Chapter 4 - THE MAN DEARI CALLED BROTHER
Leonardo arrived at the Evanston house before sunrise.
Deari was waiting in the kitchen.
The photograph of Marco lay between them.
Leonardo looked at it once.
Then at Deari.
“You think I killed him.”
“I think your watch is on his wrist.”
“That watch disappeared three months ago.”
“You never reported it.”
“I lose things.”
“You don’t lose a watch our father gave you.”
Kalista watched from the doorway.
Leonardo noticed her.
“This is family business.”
“She stays.”
Leonardo laughed bitterly.
“Three days ago she was bleeding through our window. Now she attends family interrogations?”
Deari’s expression did not change.
“She stays.”
Leonardo removed his coat.
“If I were working for Valdemar, you would already be dead.”
“Perhaps.”
That answer hurt him.
Kalista could see it.
Leonardo had served beside Deari for fourteen years.
Suspicion was more painful when it came from someone whose trust had once seemed permanent.
Then Kalista noticed something in the photograph.
“Wait.”
She took the phone.
Marco’s fingers were curled inward.
Beneath his thumbnail was a dark blue stain.
“Ink,” she said.
Deari frowned.
Kalista enlarged the photograph.
“Thomas used to do this.”
“Do what?”
“Leave information where people wouldn’t look.”
She pointed toward Marco’s hand.
“He wrote something.”
They obtained Marco’s body two hours later through a contact at the medical examiner’s office.
On the inside of Marco’s palm were three numbers.
Leonardo stared.
“Room number?”
Kalista shook her head.
“Could be a page.”
They returned to the ledger.
Page 417 contained only four entries.
Three were financial transfers.
The fourth was an address.
A storage facility near Cicero.
Deari looked at Leonardo.
“Come with me.”
Kalista stood.
“So am I.”
“No.”
“The ledger is mine.”
“It belongs to Valdemar.”
“Then neither of us has ownership rights.”
Leonardo almost smiled.
Deari did not.
“You were stabbed forty-eight hours ago.”
“And whoever killed Thomas is connected to this. I’m going.”
Deari stared at her.
Kalista stared back.
Leonardo sighed.
“I’m beginning to understand why someone stabbed her.”
Kalista looked at him.
“I’m beginning to understand why you lose watches.”
They reached the storage facility shortly after noon.
Unit 417 was locked.
Deari broke the padlock.
Inside stood filing cabinets, two computers, and dozens of banker’s boxes.
Kalista opened the nearest box.
Photographs.
Politicians.
Businessmen.
Police officials.
Deari.
She pulled out another.
Leonardo.
The images documented years of meetings.
Valdemar had been building intelligence files on everyone.
Then Kalista found Thomas.
Her brother appeared in seven photographs.
In one, he was entering a coffee shop.
In another, leaving his apartment.
The final photograph had been taken on the night he died.
Kalista stopped breathing.
A man stood beside Thomas.
His face was partly turned away.
Deari took the photograph.
“I know him.”
“Who?”
“Eamon Price.”
Kalista recognized the name.
Valdemar’s attorney.
But Deari’s next words changed everything.
“He used to work for my father.”
They searched deeper.
Inside a locked drawer, Leonardo found a flash drive.
Kalista connected it to an offline laptop.
A video opened.
Thomas appeared.
Alive.
Kalista covered her mouth.
Her brother sat in what appeared to be the same storage unit.
“If you’re watching this,” Thomas said, “I probably didn’t make it.”
Kalista began crying silently.
Deari remained beside her.
Thomas continued.
“Valdemar Long isn’t the real problem. He’s being protected by someone who has access to both organizations.”
Deari leaned closer.
Thomas looked directly into the camera.
“I thought it was Leonardo Castellano.”
Leonardo swore softly.
“But I was wrong.”
The video distorted.
Static crossed the screen.
Then Thomas spoke again.
“The person helping Long is—”
The lights went out.
A gunshot exploded through the darkness.
Deari threw Kalista behind a metal cabinet.
More shots followed.
Leonardo returned fire.
A bullet struck the laptop.
The screen shattered.
“No!” Kalista screamed.
Deari grabbed her.
“Move!”
They escaped through a rear loading door as flames began spreading inside the unit.
Someone had come not merely to kill them.
They had come to destroy Thomas’s evidence.
Outside, Kalista looked back at the smoke.
The only recording of her brother’s final investigation was burning.
Then Leonardo emerged carrying something.
The damaged flash drive.
He placed it in Kalista’s hand.
“Your brother cleared my name.”
Kalista looked at him.
May you like
Leonardo’s expression was grim.
“So now we find out whose name he was about to say.”
