Chapter 3 - Fourteen Names
By morning, Elias had converted the private library of his townhouse into a war room.
Not a violent one.
He had spent enough of his life believing force solved complicated problems.
This required something more dangerous.
Evidence.
Photographs covered the table.
Seventeen names.
Gabriel had identified fifteen.
Nine were dead.
Three had survived serious accidents.
One had disappeared.
Two were alive and apparently untouched.
Then there was Elias.
Clara stood near the fireplace.
“You understand why I stopped talking five years ago?”
Elias looked at the names.
“You were threatened.”
“My younger brother was.”
Elias raised his eyes.
“By Victor?”
“I could never prove it.”
She explained.
After Clara reported the altered medical files, anonymous photographs began appearing in her mailbox.
Her brother leaving work.
Her brother buying groceries.
Her brother walking into his apartment.
No written threat was necessary.
Clara withdrew her complaint.
It did not save her career.
Victor made certain the hospital treated her as unstable and reckless.
“Why keep the photograph?”
“Because I needed to know I hadn’t imagined it.”
Elias understood that better than she expected.
“Why help me?”
“You were dying.”
“That isn’t the whole answer.”
“No.”
She looked at Salvatore Baron’s photograph on the wall.
“Your father helped my mother once.”
Elias frowned.
“How?”
“She was a nurse. Years ago, she discovered medication being stolen from a hospital pharmacy. The man responsible threatened her. Your father knew someone on the hospital board. He made sure she could report it safely.”
Elias had never heard the story.
“My mother said Salvatore Baron frightened her,” Clara continued. “But she also said he was the only powerful man who listened when she had nothing to offer him.”
Elias glanced at his father’s picture.
Salvatore had carried many secrets to his grave.
Apparently kindness was among them.
Clara pointed at the initials beside Elias’s name.
“SB.”
“Salvatore Baron?”
“Possibly.”
Gabriel entered.
“Margot’s here.”
Elias’s jaw tightened.
“Send her in.”
Margot walked into the library and stopped when she saw Clara.
Recognition flashed instantly.
“So you do know her,” Elias said.
Margot looked at him.
“You went through my father’s history?”
“Your father went through mine first.”
Clara remained silent.
Margot looked at the photograph on the table.
Her face drained of color.
“Where did you get that?”
Elias noticed the question.
Not what is that?
Where did you get it?
“You’ve seen it.”
Margot backed away.
“No.”
“You just answered the question.”
“Elias, listen to me.”
“For once, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”
Margot looked toward Gabriel.
“Can we speak privately?”
“No.”
Her composure cracked.
“My father isn’t who you think.”
“That statement covers considerable territory.”
“You think he planned your accident?”
“I haven’t said that.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
Too fast.
Elias watched her.
Margot closed her eyes.
“When I was seventeen, I found a locked cabinet in his office. There were files inside. Names, photographs, medical records. I asked him about them.”
“What did he say?”
“He said wealthy families paid him to keep sensitive medical information private.”
Clara shook her head.
“That wasn’t what he was doing.”
“I know that now.”
Elias felt anger rising.
“How long have you known?”
“Not everything.”
“How long?”
Margot’s eyes filled.
“Three years.”
Silence.
Three years.
They had been engaged four.
Elias felt something colder than rage.
“You knew before my accident.”
“I didn’t know you were on the list.”
“Did you know afterward?”
Margot said nothing.
That was enough.
Clara looked away.
Even Gabriel’s expression hardened.
Elias spoke quietly.
“Answer.”
“Yes.”
The word landed harder than any shout could have.
Margot stepped closer.
“I found out while you were in surgery.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I was terrified.”
“For yourself?”
“For you!”
Elias laughed once.
“You protected me by letting me believe my enemies shot me off a highway?”
“My father told me if I started asking questions, whoever arranged it might finish what they started.”
“Who arranged it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know!”
Margot finally raised her voice.
Then she covered her face.
When she lowered her hands, she looked exhausted.
“My father wasn’t the mastermind. He cleaned things up afterward. Medical reports. Toxicology. Hospital documentation. He made suspicious events look ordinary.”
“Why?”
“Money. Influence. Fear. I don’t know anymore.”
Elias pointed at the initials.
“SB.”
Margot stared at them.
“I thought they meant Salvatore Baron.”
“So did we.”
“They don’t.”
Everyone looked at her.
Margot swallowed.
“They mean Sebastian Black.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
Elias noticed.
“You know him.”
Gabriel did not answer immediately.
“Gabriel.”
“Sebastian Black worked for your father.”
“What did he do?”
“Everything Salvatore didn’t want discussed.”
Elias looked at his father’s portrait again.
“Where is he?”
“Supposedly dead.”
“Supposedly?”
Gabriel nodded.
“His boat exploded nine years ago.”
Clara pointed at the list.
“Then why would Victor use his initials five years ago?”
Nobody answered.
Margot reached into her handbag.
“I came because I found something.”
She placed a small brass key on the table.
“My father keeps a private storage unit outside Philadelphia. He doesn’t know I know about it.”
Elias stared at her.
“Why give me this now?”
Margot looked at him with tears she no longer tried hiding.
“Because leaving you in that cemetery was the ugliest thing I’ve ever done.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
She took a breath.
“I spent four years convincing myself I loved you enough to overcome my fear. Last night proved I didn’t. Maybe this is the first honest thing I’ve done.”
Elias looked at the key.
He could not forgive her.
Not yet.
Perhaps never.
But truth did not require forgiveness.
Two hours later, Gabriel located the storage facility.
They entered legally with Margot’s access documents.
Unit 214 contained no furniture.
Only filing cabinets.
Inside were records stretching back more than a decade.
Payments.
Medical summaries.
Photographs.
And one sealed box marked BARON.
Elias opened it.
The first document concerned his accident.
The second contained photographs of his SUV taken three days before the crash.
The third was a payment authorization.
Elias read the amount twice.
$250,000.
Recipient:
V. ASHFORD
Authorized by:
S. BLACK
Then Clara removed something from the bottom.
An old photograph.
Salvatore Baron stood outside a restaurant beside three men.
Victor Ashford.
A younger Gabriel.
And Sebastian Black.
Elias turned the photograph over.
His father’s handwriting covered the back.
If anything happens to me, Sebastian did not die on that boat. Do not let Elias trust him.
Elias slowly looked up at Gabriel.
“You knew.”
Gabriel’s face had become pale.
“Knew what?”
“That Sebastian survived.”
Gabriel did not answer.
Elias felt the room close around him.
For the first time since the cemetery, Clara moved closer to his wheelchair.
Not touching him.
Just there.
Elias kept his eyes on the man who had served his family for more than thirty years.
“Tell me where Sebastian Black is.”
Gabriel finally spoke.
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because he isn’t hiding from you, Elias.”
Gabriel looked toward the storage-unit door.
“He’s been watching you your entire life.”
May you like
And before anyone could ask another question, the lights inside the storage facility went out.
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