Chapter 10 - Emma Disappears
Adrian's words seemed to hang in the cold air.
Emma stared at him.
"What did you say?"
Adrian looked toward me.
"Not here."
We returned to the estate under heavy guard.
By two in the morning, Adrian sat in my library with Emma across from him.
Luke locked the doors.
I waited.
Adrian rubbed both hands over his face.
"My father told Margaret about the plan."
Emma's expression hardened.
"Why?"
"Guilt."
"When?"
"The morning of the shooting."
My chest tightened.
"She knew?"
"Part of it."
Adrian nodded.
"Richard told her a route had been compromised and that somebody needed to warn Danny."
"Did she?"
"She tried."
I remembered the day.
My phone had been flooded with calls.
Meetings.
Messages.
I didn't remember Margaret Carter.
"How?"
"She called your office."
Luke frowned.
"All calls were screened."
"Exactly."
Adrian looked at me.
"Victor had already changed your communication staff."
I remembered that too.
Two assistants were reassigned that week.
At the time it seemed routine.
"Margaret couldn't reach you," Adrian continued. "So she contacted somebody else."
"Who?"
"Your driver."
My chest went cold.
Thomas Kelly.
He had been driving the SUV when I was shot.
He died at the scene.
"What did she tell him?"
"Don't take the river road."
I stared.
But we had taken the river road.
"Then Thomas ignored her."
"No."
Adrian shook his head.
"Your original route wasn't the river road."
Luke went still.
I remembered.
We were supposed to take Michigan Avenue.
Then security reported construction.
We changed routes.
"Thomas tried to avoid it."
"Yes."
"Who redirected him?"
Adrian didn't answer immediately.
I already knew.
"Pierce."
He nodded.
Emma covered her mouth.
Adrian continued.
"Margaret saved your life because she told Thomas there was danger."
"How?"
"Thomas changed your position in the convoy."
Memory returned.
Normally my SUV traveled second.
That day Thomas insisted we move third.
He claimed it was because of mechanical concerns.
The sniper's first shot hit the second vehicle.
Empty rear seat.
The second hit mine.
If I'd been sitting where originally planned...
I might have died instantly.
Emma whispered, "Mom saved you."
I looked at her.
"Yes."
Neither of us knew what to do with that.
Her mother, losing herself day by day, had altered the course of my life before Emma and I ever met.
Adrian looked at Emma.
"My father believed Margaret hid Antonio's ledger afterward."
"Why?"
"Insurance."
"Against Victor?"
"Against everyone."
Emma stood.
"We need to find it."
She looked at me.
"Not tonight."
"Why?"
"Because you've slept maybe four hours in two days."
"Danny—"
"Tomorrow."
For once, she didn't argue.
At three-thirty, I walked—figuratively—her toward the guest room.
Actually, I wheeled.
Emma pushed the door open.
"You're putting guards outside?"
"Yes."
"I hate this."
"So do they. You're mean."
She smiled faintly.
Then the smile faded.
"My mom knew everything."
"Maybe."
"I spent years thinking she was just..."
She stopped.
"Sick?"
"Normal."
I understood.
Parents existed differently in our minds.
To us, they were mothers.
Fathers.
Not people with hidden lives.
"My father had half the city terrified," I said. "At home he couldn't figure out the dishwasher."
Emma laughed.
"Seriously?"
"He once put dish soap in it."
"What happened?"
"Foam reached the hallway."
She laughed harder.
I hadn't told that story in years.
The memory didn't hurt as much as expected.
Emma leaned against the doorframe.
"Danny?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"For?"
"Moving Mom."
"She saved my life."
"You didn't know that when you did it."
True.
I looked down.
Emma stepped closer.
She bent slightly until we were eye level.
"You're not who everybody says you are."
"Don't spread that around."
"My secret."
Her face was close.
Too close.
I could smell soap in her hair.
Neither of us spoke.
Then Emma kissed my cheek.
Soft.
Brief.
She disappeared inside the room before I could respond.
I sat outside for almost a minute like an idiot.
Luke appeared at the far end of the hallway.
He leaned against the wall.
"Did she just—"
"Walk away."
"I was asking—"
"Luke."
He held up his hands.
"Walking."
The next morning Emma was gone.
Not missing from the room.
Gone from the estate.
Her bed had been slept in.
Window closed.
No sign of forced entry.
Guard outside remembered nothing unusual.
Security footage showed Emma leaving at 6:17 a.m.
Alone.
She walked through the staff entrance and entered a taxi.
