Chapter 9 - THE MAN AT THE TABLE
The bomb destroyed Callum’s office.
It was small.
Precise.
Designed to destroy documents rather than people.
Which told Sadie everything.
“They know we reconstructed part of the Ledger.”
Callum surveyed the wreckage.
“How?”
Sadie looked toward Marco.
Marco understood.
“The traitor.”
Thomas had said the person who betrayed Vittorio was still at Callum’s table.
They had assumed metaphor.
Perhaps it had been literal.
Callum gathered everyone who had been in the room when Thomas died.
Marco.
Dr. Levitt.
Sadie.
Two guards.
Callum himself.
One guard had since disappeared.
His name was Daniel Pike.
They found him two hours later.
Dead.
A suicide note confessed everything.
Callum read it.
Then handed it to Sadie.
“Fake,” she said.
“How?”
“He spelled Caravaggio correctly.”
Marco stared.
“That proves innocence?”
“Daniel once labeled a crate ‘Caravaggio’ with two R’s and a J.”
Callum looked impressed.
“You remember that?”
“I remember everything people do to paintings.”
The real clue was the paper.
Sadie held the suicide note to the light.
Watermark.
Bell & Crown Legal Stationery.
Judge Samuel Bell.
Nora’s adoptive father.
They raided Bell’s private office.
Empty.
Except for a videotape.
On it, Samuel confessed.
He had helped create the Ash Circle.
But he had not killed Vittorio.
He named the mastermind.
Dr. Aaron Levitt.
Callum’s physician.
His father’s physician.
The man who had been sitting at the table while Thomas died.
Callum felt ice move through him.
Levitt had not failed to save Thomas.
He had finished killing him.
Callum reached for his phone.
Sadie suddenly whispered:
“Callum.”
He turned.
She was staring at the security monitor.
May you like
Levitt was entering Nora’s apartment.
And Nora was home.
