Chapter 6 - The Man Beside the Bed
The photograph had been taken at 3:41 a.m.
It showed me asleep on my left side, one hand beneath the pillow.
The camera had been less than three feet from my face.
In the mirror behind the bed, a shadow was visible.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Wearing a dark cap.
The same man from the guesthouse footage.
Owen Rusk.
Or someone dressed to resemble him.
Daniel sat in his hospital office while Marcus examined the package.
Arthur Mercer’s watch lay inside a velvet box. The back had been engraved with Daniel’s initials.
“I’ve never seen this engraving,” Daniel said.
“Could have been added recently,” Marcus replied.
Daniel looked at me.
“You were alone in the house.”
“I had security.”
“Clearly not enough.”
“Who knew you moved to the hospital apartment?” I asked.
“You did.”
“And your mother.”
“And half the surgical department.”
“Did anyone ask where I was?”
“No.”
Marcus lifted the photograph with gloved hands.
“The package was delivered by courier. Fake name, prepaid account, no usable camera image.”
“Of course,” I said.
Daniel stared at the watch.
“My father wore this every day.”
“What happened to it after he died?” Marcus asked.
“My mother said it was stolen from the hotel room.”
I called Evelyn.
She answered on the first ring.
“Is the watch authentic?” I asked.
Silence.
“Evelyn.”
“Yes.”
“Who took it?”
“Owen.”
“Then Owen entered my bedroom last night.”
“He would not hurt you.”
“That is becoming an unpopular claim in this family.”
“Did he leave a message?”
“Only the photograph.”
“Look beneath the watch cushion.”
Marcus lifted the cushion.
A folded strip of paper was hidden underneath.
On it was a handwritten address.
An abandoned railway depot outside the city.
“Why there?” I asked.
“It was one of Arthur’s dead-drop locations.”
“Are we supposed to go?”
“Yes.”
Daniel stood.
“No.”
I looked at him.
“No?”
“This is exactly what they want. They threaten you, leave a sentimental object, and send us somewhere isolated.”
“He may have evidence.”
“He may have a rifle.”
Marcus agreed with Daniel.
“We don’t walk into the location blindly.”
We sent a surveillance team first.
The depot consisted of three warehouses and a rusted platform surrounded by weeds. No vehicles were visible. Thermal scans showed one person inside the central building.
At dusk, Marcus, two former federal agents, Daniel, and I approached from the south entrance.
Daniel insisted on coming.
I did not argue.
The building smelled of oil, damp timber, and old metal.
A single lamp glowed near the far wall.
A man sat beneath it.
He was older than the figure in the security footage, perhaps late fifties, with a scar running from his ear to his jaw. A red gasoline can rested beside his chair.
He raised both hands when Marcus entered.
“I am unarmed.”
Marcus searched him anyway.
The man looked at Daniel.
“You have Arthur’s eyes.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“You killed him.”
Owen Rusk lowered his hands.
“Yes.”
The honesty unsettled everyone.
“Why?” Daniel asked.
“Because he asked me to.”
Daniel froze.
Owen continued.
“Arthur knew Silas would torture him for the ledger key. He gave me a drug that stopped his heart and instructed me to remove the watch.”
“You expect me to believe my father arranged his own murder?”
“I expect nothing from you.”
“Then why contact us?”
“Because Silas has activated the final Halcyon protocol.”
I stepped forward.
“What protocol?”
“When an archive is discovered, everyone whose identity appears in it is eliminated.”
“How many people?”
“Originally, forty-three.”
“Originally?”
“Most are already dead.”
He looked at me.
“Your father was number thirty-eight.”
The air left my lungs.
“My father died from cancer.”
“No. He was poisoned over eighteen months.”
I stared at him.
“That is not possible.”
“His doctors believed it was an aggressive neurological disease. Silas had access to the clinic.”
Daniel shook his head.
“You are blaming a dead man’s illness on a conspiracy.”
Owen looked at him.
“Your father said the same thing about Richard Beaumont. That is why Arthur decided to copy the ledger.”
“Where is the copy?” I asked.
