Chapter 6 - The Man Adrian Trusted
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Evan broke the silence.
“That's not possible.”
Marcus looked at him.
“It is.”
“You worked for Victor.”
“I survived Victor.”
Marcus pulled a chair away from the wall and sat.
For the first time Adrian could remember, the older man looked tired.
“Victor recruited me when I was twenty-four. By thirty, I knew too much to leave.”
Adrian's expression remained hard.
“You never told me.”
“I was protecting you.”
Zara almost laughed.
Three men turned toward her.
“Sorry,” she said. “Apparently that's the family motto.”
Even Evan winced.
Marcus continued.
“Victor discovered Thomas had copied the ledger. He ordered me to stage an accident.”
“The car,” Adrian said.
“Yes.”
“But I destroyed the authorization.”
“You delayed it. You didn't stop Victor.”
Marcus looked at Zara.
“I warned your father.”
“Then who killed him?”
“I don't know.”
Evan shifted painfully.
“I might.”
Everyone looked at him.
“Dad survived longer than anyone realizes. He knew someone was following him. The night before he died, he called me.”
Evan swallowed.
“He said one name.”
“Whose?” Adrian asked.
“Richard Vale.”
Graham's father.
Zara closed her eyes.
The next morning, Adrian requested a meeting with Graham.
They met at an empty restaurant on Wabash Avenue.
Graham arrived alone.
Adrian did not.
Marcus stood near the entrance.
Zara sat beside Adrian.
Graham noticed.
“Family outing?”
Zara placed Thomas's letter on the table.
“My father named yours.”
Graham's smile disappeared.
He read it.
Then sat back.
“I wondered when this would happen.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“Start talking.”
Graham ignored him and looked at Zara.
“My father was not a good man.”
“Did he kill mine?”
“I don't know.”
“That's convenient.”
“I know he was ordered to recover the ledger.”
“By Victor?”
“No.”
Adrian's eyes narrowed.
“Then who?”
Graham looked toward Marcus.
“Someone Victor feared.”
Marcus's face changed.
Graham noticed.
“You remember Senator William Hart?”
Adrian did.
Hart had served Illinois for eighteen years before retiring.
Publicly respectable.
Privately connected to almost every major infrastructure contract Victor Cross ever received.
“He was the political protection,” Graham said. “Victor wasn't the top of the chain. Hart was.”
Zara's blood ran cold.
“Where is he now?”
“Lake Forest.”
“Retired?”
Graham smiled without humor.
“Men like Hart don't retire. They stop appearing on television.”
Adrian's phone vibrated.
He glanced down.
Home security alert.
Fire.
His townhouse.
They were moving before the waiterless restaurant door stopped swinging.
Smoke was visible three blocks away.
Firefighters surrounded the property.
Zara stared at flames climbing through the third-floor windows.
“My father's evidence.”
“Backed up,” Marcus said.
Adrian looked at him.
Marcus nodded.
“Three locations.”
Zara almost smiled.
“You're paranoid.”
“Occupational requirement.”
Then Zara's face changed.
“The divorce papers.”
Adrian looked toward the burning third floor.
Gone.
For reasons he could not explain, he felt relief.
Zara noticed.
“Don't look so pleased.”
“I hated those papers.”
“You signed them.”
“I've made mistakes.”
She folded her arms.
“That's what we're calling them?”
“Catastrophic failures of judgment.”
“Better.”
A firefighter approached.
“Mr. Cross?”
“Yes?”
“We found evidence of an accelerant.”
Adrian's expression hardened.
“Anyone inside?”
“No.”
The firefighter hesitated.
“But we found something near the rear entrance.”
He handed Adrian a scorched envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Adrian and Zara on their wedding day.
A red X crossed Zara's face.
On the back:
THOMAS SHOULD HAVE KEPT QUIET. SO SHOULD HIS DAUGHTER.
Adrian's hand closed around the photograph.
Zara saw the change in him.
The old Adrian would have sent her away.
Hidden her.
Placed guards outside a room and called it love.
This time he turned to her.
“What do you want to do?”
The question surprised both of them.
Zara stared at him.
Then slowly smiled.
“I want to finish what my father started.”
Adrian nodded.
“Then we do it together.”
For the first time in two years, Zara reached for his hand.
May you like
It lasted only a second.
But Adrian felt it for hours.
