Chapter 7 - Noah Is Gone
The photograph changed Emily more than any threat could have.
She took the phone from my hand and stared at her father’s face until tears ran down hers without sound.
“He never told us he knew Thomas Carter.”
“My father never told anyone anything unless silence benefited him.”
Emily wiped her cheek with the back of her hand.
“They look like friends.”
“They look like two men standing beside a warehouse.”
She glared at me.
I deserved it.
The truth was I did not want the photograph to mean anything either.
If Daniel Parker and Thomas Carter had been allies, then every simple version of the past was wrong. Emily’s father might not have been an employee who discovered a secret by accident. My father might not have been only the man who buried him.
And somebody knew we would see that immediately.
Detective Ortiz arrived four minutes later.
She read the messages, confiscated Emily’s phone, and told both of us we were not going anywhere near Pier Nine.
I waited until she finished.
Then I said, “We’re going.”
Emily nodded.
Ortiz stared at us as though we were difficult children.
“No.”
“Vanessa is there.”
“Maybe. The photograph could have been taken somewhere else.”
“The message came to Emily for a reason.”
“Exactly. Which is why sending Emily to the location is what the sender wants.”
Emily folded her arms. “Then use us.”
Ortiz looked at her.
“If they expect me, let them see me. Put police around the building.”
“No.”
“Detective—”
“No.”
Frank entered before the argument could become worse.
He had changed shirts. The blood from my punches was gone, but his lip remained swollen.
“Leon’s car cameras were recovered,” he said.
Ortiz’s expression sharpened. “My people are processing those.”
“I have people too.”
“That sentence is becoming exhausting.”
Frank ignored her. “The onboard system uploaded partial location data before the car was abandoned. He drove to Pier Nine at 11:47 last night.”
Silence.
Ortiz swore softly.
I reached for my coat.
She pointed at me. “If you go, you go under my control.”
“I don’t do well under control.”
“I noticed. Try something new.”
Forty minutes later, I stood inside a bulletproof SUV while rain washed across the abandoned industrial district surrounding Pier Nine.
The warehouse had not been used since the fire.
I had seen photographs afterward but had never come back.
That fact shamed me now.
Seven years earlier, a man died there and I signed a settlement from another continent.
His daughter stood beside me.
Life has a cruel sense of symmetry.
State police units positioned themselves two blocks away. Ortiz wore a vest beneath her coat. Emily wore one over her gray hospital sweater. I wore one because Ortiz threatened to arrest me if I refused.
Frank remained at Mass General with Noah.
I had ordered him to stay there.
For once, he did not argue.
At the edge of the property, Ortiz caught my arm.
“You walk to the door. You do not enter until I tell you.”
“The message said alone.”
“The message can complain.”
Emily almost smiled.
We crossed the cracked asphalt.
The warehouse rose ahead of us, blackened brick against a white sky. New chains hung from an old loading door.
They were unlocked.
Emily stopped.
“This is where he died.”
I looked at her.
“Yes.”
“No.” She pointed to the east side of the building. “The report said he died near the electrical room.”
I followed her finger.
“How do you remember that?”
“I read the report until I could see it with my eyes closed.”
Her voice carried no drama.
That made it worse.
Ortiz spoke quietly into her radio.
No movement inside.
No visible heat signatures beyond rats, according to the team behind us.
The door opened with a metal groan.
Inside smelled like rust, wet concrete, and old smoke.
My flashlight swept over burned beams and collapsed shelving.
“Vanessa!” I shouted.
My voice echoed.
No answer.
Ortiz cursed in my earpiece.
I had entered without permission.
Emily followed.
So much for control.
We found the chair from the photograph near the center of the warehouse.
Empty.
Rope lay on the floor.
Fresh blood marked one armrest.
Emily turned slowly.
“There.”
A portable projector sat on a crate.
The moment she stepped closer, it turned on.
Thomas Carter appeared against the far wall.
My dead father looked fifty-eight, which meant the recording was made roughly seven years earlier.
Daniel Parker sat across from him.
Emily stopped breathing.
The recording began in the middle of an argument.
“—not doing this for money,” Daniel said.
My father leaned back. “Everyone says that until the number gets large enough.”
“Then you don’t know me.”
“I know men.”
Daniel pushed a stack of papers across the table.
“You know Samuel Keene?”
My father’s expression changed.
That was the first time I had ever seen fear on his face.
“He’s dead.”
“No. He’s stealing from you.”
Thomas looked at the papers.
Daniel continued. “Northstar is moving medical narcotics through Carter containers. Small quantities mixed into legitimate hospital shipments. Somebody inside your security division is changing seals and manifests.”
Emily whispered, “Oh my God.”
I could not speak.
My father flipped through the pages.
“How long?”
“Years.”
“And you brought this to me instead of the police?”
“I brought it to the police.”
Thomas looked up.
