Chapter 5 - The Man Buried Without a Body
Evelyn Hart had not been dragged from the hospital.
She had walked out.
Security footage showed her wearing a nurse's coat and leaving through a service entrance at 4:17 a.m.
No struggle.
No visible weapon.
Mave watched the footage three times.
"She went willingly."
Declan stood behind her.
"Or somebody she trusted asked her to."
"My father."
"Possibly."
Mave turned.
"He's alive."
"The recording proves he survived the crash. It doesn't prove he's alive today."
She hated him for saying it.
Mostly because he was right.
At 5:03 a.m., Evelyn's phone activated near Pier 19.
They drove there with Brutus and six armed men.
Fog rolled across the shipping yard.
Mave found her mother's phone resting on a bollard.
Beside it sat an old red tennis ball.
Brutus went rigid.
Mave picked it up.
A black letter E had been drawn across the rubber.
Her father's training mark.
"Brutus."
The dog sniffed it.
Then pulled east.
They followed.
Between shipping containers.
Across abandoned railway tracks.
Into a warehouse scheduled for demolition.
Brutus stopped.
Someone stepped from the shadows.
Mave forgot how to breathe.
The man had gray hair now.
A scar crossed his jaw.
He walked with a limp.
But his eyes were the same.
"Elias."
Her father's face collapsed.
"Mayfly."
Mave crossed the distance and slapped him.
The sound echoed through the warehouse.
Elias accepted it.
Then she hit him again.
"Nine years."
"I know."
"Nine years!"
He caught her when her knees failed.
She fought him for three seconds.
Then she buried her face against his coat and sobbed.
Declan turned away.
Eventually Mave stepped back.
"Mom?"
"Safe."
"Where?"
"Somewhere Caleb can't reach her."
"You let me think you were dead."
"I had to."
"You let Mom get sick alone."
Pain moved across Elias's face.
"I paid anonymously until Caleb found the accounts."
Mave wiped her eyes angrily.
"Then why come back?"
Elias looked toward Brutus.
"Because Caleb activated Cerberus."
Declan approached.
"My father trusted you."
Elias studied him.
"You look like Patrick."
"I've been told worse."
A faint smile almost appeared.
Then disappeared.
"Patrick died trying to protect you."
Declan's jaw tightened.
"From Voss?"
"From the entire machine we'd built."
Elias explained.
Cerberus had started as a security program after several organized-crime families suffered kidnappings. Trained dogs carried emergency information between safe houses when electronic communications became compromised.
Caleb transformed it.
Dogs became invisible couriers.
Each command sequence corresponded to hidden cash, evidence, account numbers, names.
Patrick discovered Caleb had built a parallel empire.
So Patrick and Elias planned to expose him.
Caleb struck first.
"Why Brutus?" Mave asked.
Elias looked at the dog.
"Because Brutus is the last dog carrying an unrecovered sequence."
Declan frowned.
"I got him after Patrick died."
"Patrick arranged that."
"What does he know?"
Elias's gaze became grim.
"The location of the master ledger."
Mave stared at Brutus.
"Then why does Caleb need me?"
"Because you're the only person alive who knows the final verbal key."
"I don't."
"You do."
Elias touched his temple.
"You just don't know you do."
Mave remembered the Sunday games.
Songs.
Numbers.
Directions.
Her father had hidden a cipher inside her childhood.
Anger replaced disbelief.
"You used me."
"I protected the information."
"You used your daughter as a safe."
Elias looked ashamed.
"Yes."
Declan stepped between them before the argument could deepen.
"Voss knows she's the key. Why hasn't he simply taken her?"
"Because the dog won't cooperate under coercion."
Brutus sat beside Mave.
Elias nodded.
"The system was designed so fear breaks the sequence."
Declan almost laughed.
"So the most important criminal ledger in the city can only be recovered by keeping Mave calm?"
"Essentially."
Declan looked at her.
"We're screwed."
Despite everything, she laughed.
It surprised them both.
Then a rifle cracked.
Elias jerked backward.
Declan tackled Mave to the concrete.
Gunfire exploded through the warehouse.
Brutus barked furiously.
"Sniper!" Finn shouted.
Gallagher's men returned fire.
Elias lay behind a steel beam, blood soaking his shoulder.
Mave crawled toward him.
Declan grabbed her ankle.
"No."
"That's my father!"
"And you'll be dead before you reach him."
Brutus suddenly broke away.
"Brutus!"
The dog disappeared between containers.
Another shot.
Then screaming.
Thirty seconds later Brutus returned, dragging a rifle sling in his teeth.
Finn's men rushed outside.
They returned with a wounded shooter.
Mave recognized him.
Ponytail.
The rival from the restaurant.
Declan crouched before him.
"Who hired you?"
The man laughed through bloody teeth.
"You still think Voss is running this?"
Declan's eyes narrowed.
"Who is?"
Ponytail looked directly at Mave.
"Ask her father."
Mave turned.
Elias was gone.
Only blood remained behind the beam.
May you like
And on the concrete, written with one bloody finger, were two words.
TRUST NOBODY.