“Inside the Northbridge archive.”
“Why can only Daniel open it?”
“Arthur built the encryption around his son’s biometric profile.”
“He was nineteen when Arthur died.”
“Arthur collected the data before then.”
Daniel’s expression changed.
“He used to make me test medical scanners at his office.”
Owen nodded.
“Palm geometry. Retina mapping. Voice harmonics. He told you it was research.”
Daniel sat on an overturned crate.
His entire childhood was changing shape around him.
I asked Owen, “Why does Silas need us to open the archive?”
“He does not know what Arthur placed inside it.”
“But he knows the first page includes identities.”
“He assumes it includes his.”
“Does it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You worked for Halcyon.”
“I transported documents. I removed obstacles. Arthur kept the ledger.”
“Who is Silas Vane?”
Owen looked toward the broken windows.
“Not a person you defeat by calling the police.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“He began as Arthur’s partner. Then he became the firm’s enforcer. Eventually, clients trusted Silas more than Arthur because Silas guaranteed silence.”
“Through murder.”
“Through fear. Murder was only one method.”
Daniel stood again.
“My mother said Silas forced her to plan Claire’s abduction.”
Owen’s expression darkened.
“Evelyn is telling you the version that preserves her place in the family.”
“What is the other version?”
“She approached Silas first.”
I thought of the recording.
The insurance policy.
Her measurements.
“What did she offer?”
“Access to Blackthorn House. Access to Daniel. Information about Claire’s schedule.”
Daniel stepped toward him.
“You are lying.”
Owen did not move.
“She wanted Silas to destroy Claire’s company without harming you.”
“My mother would never work with the man who killed my father.”
“She did not know the truth about Arthur’s death until I told her.”
“When?”
“Two months ago.”
“After she had already contacted Silas?”
“Yes.”
Daniel’s face went blank.
I asked, “Why did she contact him?”
Owen looked at me.
“Because she believed you were going to leave Daniel.”
I turned toward my husband.
He stared back, equally confused.
“I wasn’t,” I said.
Owen reached inside his coat slowly and removed a sealed envelope.
Marcus took it and checked for wires or residue.
Inside were photographs.
Me leaving a hotel in Boston with a man.
Me entering a private restaurant with the same man.
Me embracing him outside an airport.
Daniel looked at the images.
“Who is he?”
“My brother.”
Daniel looked at me.
“You don’t have a brother.”
“Not legally.”
Owen watched us.
“Silas sent those photographs to Evelyn with a different identity attached.”
“What identity?”
“He claimed the man was Adrian Cole, a divorce attorney and private investor.”
Daniel’s eyes remained on me.
“Who is he really?”
I had not spoken my half-brother’s name in years.
“His name is Nathan Beaumont.”
“Why have you never mentioned him?”
“Because my father paid his mother to disappear. Nathan contacted me after our father died. We met three times.”
“Why keep that secret?”
“Because he wanted money in exchange for staying out of the press.”
Daniel looked wounded.
“You paid him?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Two million.”
He stepped back.
“You hid a brother and a two-million-dollar payment from me.”
“I handled a family problem.”
Owen gave a humorless laugh.
“You sound like Evelyn.”
I ignored him.
Daniel did not.
His expression told me the comparison had cut deep.
Owen pointed to the final photograph.
Nathan stood beside a black vehicle, speaking to a man whose face was partly turned away.
Marcus enlarged the image on his phone.
The second man was Silas Vane.
Or the man we assumed was Silas.
“When was this taken?” I asked.
“Six months ago,” Owen said.
“Before the Northbridge acquisition.”
“Yes.”
“What was Nathan doing with him?”
“That is the question Arthur’s archive may answer.”
A train horn sounded in the distance.
Owen abruptly stood.
“We need to leave.”
Marcus raised his weapon.
“Why?”
Owen pointed toward the gasoline can.
“That is not gasoline.”
He kicked it over.
A red light blinked beneath the handle.
“Signal repeater,” he said. “Silas has been listening.”
May you like
The lamp above us went out.
Gunfire erupted from the eastern windows.
