Chapter 5 - The Photograph in the Locked Drawer
Nathaniel reacted before Claire screamed.
He stepped in front of her.
Daniel reached beneath his jacket.
Victor raised the weapon.
“Don't.”
Daniel froze.
Victor's eyes remained on Nathaniel.
“If I'd come here to kill you, you would never have seen me.”
Nathaniel's voice was ice.
“Put the gun down.”
“No.”
“You walked into my building armed.”
“Your building?”
Victor looked around the hidden room.
“Interesting choice of words considering you didn't know this place existed an hour ago.”
Nathaniel took one step forward.
Victor cocked the weapon.
Claire grabbed Nathaniel's sleeve.
“Stop.”
Nathaniel looked at her.
She stared at Victor.
“You helped us.”
Victor's expression softened slightly.
“Once.”
“Were you watching Ruby?”
“Yes.”
Claire's face twisted.
“For eight years?”
“Not personally.”
“Who?”
Victor lowered the gun several inches.
“Evelyn at first.”
Nathaniel's jaw tightened.
“Then?”
“Me.”
Nathaniel moved.
Daniel grabbed his arm.
Victor immediately raised the gun again.
“Nathaniel.”
“You photographed my daughter.”
“To keep her alive.”
“You went to her school.”
“To prove I could.”
Claire stared at him.
“You frightened an eight-year-old child to prove a point?”
Victor's face hardened.
“To prove Nathaniel couldn't protect her.”
Nathaniel nearly lunged again.
Victor continued.
“You want to know why your mother kept Ruby hidden? Look around.”
Nathaniel did.
The shelves were filled with files.
He pulled one open.
Names.
Payments.
Old surveillance reports.
Victor nodded toward the metal safe.
“The important material is in there.”
“Open it.”
“I can't.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because somebody else can.”
Nathaniel's eyes narrowed.
Victor looked toward Claire.
“She has the key.”
Claire held up the brass key.
“It opened the door.”
“That's only the first lock.”
Victor moved toward the desk carefully.
Nathaniel didn't take his eyes off him.
Victor pulled open a drawer.
Inside was a photograph.
He placed it on the desk.
Nathaniel stared.
Evelyn Graves stood beside Claire outside the clinic.
Behind them was Victor.
And another man.
Nathaniel recognized him immediately.
“Samuel Pike.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“Your father's attorney.”
Nathaniel's eyes sharpened.
Samuel Pike had handled Graves family legal affairs for more than thirty years.
He had also remained Nathaniel's chief legal adviser after Malcolm's death.
Victor watched recognition settle in.
“Now you understand.”
Nathaniel shook his head.
“No.”
“Pike knew.”
“My mother trusted Pike.”
“Your mother feared Pike.”
Nathaniel laughed bitterly.
“You expect me to believe you over the man who managed her estate?”
Victor leaned forward.
“Who do you think made sure you never found Claire?”
Claire looked at Nathaniel.
“Samuel had access to everything.”
Victor nodded.
“Phone records. Investigators. Private databases. Every time Nathaniel got close, Pike redirected him.”
Nathaniel's face went still.
He remembered leads.
A woman seen in Denver.
A hospital record in Boston.
A passport entry into Canada.
Every one had been false.
Most had come through Samuel Pike's office.
Nathaniel felt something dark and heavy forming inside his chest.
“Why?”
Victor pointed toward the safe.
“The answer is there.”
Nathaniel looked at Claire's key.
“What opens the safe?”
Victor stepped closer to the wall photographs.
“Evelyn designed the system.”
“She wasn't an engineer.”
“No. She was a woman married to a man who searched everything she owned.”
Victor pulled one photograph from the wall.
Ruby at age three.
Evelyn stood in the background.
Nathaniel's throat tightened.
Victor turned the photograph over.
A sequence of numbers was written on the back.
10-17-18.
Nathaniel looked at Claire.
“Ruby's birthday.”
Claire nodded.
Victor entered the numbers on the safe keypad.
Nothing happened.
“Second part,” he said.
He pointed to Claire's brass key.
Claire inserted it into a hidden slot beside the keypad.
The safe clicked.
Nathaniel opened it.
Inside were three folders.
A flash drive.
A sealed envelope.
And a small velvet box.
Nathaniel reached for the envelope first.
His name was written across the front.
Nathaniel.
His mother's handwriting.
He opened it.
The letter inside was several pages long.
His eyes moved rapidly.
Then slowed.
Claire watched his expression collapse.
“What does it say?”
Nathaniel couldn't answer.
Daniel stepped closer.
Nathaniel handed him the letter.
Daniel read aloud.
“‘My son, if you are reading this, then either Claire has decided you are finally a man Ruby can safely know, or events have forced the truth upon you.’”
Nathaniel looked away.
Daniel continued.
“‘I know you will hate us for what we did. You should. But hatred is easier to survive than a funeral.’”
Claire covered her mouth.
“‘Your father learned about the baby. He intended to take her. Claire and I prevented that. But Malcolm was not the greatest danger.’”
Daniel stopped.
Nathaniel turned.
“Keep reading.”
Daniel swallowed.
“‘Samuel Pike discovered the trust.’”
Victor closed his eyes.
Nathaniel frowned.
“What trust?”
Daniel continued.
“‘Decades ago, your grandfather placed controlling ownership of several legitimate Graves businesses into a generational trust. Malcolm controlled them only until the birth of your first lawful child.’”
Nathaniel stared.
“Ruby owns Graves Holdings?”
Victor corrected him.
“Not yet.”
Daniel read.
“‘Upon verified birth of your first child, control begins transferring in stages. If you die before the child reaches twenty-one, that child's legal guardian controls the voting rights.’”
Claire whispered, “Oh, God.”