“One detective told me to forget what I saw. Two days later, somebody broke into my house.”
Daniel’s hands shook in the recording.
“I have a wife. Two daughters.”
Emily made a soft sound beside me.
My father closed the file.
“I can protect them.”
“Can you?”
Thomas did not answer.
The image jumped.
When it returned, my father was standing.
“If Keene is alive, Frank cannot know yet.”
My blood turned cold.
Emily looked at me.
Daniel asked, “You don’t trust Miller?”
“I trust Frank with my life.”
“Then why not tell him?”
“Because Keene trained him.”
The projector clicked off.
Darkness swallowed the wall.
Then a voice came from above us.
“He trained him very well.”
I looked up.
A man stood on the steel catwalk.
Older now.
White hair.
Lean face.
A pistol in his hand.
Samuel Keene smiled down at me.
Eleven years dead and still arrogant enough to enjoy an entrance.
Emily froze.
Ortiz shouted through my earpiece, “Get down!”
The first shot shattered concrete beside us.
I dragged Emily behind a steel support as the warehouse erupted.
State police entered from two sides. Keene disappeared along the catwalk. Someone fired from the east balcony.
Not one shooter.
Two.
Maybe more.
“Stay here,” I told Emily.
She grabbed my coat. “Don’t be stupid.”
It would have been funny on another day.
Ortiz reached us, weapon raised.
“Back exit. Now.”
Then a scream came from deeper inside the warehouse.
Vanessa.
I knew her voice.
I ran toward it.
Ortiz cursed behind me.
A shot hit the steel beam inches from my head.
Another answered from outside.
I reached the old loading office and kicked the door open.
Vanessa lay on the floor, wrists tied, blood running down one side of her face.
A man stood behind her.
Leon Briggs.
He pressed a gun against my sister’s neck.
“Stop.”
I stopped.
Emily appeared behind me.
Leon’s eyes moved to her.
“There she is.”
Vanessa’s voice was hoarse. “Don’t listen to him.”
Leon smiled. “Nobody listens until somebody dies.”
“Where’s Adrian?” I asked.
His smile widened.
“Smart question.”
The answer scared me.
Emily took one small step.
Leon pushed the gun harder against Vanessa.
“Another inch and Aunt Vanessa misses Christmas.”
Emily stopped.
“You sent me the photograph,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Samuel wanted the girl to see Daddy wasn’t as innocent as she thought.”
Emily’s face tightened.
“Daniel was helping Thomas expose you.”
Leon laughed. “You got the edited version.”
He reached into his pocket and tossed a folded photograph onto the floor.
It slid to my shoe.
I looked down.
Daniel Parker stood beside my father again.
This time Samuel Keene was between them.
All three men held glasses.
The photograph proved nothing, but that was not its purpose.
Its purpose was doubt.
Keene understood people.
That made him dangerous.
“Samuel killed my father,” Emily said.
Leon shrugged. “Samuel ordered a fire. Your father chose the wrong room.”
Her entire body went still.
I had seen rage in powerful men.
Emily’s was quieter.
More frightening.
“Why Noah?” she asked.
Leon’s expression changed.
Not much.
Enough.
I understood before he answered.
“The baby was business.”
“Adrian Walsh,” I said.
Leon winked.
Then the lights died.
Vanessa screamed.
I moved.
A gun fired.
The muzzle flash lit the room blue-white for an instant.
Emily threw herself toward Vanessa.
I hit Leon at the waist.
We crashed through a rotten desk.
His gun skidded away.
He punched like a trained man and nearly broke my jaw.
I drove my shoulder into his chest.
Someone shouted from the doorway.
Leon reached for a knife.
A shot exploded.
He jerked.
Then collapsed against me.
Detective Ortiz stood behind him.
“Move,” she ordered.
Leon was alive.
Barely.
Blood spread across his shirt.
Ortiz kicked the knife away and called for medics.
Emily cut Vanessa free with a piece of broken metal before anyone could stop her.
I pulled my sister upright.
“Where’s Adrian?”
Vanessa clutched my arm.
Her face was terrified.
“Michael, he knew.”
“What?”
“He knew the hospital protocols. He knew which pediatric transport company you use.”
My blood stopped moving.
“Why?”
Vanessa looked at Emily.
Then back at me.
“Because I gave them to him last year when Claire was pregnant.”
My phone rang.
Frank.
I answered.
The noise on his end was chaos.
“Michael.”
One word.
That was all it took.
“Where’s Noah?”
Frank did not answer quickly enough.
“Frank!”
“They took him.”
The warehouse vanished around me.
“What do you mean they took him?”
“Fake transport team. Hospital credentials. Transfer order with your authorization.”
My hand went numb around the phone.
“Stop them.”
“They’re gone.”
I heard Frank breathing.
May you like
Then he said the sentence that destroyed whatever remained of me.
“Michael, Noah is gone.”