"Damn it."
I called.
Phone off.
Again.
Nothing.
Luke entered.
"She's probably gone to see her mother."
"No."
"Why not?"
"She would've told me."
"You two married now?"
I looked at him.
"Bad time."
"Right."
We called the facility.
Emma hadn't arrived.
Then Luke discovered the taxi.
It dropped her at Riverside Diner.
"Why would she go there?"
I knew.
"The ledger."
If Margaret had hidden something connected to Richard Vale, Emma probably believed the diner held a clue.
We drove there immediately.
Her phone lay in the employee locker room.
Screen cracked.
No Emma.
The manager said she'd arrived before opening.
Then left through the back door after receiving a call.
"From who?"
"No idea."
A waitress approached.
"Actually..."
We turned.
She looked nervous.
"I heard her say 'Mom.'"
My stomach dropped.
"What exactly?"
"She said, 'What happened to my mom?' Then she ran."
Luke called the care facility.
Margaret was fine.
Safe.
No emergency.
Emma had been tricked.
I felt sick.
"Camera."
The manager pulled security footage.
At 6:41, Emma walked into the alley.
A black sedan waited.
She approached.
A man stepped out.
Pierce.
Emma tried backing away.
Another man appeared behind her.
The footage ended as they forced her into the vehicle.
Something inside me went silent.
Not angry.
Worse.
Luke saw my face.
"Danny."
"Find her."
"We are."
"No."
I looked directly at him.
"Find her."
The next three hours blurred.
Traffic cameras.
License plates.
Phone pings.
Pierce had switched vehicles twice.
Professional.
But nobody vanished completely anymore.
At 10:36 a.m., we received a video.
Emma sat in a chair.
Hands free.
No visible injuries.
Furious rather than frightened.
Pierce stood behind the camera.
Then Victor Moretti stepped into frame.
My uncle.
He looked tired.
Older than I remembered.
"Danny," he said.
"I hoped we could avoid this."
My hands tightened.
Victor continued.
"Emma is unharmed."
Emma snapped, "Stop talking like I'm luggage."
Victor glanced at her.
Even now.
I almost smiled.
Then his expression hardened.
"The ledger, Danny."
I stared at the screen.
"You don't have it," Victor said. "I know that. But Margaret knows where it is."
Emma shouted, "Leave my mother out of this."
Victor ignored her.
"You will find it. Then we exchange."
The video ended.
Luke swore.
I replayed it.
Again.
And again.
Emma wasn't visibly hurt.
Background details.
Concrete wall.
Metal door.
A distant horn.
Train?
No.
Ship?
Luke paused the audio.
"That's a bridge horn."
Chicago River.
"Warehouse district."
"Could be."
I looked at Victor's shoes.
Dust.
White.
Construction material.
Then Emma's chair.
Old green paint.
I knew that chair.
Or thought I did.
One of our former shipping warehouses had green industrial chairs in the offices.
Closed three years earlier.
Near the river.
"Halsted warehouse."
Luke's eyes widened.
"Victor still controls it."
"Exactly."
He called the team.
I turned toward the elevator.
Luke blocked me.
"No."
"Move."
"You are not going."
"Move."
"Danny, you're in a wheelchair, we're dealing with Victor, Pierce, probably armed men—"
"Emma is there because of me."
"Which is why you can't make this worse."
I stared at him.
For ten seconds neither moved.
Then I said, "Get Grant."
"What?"
"Get Grant."
Twenty minutes later Dr. Grant arrived.
I pointed to the braces.
"Put them on."
His expression changed.
"No."
"Put them on."
"Danny, you cannot walk into—"
"I don't need to walk."
I looked at Luke.
"I need them to believe I can't."
Understanding dawned.
Victor expected the broken version of me.
The isolated man.
The helpless man.
The nephew he had successfully trapped two years earlier.
Fine.
I'd give him exactly that.
I transferred into the chair.
Grant fitted the braces beneath my trousers.
Luke watched.
"This is insane."
"Probably."
Grant crouched in front of me.
"You cannot stand unsupported."
"I know."
"You may fall."
"I know."
"You may injure yourself."
"I know."
He tightened the final strap.
"Then why?"
I looked toward Emma's frozen image on the tablet.
"Because she would've come for me."
No one argued after that.
At noon, our vehicles left the estate.
For two years, Victor Moretti had believed the bullet ended my life.
He was about to discover what Emma already knew.
I wasn't dead.
May you like
I had simply been waiting for a reason to fight my way back.
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