Chapter 6 - The House With No Safe RoomWe reached Samuel's workshop forty minutes later.
The small wooden building stood behind his old farmhouse, surrounded by bare trees and a fence that leaned beneath the weight of fresh snow. A red metal toolbox lay in the yard. The front door hung from one hinge.
Two of my men waited beside the road, weapons drawn.
I stepped out of the vehicle before Vincent could stop me.
"Boss, the property hasn't been cleared."
"Then clear it."
He signaled to the others.
Goliath jumped from the back of the second vehicle and rushed toward the workshop. Noah chased after him, but Samuel caught his coat.
"Stay with me."
The boy struggled.
"Goliath might be hurt!"
"He's not going inside until they say it's safe."
I turned at the exchange.
The dog's loyalty was becoming a complication. He had no understanding of tactical perimeters, blind corners, or armed men waiting behind doors.
Neither, for that matter, did Noah.
My security team entered the building. Thirty seconds later, one of them called out.
"Clear!"
Inside, the workshop smelled of sawdust and damp wood. A workbench had been overturned. Tools lay scattered across the floor.
The trapdoor beneath the boards stood open.
A dark smear stained the edge.
Samuel moved toward it.
"No."
I caught his arm.
He looked at me with fury.
"That's my blood."
I released him.
"You've been shot?"
"No. Whoever did this cut themselves. The blood isn't mine."
He descended the short wooden ladder before anyone could stop him.
The crawlspace beneath the workshop contained old boxes, rusted tools, and a metal cash tin.
The documents were gone.
Samuel sank onto an overturned crate.
"They found everything."
"Everything?" I asked.
"The ledger, the photographs, the bank records. Everything your father gave me."
Vincent examined the open tin.
"Someone knew exactly where to look."
"Adrian," I said.
Samuel nodded slowly.
"He must have discovered my connection to your father."
"Or someone told him."
I looked at Vincent.
He understood immediately.
"You're thinking there's another leak inside our organization."
"I'm thinking there may be more than one."
We searched the property until sunset. My men recovered a damaged phone, two shell casings, and a photograph hidden inside a broken cabinet.
The photograph showed my father standing beside Samuel outside a police station.
On the reverse, a message had been written in blue ink.
THE ORIGINAL COPY IS WITH THE BOY.
I read it twice.
"What does this mean?" Vincent asked.
Samuel took the photograph from me.
His face grew pale.
"Rachel."
"Your daughter?"
He nodded.
"She must have found another copy of the documents before she died. She probably hid it somewhere."
"Where?"
Samuel rubbed a hand across his face.
"I don't know."
Noah had been sitting beside Goliath in the truck. At the sound of his mother's name, he appeared in the doorway.
"Grandpa?"
Samuel looked up.
"Go back to the vehicle, sweetheart."
"Why did that picture have Mom's name on it?"
Nobody answered.
Noah stared at the photograph in Samuel's hand.
Then he reached into the pocket of his coat and removed a small, folded piece of paper.
"I think this belongs to you."
Samuel went motionless.
"Where did you get that?"
"Mom gave it to me before she died. She said I should keep it until I was old enough to understand."
My skin prickled.
The paper had been folded so many times that its corners had worn soft. Samuel opened it carefully.
Inside was a handwritten note in Rachel's familiar script.
Dad, if anything happens to me, the truth is not in the ledger. It's in the names we were told to forget. Ask the boy what he remembers about the hospital.
Samuel stared at the final sentence.
Noah looked confused.
"What hospital?"
His grandfather swallowed.
"The hospital where your mother worked."
"I was little."
"Yes."
"Was I there?"
Samuel sat down slowly.
"You were with her the night she died. You'd been sick that week, and she brought you to the hospital after her shift."
Noah's face tightened.
"I remember a man."
I crouched in front of him.
"What man?"
"He had a shiny watch. He gave me a chocolate bar and told me not to be scared."
I felt a sudden pressure behind my eyes.
"Did you know him?"
"No. But Mom didn't like him. She told me to stay in the waiting room, and she went with him into a little office."
"Can you remember what he looked like?"
Noah closed his eyes.
"White hair. A scar near his ear. And a ring."
"What kind of ring?"
"A black crown."
Samuel covered his mouth.
The room seemed to tilt.
Adrian's security men wore black-crown insignias, but Adrian himself wore no jewelry. He considered obvious symbols vulgar.
There was, however, one man who always wore a black-crown ring.
Marcus Bellini.
My trusted adviser.
The man who had arranged my journey into the mountains.
The man who had disappeared after my attempted murder.
I stood and looked toward the door.
"We need to get Noah somewhere nobody can find him."
Samuel's eyes filled with dread.
"Why?"
"Because your grandson may be the only living witness to what happened to your daughter."
Before anyone could respond, the vehicle's headlights flickered.
A phone rang inside my coat.
Unknown number.
I answered.
A calm male voice spoke.
"Mr. Vale. I understand you're visiting the Mercers."
"Who is this?"
"You can call me Silas."
I looked at Noah.
"Where are you?"
"Closer than you think."
A burst of gunfire shattered the farmhouse windows.
Samuel threw himself over Noah.
Goliath barked furiously as the lights died.
May you like
And Silas Vane laughed softly through the phone.
"Now, Reaper," he whispered, "let's see whether you can save two generations at once."
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