Chapter 3 - HER FATHER’S LAST MESSAGE
Genevieve did not go home.
Detective Chen strongly advised against it.
By midnight, reporters surrounded the Hayes townhouse, and two black SUVs had been photographed nearby. Preston had called the precinct six times. Harrison Whitmore had called the police commissioner.
Neither fact made Genevieve feel safer.
Her aunt lived in Connecticut, but Genevieve refused to bring danger to her door.
That left a hotel.
Chen rejected the idea.
“You’re too visible.”
“So what am I supposed to do?”
Chen leaned against her desk.
“There is one person offering you secure accommodation.”
Genevieve laughed without humor.
“Gabriel Navarro.”
“He sent an attorney, not a threat.”
“That is an impressively low standard.”
Chen almost smiled.
“The attorney says Navarro has information connected to your father and will provide it if you meet him with counsel present.”
Genevieve thought of Thomas.
Then of the missing report.
“Fine.”
Forty minutes later, she entered Navarro House through an underground garage wearing borrowed clothes and hospital slippers.
Gabriel was waiting upstairs.
No whiskey.
No cigar.
No theatrical collection of armed men.
Just Gabriel, Declan, an attorney named Evelyn Ross, and a laptop.
“You said you had information.”
Gabriel opened the computer.
A video appeared.
Thomas Hayes filled the screen.
Genevieve's knees nearly failed.
Her father sat behind his office desk, alive, impatient, wearing the blue tie she had given him.
The timestamp was three days before his death.
Thomas looked directly into the camera.
“If you're watching this, Gabriel, either I finally grew sensible enough to send it—or something happened before we met.”
Genevieve covered her mouth.
Gabriel did not interrupt.
Thomas continued.
“I found irregular payments buried in our European freight accounts. They go back more than twenty years. Someone has been using Hayes Logistics to move money through legitimate shipping contracts.”
He held up a folder.
“One name appears indirectly again and again. Harrison Whitmore.”
Genevieve closed her eyes.
Then Thomas said something worse.
“Preston is involved.”
Her eyes opened.
“I hoped I was wrong. Genevieve loves him.”
Thomas stopped.
For several seconds, he simply looked tired.
“If I confront her without proof, she’ll think grief over losing her mother has made me suspicious of anyone close to her. So I need proof first.”
Genevieve whispered, “Dad.”
Onscreen, Thomas leaned toward the camera.
“And there's something else. I found photographs connected to Maria Navarro's death.”
Gabriel became completely still.
“The robbery story was false.”
Thomas lifted one photograph.
Genevieve could not see it clearly.
“Maria had a ring. Yellow diamond. Two emeralds. According to an insurance inventory, it disappeared after her death. Last month I saw that ring again.”
Genevieve knew before he said it.
“On Preston Whitmore’s desk.”
The video ended.
Nobody spoke.
Genevieve cried without sound.
Not dramatic sobbing.
Just tears she could not stop.
Gabriel looked away, giving her what little privacy the room allowed.
Finally she whispered, “Why didn't you give this to police?”
“I did.”
Her head lifted.
“Six weeks ago.”
“To whom?”
“Assistant Commissioner Robert Lyle.”
Evelyn answered.
“Lyle claimed the video couldn't be authenticated.”
Genevieve stared at her.
“And then?”
“He informed Judge Whitmore that Gabriel was making accusations.”
The room seemed colder.
Gabriel closed the laptop.
“Your father died before he could send me the documents.”
Genevieve wiped her face.
“Then we find them.”
“There may be nothing left.”
“You don't know my father.”
Something in Gabriel's expression softened.
“No. But I'm beginning to.”
Genevieve stood.
“My father never trusted cloud storage. He said anything connected to the internet was an invitation.”
Declan raised an eyebrow.
“Smart man.”
“He kept paper.”
“Where?”
Genevieve thought.
Her father's office had been searched after his death. His safe contained ordinary estate documents. His Manhattan apartment held nothing.
Then she remembered Sunday mornings at the harbor.
Thomas drinking terrible coffee.
Teaching her knots.
Making her memorize ship registrations.
The old Hayes warehouse.
“Red Hook.”
Gabriel stood.
“What’s there?”
“My grandfather’s first warehouse.”
Forty-five minutes later, they entered the abandoned building near the waterfront.
Chen came too.
Genevieve insisted.
If Gabriel objected to a detective joining them, he didn't show it.
Inside, dust covered everything.
Genevieve walked to Thomas’s old office.
Nothing.
She searched the desk.
Nothing.
Then she noticed the framed photograph on the wall.
Thomas and eight-year-old Genevieve standing beside the first Hayes ship.
On the back, written in Thomas's handwriting, were four words.
Jenny knows where home is.
Her throat tightened.
She looked toward an old brass ship’s bell mounted beside the window.
As a child, she had hidden candy inside its wooden base.
Genevieve crossed the room and turned it over.
A small key fell into her palm.
Declan found the lockbox behind a loose floorboard.
Inside were shipping manifests.
Bank records.
Photographs.
And a flash drive.
Chen immediately began documenting everything.
Gabriel picked up one photograph.
His face changed.
Genevieve looked.
A younger Harrison Whitmore stood beside two businessmen.
Between them was Maria Navarro.
She was wearing the yellow diamond ring.
On the back, Thomas had written a date.
Two days before Maria died.
Then Genevieve found an envelope addressed to her.
She tore it open.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Jenny, if you're reading this, I failed to protect you from someone I should have seen clearly much sooner.
She swallowed.
Below that:
Do not sign anything Preston gives you. The company is not what he wants most.
Genevieve read the next sentence twice.
Then a third time.
Gabriel noticed.
“What?”
She handed him the letter.
His eyes moved across the page.
Thomas had written:
There is something aboard the Hayes Meridian that Harrison Whitmore has spent twenty-two years trying to find.
Gabriel looked up.
“What is the Hayes Meridian?”
May you like
Genevieve's face went pale.
“A ship that sank seventeen years ago.”
