Chapter 6 - Pier Nine
Frank stared at his own reflection on the screen and did not deny it.
“That was me.”
Detective Ortiz stepped between him and the door.
“Sit down.”
He looked at me.
I nodded once.
For the first time since I was a teenager, Frank Miller obeyed someone because I told him to.
Ortiz took his gun.
He surrendered it without protest.
Emily stood beside the laptop, pale but steady.
“Why were you watching them?” she asked.
Frank pressed a napkin against his split lip.
“Because Claire asked me to.”
I laughed.
Nobody else did.
“Try again.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You lied to Claire about Northstar, then secretly guarded her while she confronted Vanessa?”
“Yes.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It made sense at the time.”
“Then explain it.”
Frank lowered the napkin.
“Your father made me promise something before he died.”
I felt disgust rise in me.
“Of course he did.”
“He made me promise you would never learn everything he had done to build Carter Maritime.”
“Very noble.”
“No. Cowardly.”
The admission silenced me.
Frank continued. “I kept the promise because I told myself I was protecting you. Then Claire started asking questions. I tried to scare her away from Northstar without telling her why.”
“You threatened my wife?”
“I warned her.”
“That is a word cowards use for threats.”
His eyes hardened. “I never hurt Claire.”
“Were you following her?” Ortiz asked.
“Yes.”
Emily inhaled sharply.
“The black SUV,” she said.
Frank nodded. “Sometimes.”
I crossed the room before Ortiz could stop me.
“You let my wife think someone was hunting her.”
“I was hunting whoever was hunting her.”
I stopped.
Frank leaned forward.
“Claire came to me six weeks before she died. She said someone had entered her office and copied files. She thought it was me. It wasn’t. I started watching her because I needed to know who else was watching.”
“And?”
“I saw Leon Briggs twice near places he had no reason to be.”
My missing security chief.
“Why didn’t you fire him?”
“Because I wanted to know who he worked for.”
“And did you?”
“No.”
“Claire died while you were finding out.”
Frank absorbed the words without blinking.
“Yes.”
There was no defense in his voice.
That almost made it worse.
Ortiz’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, then looked at us.
“They found Leon’s car at a commuter lot in Lynn. No Leon.”
“Cameras?” Frank asked.
“Working on it.”
“And Vanessa?”
“Her driver says he dropped her at a private residence in Beacon Hill forty minutes ago.”
I knew the place.
“Adrian Walsh.”
Emily frowned. “Who?”
“My brother-in-law.”
“Claire’s brother?”
“Yes.”
Adrian Walsh was everything I disliked in a man and enough like me that Claire found my hatred of him funny.
He had inherited a biotech fortune, turned it into a larger one, and treated every human interaction like a quiet auction.
Claire loved him because he was her brother.
I tolerated him because she asked me to.
After her death, he blamed me without ever saying the words directly.
He did not need to.
“Why would Vanessa go to him?” Emily asked.
Frank and I answered at the same time.
“Business.”
That made me look at him.
Frank continued. “Carter Holdings and Walsh Biotech have been negotiating a licensing deal for months.”
“I know.”
Emily looked from one of us to the other. “Does it involve Noah?”
“No.”
Then I hesitated.
Claire’s estate.
Her shares.
Her family trust.
Frank saw the thought hit me.
“Michael.”
“What?” Emily asked.
I turned to Ortiz.
“I need Claire’s estate attorney here.”
“Why?”
“Because when Claire died, part of her family trust transferred to Noah.”
“How much?”
“Eighteen percent of Walsh Biotech.”
Emily stared at me.
“And if Noah dies?”
I did not know.
That terrified me.
Claire’s attorney arrived by video conference twenty minutes later.
His name was Martin Shaw, and he looked as though he had aged ten years since the funeral.
I skipped greetings.
“If Noah dies before he turns one, what happens to Claire’s Walsh shares?”
Martin went silent.
“Answer me.”
“The trust contains a survivorship provision.”
“Meaning?”
“If Claire’s direct descendant does not survive to his first birthday, the voting shares revert to the Walsh family trust.”
“Controlled by?”
“Adrian Walsh.”
The room went cold.
“How much are those shares worth?” Ortiz asked.
Martin cleared his throat. “At the last private valuation, approximately six hundred and eighty million dollars.”
Emily whispered, “Oh my God.”
I did not react to the number.
Money was not the important part.
Control was.
