Chapter 10 - THE SECOND PLAYER)
Elena dropped the phone.
Adrian was already moving.
He had been positioned in the lobby.
Detective Price called him.
“No answer.”
Victor looked genuinely confused.
Elena crossed the boardroom and grabbed his jacket.
“Where is Leo?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not.”
She stared into his face.
For the first time since this began, Victor looked afraid for reasons that had nothing to do with arrest.
Arthur whispered:
“Cresswell.”
Victor closed his eyes.
Price pulled Elena away.
“Mrs. Sterling, we need information, not violence.”
Elena could barely hear her.
“My son.”
“We’re finding him.”
Victor sat.
He looked suddenly exhausted.
Arthur approached.
“What do you know?”
Victor stared at his father.
“I was trying to keep them satisfied.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
Arthur struck him.
The board gasped.
Victor did not move.
Arthur shouted:
“Who?”
Victor finally looked up.
“They contacted me eighteen months ago.”
“How?”
“Anonymous courier.”
“What did they want?”
“Meridian to acquire the dormant subsidiaries.”
“Why?”
“They said if I refused they would expose everything.”
“What everything?”
Victor looked at Arthur.
“Cresswell’s old accounts. Political payments. settlements. Your signatures.”
Arthur went pale.
Elena said:
“So you committed crimes to hide other crimes.”
Victor looked at her.
“I thought if the transaction closed, they would disappear.”
“And Michael?”
“I did not kill Michael.”
“You stole his files.”
“Yes.”
“You followed him.”
“Yes.”
“You threatened him.”
Victor’s silence answered.
“But the crash?”
“I had nothing to do with it.”
Arthur asked:
“Did Cresswell?”
Victor whispered:
“I think so.”
Elena felt the room narrowing.
“Where would they take Leo?”
Victor shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
Price received an update.
The secure house had not been attacked.
No forced entry.
No violence.
The officers remembered Leo leaving with someone they believed was an authorized federal investigator.
Identification had been flawless.
Security footage showed the man.
Dark coat.
Cap.
Face partly hidden.
Beside him walked Leo.
Not struggling.
Holding something.
A gray handkerchief.
Elena stared at the image.
“Adrian.”
Price turned.
“What?”
“The handkerchief.”
The stranger had given Elena one exactly like it.
Arthur said:
“Adrian was Michael’s investigator.”
Elena called him again.
Voicemail.
Victor laughed once.
“There’s your hero.”
Elena refused to accept it.
Michael had instructed her to give Adrian the red card.
Unless Michael had been wrong.
Or unless Adrian had changed.
Price tracked his phone.
Last signal twelve minutes earlier near the old river district.
Elena insisted on going.
Price initially refused.
Elena looked at her.
“My son trusts me. If Leo has any chance to signal someone, he will signal me.”
Price relented.
Police vehicles moved toward the river.
Elena rode with Arthur.
Victor remained detained.
Margaret had been taken separately for questioning.
As buildings became older and streets narrower, Arthur spoke.
“There is a Cresswell property near the river.”
Elena turned.
“You said you didn’t know who controlled Cresswell.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Arthur stared through the window.
“Warehouse 31.”
Price heard him.
“Address?”
Arthur gave it.
Police changed direction.
The warehouse appeared abandoned.
Windows boarded.
No vehicles.
Officers entered.
Empty.
But Leo had been there.
Elena knew instantly.
His gray sweatshirt lay on a chair.
Beside it was the wooden airplane Victor’s men had stolen from their home.
Adrian’s phone sat on a table.
Broken.
Elena picked up the airplane.
One wing was missing.
Price found blood on the floor.
A few drops.
Not enough to determine whose.
Then an officer called from the back room.
“Detective.”
On the wall was a map.
Photographs covered it.
Arthur.
Victor.
Michael.
Elena.
Leo.
Adrian.
Some photographs were years old.
Someone had been watching the entire family long before Michael died.
Elena found one image of herself pushing six-year-old Leo on a playground swing.
Taken from across the street.
Her hands shook.
Arthur found another photograph.
Beatrice Sterling.
His dead wife.
The picture had been taken the year before her death.
Written beneath it:
THE LAST LEGITIMATE CUSTODIAN.
Arthur sat down.
Elena looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
He did not answer.
Price found a laptop.
Its screen displayed a live countdown.
00:47:18.
Below it was one message.
BRING THE RED CARD TO PLATFORM 6.
COME WITH ARTHUR.
NO POLICE.
Elena stared.
“They don’t know we opened it.”
Arthur looked at her.
“They think you still have the original card.”
Adrian had created a police copy before the board meeting.
The physical red card remained sealed in evidence.
Price said:
“We can duplicate it.”
Elena shook her head.
“They’ll check.”
Arthur stood.
“We give them the real one.”
“No.”
“If it saves Leo.”
Price looked at the countdown.
“They want more than the card.”
Arthur nodded.
“They want me.”
Elena finally understood why Victor had been useful but disposable.
Cresswell’s secrets had never belonged to Victor.
He had only been another piece.
Just like her.
Just like Michael.
The countdown reached forty-four minutes.
Elena looked at Platform 6.
Bellmere Central Station.
Crowded.
Public.
May you like
Exactly the kind of place Michael had told her to use.
And perhaps exactly the kind of place someone else knew she would trust.
