Chapter 8 - The Boy with Ryan's Eyes)
Claire did not go to Pier 14 alone.
She also did not tell Detective Cho everything.
She shared the photograph and the demand but withheld the disposable phone containing Ryan's drafts. If someone inside law enforcement had helped Grant erase records for decades, full honesty could become another weapon against her.
Cho arranged surveillance from buildings overlooking the pier. Maya fitted Claire with a transmitter hidden beneath her collar. The Northstar ring remained in a police evidence replica box while the original stayed in a bank vault.
"If anything feels wrong, say the word fireworks," Cho instructed. "Our team moves in."
At eleven fifty-eight, Claire walked onto the empty pier. Wind cut through her coat. The river below was black and restless.
A cargo van rolled from behind a warehouse and stopped twenty yards away. Diane stepped out.
She wore the same evening dress from New Year's Eve beneath a fur coat. Her hair was untidy, and the regal confidence Claire had known for years was gone.
"Show me the ring," Diane said.
Claire raised the box. "Show me Brooke."
The rear doors opened. Brooke sat inside, wrists bound. Beside her was the teenage boy from the photograph. He was not restrained.
"Noah," Diane said, "take the box."
The boy walked toward Claire. Up close, he looked about fifteen, too young to carry the exhaustion in his face.
"Is Evelyn your mother?" Claire asked.
His eyes flicked toward Diane.
"Do not speak to him," Diane snapped.
Noah stopped before Claire. "She says you stole our home."
"Who says that?"
"My grandmother."
Diane flinched.
Claire understood. Evelyn had raised Noah, but Diane had been meeting him in secret. The first theft was not money. It was a child.
"Your mother sent you here?" Claire asked.
"My mother is sick."
"Where is she?"
Diane moved toward Brooke and placed a hand on her shoulder. "The ring, Claire."
"Let Brooke walk to me first."
"You are in no position to negotiate."
"Neither are you. Grant abandoned you. Ryan abandoned you. The only reason you have Brooke is because you need the ring to reach Evelyn."
Diane's face hardened. "You know nothing about what I sacrificed for this family."
"I know you gave Evelyn drugged water."
Noah turned toward Diane.
"That is a lie," she said.
"Brooke saw you."
Diane pulled a pistol from her coat and pressed it beneath Brooke's jaw.
Claire's pulse thundered. Police marksmen had clear angles, but Brooke was too close.
"Fireworks," Claire said.
Floodlights ignited. Officers poured from both ends of the pier.
Diane dragged Brooke backward into the van. Noah stood frozen between them. A shot cracked from a warehouse roof and shattered a floodlight. Darkness swallowed half the pier.
Claire ran toward Noah as he dropped. The bullet had not struck him; he had thrown himself flat. She covered him with her body while police returned fire.
The van accelerated. Brooke kicked one rear door open and rolled onto the concrete. Diane kept driving, crashed through a wooden barrier, and abandoned the vehicle near the river stairs. By the time officers surrounded it, she was gone.
Brooke's shoulder was dislocated, but she was alive.
Noah sat in an ambulance refusing to speak. When Claire showed him Evelyn's ring, his control broke.
"Mom said if anyone had that ring, I should trust them."
"Then trust me enough to tell me where she is."
"She was at St. Catherine's. Grandma said the doctors could help her. Then Grandpa came, and they moved her."
Claire thought of Samuel's hospital bracelet.
"Did you ever see another patient there? An older man named Samuel?"
Noah nodded.
Claire stopped breathing.
"He taught me chess," the boy said. "He said if I ever met his daughter, I should tell her he was sorry he missed the fireworks."
The phrase belonged to Claire and her father. When she was a child, Samuel missed a New Year's celebration because of work. Every year afterward, he apologized for missing the fireworks.
"When did you last see him?"
"Last week."
Claire gripped the ambulance door.
May you like
Her father was alive.
Then Noah added, "But Mr. Ryan came for him. He said it was time to finish what they started."
