Chapter 6 - A Message from a Dead Man
I didn't go alone.
I simply made sure whoever was watching believed I had.
Marcus followed two cars behind with his headlights off whenever traffic allowed it.
I arrived at the downtown address at 8:47 p.m.
The building had once housed a printing company.
Now its windows were dark.
The front door was unlocked.
I stepped inside carrying the contents of Box 317 in a slim leather case.
“Andrew?”
Nothing.
The old warehouse smelled like dust.
A single work light glowed in the middle of the floor.
Beside it sat a laptop.
No person.
No movement.
The screen turned on when I approached.
A video began automatically.
Andrew appeared.
“You didn't come alone.”
I stopped.
The recording continued.
“At least I hope you didn't. If you're still trying to prove you're the brave brother, congratulations. You haven't changed.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Andrew knew me.
Or had known me.
“My location changes every forty-eight hours,” he said. “That's why I didn't meet you.”
I looked around.
“You coward.”
The screen didn't care.
Andrew continued.
“I need you to understand why I came back.”
He explained that Hale Capital had begun preparing a hostile restructuring of Whitmore Industries.
Not a simple takeover.
A dismantling.
Certain divisions would be sold.
Others leveraged.
Thousands of employees would be affected.
The scheme depended upon Vanessa's marriage to me because the financial agreement her father designed would give Hale influence over specific family-held voting structures.
Noah could stop it.
But only if Andrew's paternity became legally undeniable.
“I could walk into court tomorrow,” Andrew said.
“Then do it,” I muttered.
Again, the recording kept going as if anticipating me.
“But if I reveal myself without proving the rest, Hale will bury everything under litigation and call me unstable.”
Andrew leaned closer to the camera.
“That's why I need the evidence Dad hid.”
My father again.
“There is a second record.”
Andrew held up a small black notebook.
“Dad discovered Hale's transfers before I did. He documented meetings, payments, names. He didn't trust digital records.”
“Where?”
Andrew paused.
“He gave the notebook to Mom.”
My chest tightened.
“She never knew what it contained. He told her it was personal and made her promise to hide it.”
I thought of my mother.
After Andrew vanished, she had become obsessed with keeping his room untouched.
Drawers.
Boxes.
Clothing.
Could the notebook still be somewhere among her things?
Andrew said:
“Daniel, if Mom died without telling you, the notebook is probably still where she put it.”
The video ended.
Then text appeared.
BLUE ROOM.
I knew exactly what that meant.
My mother had called the upstairs sitting room at Laurel Canyon the Blue Room because of its pale wallpaper.
The room had remained locked since her death.
I turned toward the exit.
A noise sounded behind me.
Not Marcus.
A footstep.
I spun.
Someone stood near the doorway.
Vanessa.
She wore a beige coat over black trousers, her hair tied back.
No glamorous makeup.
No diamonds.
She looked exhausted.
“How did you find me?”
“The same way you found Noah.”
I stared at her.
“You had my car tracked?”
“Daniel, please.”
“Did you attack Maria?”
Vanessa's expression tightened.
“She attacked me first.”
“That's not what she says.”
“Of course it isn't.”
“Why were you photographing my father's trust?”
She said nothing.
“Why did you know Andrew's name?”
Still nothing.
I stepped closer.
“My brother is alive.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“I know.”
Hearing her say it was somehow worse.
“How long?”
“Four years.”
Four years.
Before we met.
I laughed.
The sound echoed through the warehouse.
“So Andrew was right.”
“About what?”
“You didn't meet me by accident.”
Vanessa closed her eyes.
“No.”
The answer hurt more than denial would have.
“Your father sent you.”
“At first.”
“At first?”
“I met you because my father wanted me close to Whitmore Industries.”
Every memory shifted.
The charity gala where we met.
The coincidental second meeting.
The restaurant reservation.
Her interest in my work.
All of it poisoned.
“But I fell in love with you,” she said.
“Don't.”
“Daniel—”
“Don't take a calculated introduction and turn it into romance because the plan became inconvenient.”
Her face hardened.
“You think Andrew is innocent?”
