Chapter 12 - The Detective in Harold’s Letter
Everyone in the vault looked at Quinn.
She took the document from Daniel.
Her expression was genuine confusion.
“I have never seen this before.”
Marcus began laughing again.
“You still don’t understand who she is.”
Quinn turned toward him.
“Be careful.”
“Why? Are you afraid Daniel will discover your father helped create the Circle?”
Daniel looked at Quinn.
She remained still.
“My father was a police officer,” she said.
“Your father was Harold Hale’s closest friend,” Marcus replied. “He handled problems the Circle could not solve publicly.”
Quinn’s jaw tightened.
“My father died when I was sixteen.”
“He died because he tried to leave.”
Daniel studied her.
“Did you know any of this?”
“No.”
Marcus smiled.
“Convenient.”
Quinn ordered an officer to remove him.
As Marcus passed Daniel, he whispered, “Ask her why she was assigned to Lily’s case before the ambulance arrived.”
Daniel turned immediately.
“What does he mean?”
Quinn looked toward the other officers.
“Not here.”
“That is not an answer.”
She waited until they left the vault.
Then she removed a folded page from her jacket.
“I received an anonymous message yesterday afternoon.”
Before the dinner.
The message stated that a child would be harmed at the Hale estate and that the resulting emergency would be used to frame Daniel Bennett.
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“We could not confirm the threat. Officers were positioned near the estate, but the dinner was private and we lacked legal grounds to enter.”
“You knew Lily was in danger.”
“I knew a child might be targeted. The message did not name her.”
“Who sent it?”
“We traced it to a public terminal.”
Daniel looked at Harold’s letter.
“And this?”
“I do not know why Harold named me.”
Margaret Shaw was brought to the estate.
When she saw Quinn’s name on the document, she began to cry.
“Your father was Samuel Quinn.”
“Yes.”
“Harold trusted him.”
“Marcus called him part of the Circle.”
“He was. In the beginning.”
Margaret explained that Samuel Quinn had helped Harold establish security procedures for the investment society.
When Victoria transformed it into a criminal network, Samuel began collecting evidence.
He and Harold planned to expose the members together.
Harold suffered his fatal stroke first.
Samuel Quinn died in an alleged robbery three months later.
Mara had been told her father intervened during a convenience-store shooting.
The official file contained almost no details.
“Why would Harold make me a custodian when I was a child?” Quinn asked.
“He did not send the ledger to you then. He left instructions for it to be delivered if you ever joined law enforcement.”
Quinn had become a detective six years earlier.
If the system worked, she should have received the ledger then.
She had not.
Someone had intercepted it.
Daniel remembered Harold’s message.
Three independent custodians.
Two names were crossed out.
The first belonged to a judge who died in a boating accident five years earlier.
The second belonged to a journalist who vanished overseas.
Quinn was the last.
Someone had been eliminating the custodians.
“You may be next,” Daniel said.
Quinn folded the document.
“Then we find the ledger before they find me.”
Thomas Reed survived surgery and agreed to give a formal statement in exchange for protection.
He confirmed that Victoria ordered Emily’s surveillance but claimed Marcus authorized the damaged brake line.
He also revealed that the Meridian Circle’s current leader was known only as the Regent.
Victoria answered to the Regent.
Marcus did too.
“Who is it?” Quinn asked.
Reed shook his head.
“I never saw their face.”
“How did they communicate?”
“Through recorded messages.”
“Male or female?”
“The voice was altered.”
“Where is the Black Ledger?”
Reed looked at Daniel.
“Emily moved it.”
Daniel stared at him.
“She found it?”
“Yes. Days before she died.”
“Where did she take it?”
“She divided it.”
The ledger was not a single book.
It was a collection of files stored on encrypted drives.
Emily separated the drives and hid them in locations connected to Lily.
“The pendant was one clue,” Reed said. “There are others.”
“How many drives?”
“Seven.”
Daniel thought of Lily’s toys, school items, photographs, and family memories.
Emily had hidden evidence around their daughter, trusting that only Daniel would understand the connections.
Reed gave them one final warning.
“The drive from the cottage was already taken.”
“By Marcus?” Quinn asked.
“No.”
“Then who?”
May you like
Reed looked toward the hospital window.
“Someone who has been close to Lily since the day she was born.”
