel enlarged the image.
His heart stopped.
Antonio Vale.
His father.
Alive.
The photograph had been taken six years ago.
Three years after Gabriel had buried him.
And on the back, in Daniel's handwriting, was a single sentence:
He wants to make things right.
Gabriel stared at the words.
For the first time since childhood, he felt something he thought Antonio Vale had trained out of him.
Fear.
Not of his father.
May you like
Of what Daniel had discovered that made him believe a man like Antonio Vale could still be redeemed.
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