Walsh Biotech had spent two years fighting internally over a gene-therapy platform called Aurelia. Claire’s voting block had repeatedly stopped Adrian from selling exclusive rights overseas.
When Claire died, Noah inherited her position through trustees.
If Noah died before one year old, Adrian got the votes.
And the current licensing deal with Carter Holdings suddenly made much more sense.
“Who negotiated with Adrian for Carter?” I asked Frank.
He did not want to answer.
“Vanessa,” I said.
He nodded.
Detective Ortiz was already issuing instructions.
I grabbed my coat.
She blocked the door.
“No.”
“My sister is with a man who has nearly seven hundred million reasons to want my son dead.”
“And that is exactly why you are not going there.”
“I am going.”
“You’ll interfere with an active investigation.”
“I’ve been interfering with active investigations since I was twenty-five.”
“That isn’t as charming as you think.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
Emily stepped in front of me.
“Stay with Noah.”
I stared at her.
She continued. “That’s what Claire told you to do.”
“I can protect Noah and deal with Adrian.”
“No. That is exactly what she said you would think.”
Anger rose.
So did shame.
Because she was right.
Again.
I stayed.
Ortiz sent officers to Beacon Hill.
They found the house empty.
Vanessa’s coat was there.
So was her phone.
A glass of wine had been spilled across the kitchen floor.
There was a streak of blood on the back door.
No Vanessa.
No Adrian.
At 10:12 a.m., a nurse brought Noah a tiny stuffed whale donated by a hospital volunteer.
I sat beside him and watched his fingers curl around the fin.
Emily stood at the window.
For several minutes, I watched Noah sleep and tried to understand how a six-month-old child had become the center of a war that began before he was born. His eyelashes rested against his cheeks. One fist opened and closed beside the stuffed whale as though he were dreaming of grabbing something just beyond reach.
Vanessa appeared outside the glass again, escorted by a trooper. Detective Ortiz had ordered her to remain available, but my sister had never considered rules something that applied equally to her.
She stopped beside me.
“He has Claire’s mouth,” she said.
I looked at Noah. “Everybody says that.”
“She used to hate her mouth.”
“That sounds like Claire.”
Vanessa smiled, then the smile disappeared. “Michael, whatever you think of me, I would never hurt him.”
I did not answer.
“That is not a denial you should have to hear from your sister,” she said.
“No. It isn’t.”
She looked through the glass. “Claire called me the week before she died. She said she had found something that could break both families.”
“What did you tell her?”
“To stop.”
“I saw that part.”
Vanessa flinched.
“I thought if she believed I was against her, she might back away. I was afraid Adrian already knew she was asking questions.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because every time someone brought you a threat, you turned it into a battlefield.”
The answer should have angered me. Instead, I looked at Noah and heard Emily’s earlier words. Stay with Noah. That’s what Claire told you to do.
Maybe everyone around me had learned the same lesson before I did.
Vanessa touched the glass with two fingers. “We were not good sisters at the end.”
“She still loved you.”
Her face folded for one second before control returned.
“I know.”
That was the first honest conversation Vanessa and I had had in years. It lasted less than two minutes. Then Ortiz called her away to review financial records tied to Adrian.
Emily remained by the window after she left.
“You should sleep,” I told her.
“So should you.”
“I own the hospital wing. I’m allowed to be unreasonable.”
“You don’t own the hospital wing.”
“I donated it.”
“That is not the same thing.”
I looked at her.
For the first time in twelve hours, something almost normal passed between us.
Then her phone buzzed.
She looked down.
The color left her face.
“What?”
She tried to turn the screen away.
I stood.
“Emily.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Stop saying that.”
I took the phone before she could object.
A photograph filled the screen.
Vanessa sat tied to a wooden chair in an unfamiliar room.
Her lip was bleeding.
Her eyes were open.
Terrified.
Beneath the image was a message.
YOU WANTED THE TRUTH ABOUT YOUR FATHER.
COME GET IT.
ALONE.
There was an address beneath the words.
Pier Nine.
The warehouse where Daniel Parker had died.
I looked at Emily.
“Why did they send this to you?”
She stared at the photograph.
“I don’t know.”
Then another message appeared.
This one contained only a picture.
A grainy photograph taken seven years earlier.
Daniel Parker stood outside the Pier Nine warehouse beside another man.
The second man was older, with gray hair and a familiar black crest ring on his right hand.
It was not Samuel Keene.
May you like
It was my father.
And they were smiling.