“I think you lied.”
“So did he.”
“About what?”
Vanessa looked at the laptop.
“Ask him why he met my father three weeks after supposedly drowning.”
Charles had said the same thing.
“You know about the meeting.”
“I was there.”
I stared at her.
“You met Andrew after he disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Santa Barbara.”
“What happened?”
Vanessa swallowed.
“My father offered him a deal.”
“What deal?”
“Stay dead.”
My skin went cold.
“And in exchange?”
“Maria lived.”
For once I had no response.
Vanessa stepped closer.
“Andrew didn't disappear because he was clever. He disappeared because my father threatened the woman he loved.”
“That supports his story.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Andrew took something in return.”
“What?”
“Money.”
I shook my head.
“Millions.”
“Proof?”
“I saw the transfer.”
“Hale-controlled account?”
“Yes.”
“So your father could have fabricated it.”
“He could have.”
Her willingness to admit that surprised me.
“Then why tell me?”
“Because there's another part Andrew isn't telling you.”
I waited.
Vanessa's voice lowered.
“The money didn't stay with him.”
“Where did it go?”
“To someone inside Whitmore Industries.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I was twenty-one, Daniel. My father didn't explain his crimes to me over breakfast.”
“But you helped him.”
Her eyes flickered.
“At first.”
“That phrase is doing a lot of work tonight.”
She flinched.
Good.
I wanted her to.
Then she said:
“I came here because my father knows Andrew is back.”
“Is he looking for him?”
“Yes.”
“For Noah?”
Vanessa's face changed.
“Yes.”
My hands curled.
“If anyone touches that boy—”
“That's why I'm here.”
I stared at her.
“You expect me to trust you?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
“I expect you to understand that my father is more afraid than I've ever seen him.”
She reached into her coat.
Marcus stepped from the shadows behind her.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Vanessa froze.
I looked at Marcus.
“You've been there the whole time?”
“That's the idea.”
Vanessa slowly removed an envelope.
“It's not a weapon.”
She placed it on the floor.
Marcus retrieved it.
Inside was a photograph.
My father.
Richard Hale.
Charles Wexler.
All three standing outside a restaurant.
The date stamp was two weeks before my father's death.
On the back, someone had written:
Three men knew why Andrew disappeared. Only one of them is still telling the whole story.
I looked up.
“Where did you get this?”
“My father's safe.”
“Who wrote this?”
“I don't know.”
I stared at Charles in the photograph.
Then Hale.
Then my father.
Vanessa whispered:
“You think my father is the only one you should fear.”
She backed toward the door.
“He isn't.”
“Vanessa.”
She stopped.
“What happened to my father?”
For the first time that night, she looked genuinely frightened for me.
“I don't know.”
Then she said:
“But before you trust Charles Wexler, ask why he was the last person to see your father alive.”
She left.
Marcus looked at me.
“You believe her?”
“No.”
“That sounded convincing.”
“That's what she's good at.”
I slipped the photograph into the case.
Then I thought of Andrew's message.
Blue Room.
The notebook.
My mother's house.
If my father had left a record, it might finally tell me whether Vanessa was manipulating me—
or warning me.
We drove back to Laurel Canyon.
Noah was asleep upstairs.
I stood outside the Blue Room for the first time since my mother's funeral.
The key still hung above the doorframe where she'd always kept it.
I unlocked the door.
Dust drifted through moonlight.
Nothing looked important.
A sofa.
Books.
An old writing desk.
My mother's sewing cabinet.
Then I noticed a photograph on the mantel.
Andrew and me as boys.
Behind it, taped to the frame, was a folded piece of paper.
My name was written on the outside.
Not in my mother's handwriting.
In my father's.
I unfolded it.
One sentence.
Daniel, if Andrew ever returns, do not let him find the notebook before you read page forty-seven.
I stared at the words.
My father had expected Andrew to come back.
And whatever was written on page forty-seven was important enough that he had hidden a warning from his own son.
The question was no longer whether Andrew had secrets.
May you like
The question was what my father had discovered that made him afraid of both Hale—
and Andrew.