Nathaniel understood.
“If Malcolm killed me after taking Ruby...”
“He controlled everything through her,” Victor said.
“And Pike?”
Victor looked at him.
“If Ruby remained hidden and you died without acknowledging another heir, Samuel could exploit the estate structure.”
Nathaniel's eyes narrowed.
“How?”
Victor pointed toward the files.
“He inserted himself as emergency trustee.”
Daniel cursed.
Nathaniel read the rest silently.
His mother's final paragraph destroyed what remained of his certainty.
Samuel knows the child exists. He does not know where. I have kept that secret from him, but if anything happens to me, do not trust the men standing closest to you. The person who appears most loyal may simply be the person who has waited the longest.
Nathaniel lowered the letter.
Samuel Pike had eaten dinner at his home.
Attended his mother's funeral.
Advised him after Malcolm's death.
He had once called Nathaniel “the son I never had.”
Nathaniel felt physically sick.
Claire touched his arm.
He flinched away before realizing who it was.
Victor said quietly, “I kept Ruby hidden after Evelyn died.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because by then Pike had positioned himself beside you.”
“You could have warned me.”
“With what proof?”
“This!”
Nathaniel gestured around the room.
Victor shook his head.
“The safe required Claire's key.”
“You knew where she lived.”
“Yes.”
“You could have gone to her.”
“I did.”
Claire looked at him.
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
Claire's face changed.
“The man outside the grocery store.”
Victor nodded.
“You told me to leave you alone.”
“You didn't identify yourself.”
“I couldn't.”
Nathaniel stepped toward him.
“But today you knocked on her apartment door.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Victor finally lowered the gun.
“Because Pike discovered Harper Court.”
Silence.
Nathaniel's eyes hardened.
“How?”
“I don't know.”
Victor reached into his coat slowly.
Daniel aimed.
Victor stopped.
“Phone.”
Nathaniel nodded.
Victor removed it.
He opened a message.
A photograph of the pink eviction notice.
“Pike authorized the eviction.”
Nathaniel stared.
Victor continued.
“He didn't want Claire homeless.”
“Then why evict her?”
“To force her to move.”
Nathaniel understood.
“And watch where she went.”
“Yes.”
Claire whispered, “He was flushing us out.”
Victor nodded.
“The notice wasn't about money.”
Nathaniel looked toward the ceiling as if he could see through thirty floors to Ruby.
Nine hundred dollars.
The wallet.
Her bus trip.
None of it had been planned.
Ruby's honesty had accidentally brought her directly to the one place everyone had tried to keep her away from.
Nathaniel suddenly looked at Victor.
“My wallet.”
“What?”
“Did you take it?”
Victor frowned.
“No.”
“Someone removed it from my car.”
Daniel said, “We assumed you dropped it.”
“I don't drop things.”
Victor's expression changed.
“If Pike planted it—”
Claire whispered, “Why?”
Everyone realized at once.
Nathaniel's wallet hadn't been bait for Ruby.
Ruby finding it had been coincidence.
The wallet had been meant to establish Nathaniel's location.
Or perhaps something else.
Daniel reached for the wallet.
“Where is it?”
“Upstairs.”
Nathaniel's phone rang.
A guard's number.
He answered immediately.
“Yes?”
Heavy breathing.
Then shouting.
Nathaniel's entire body stiffened.
“Where's Ruby?”
The guard yelled something to someone nearby.
Nathaniel roared, “WHERE IS SHE?”
Claire grabbed his arm.
The guard finally answered.
“She was with us, sir. The fire alarm activated. We moved toward the secure stairwell. Someone used an executive override.”
Nathaniel's heart stopped.
“And Ruby?”
Silence.
Nathaniel's voice became terrifyingly quiet.
“Where is my daughter?”
“We can't find her.”
Claire screamed.
Nathaniel ran.
By the time he reached the lobby, alarms were flashing but no smoke existed.
A deliberate diversion.
Security footage showed Ruby walking beside two guards.
Then the image froze for eleven seconds.
When it returned, the guards were unconscious.
Ruby was gone.
On the marble floor lay Nathaniel's black wallet.
Open.
The nine hundred dollars scattered around it.
And resting on top was a handwritten note.
Now you know what it feels like to lose her.
Nathaniel picked it up.
His hands shook.
Claire arrived behind him.
The sound she made when she saw the empty lobby was something Nathaniel would hear in nightmares for the rest of his life.
Victor looked at the note.
“Pike.”
Nathaniel's face became cold.
“No.”
He slowly folded the message.
“Pike wanted control.”
Claire stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
Nathaniel looked toward the security camera.
“This is personal.”
Then Daniel shouted from across the lobby.
“We've got a feed!”
The wall screen turned on.
Ruby appeared.
She sat in the back seat of a moving car.
Her hands weren't tied.
She was frightened but unharmed.
A man's voice spoke from outside the camera.
“Say hello to your father, Ruby.”
Ruby looked toward the lens.
Nathaniel stepped closer.
“Ruby.”
She couldn't hear him.
The unknown man continued.
“Ask him what happened on October seventeenth eight years ago.”
Ruby's brow furrowed.
“That was when I was born.”
“Exactly.”
Then the camera shifted.
A hand entered the frame.
On one finger was a distinctive gold ring.
Nathaniel recognized it.
So did Claire.
Claire whispered, “Samuel.”
The screen went black.
Nathaniel Graves stood perfectly still.
Then he picked up one of the nine hundred-dollar bills from the marble floor.
He folded it once and put it into his pocket.
Daniel watched him.
“What are you doing?”
Nathaniel looked at the blank screen.
“Remembering why she came here.”
May you like
Then his voice turned lethal.
“Find Samuel Pike.”
