Chapter 5 - What Happened Eight Years Ago
Alfred did not deny being there.
That frightened Mina more than denial would have.
“You were there?”
“Yes.”
Her chair scraped backward.
“Mina—”
“Don't touch me.”
He stopped.
“What happened?”
Alfred looked older suddenly.
“My father took me to the docks. I was twenty-four. He said an employee had been stealing.”
“Owen.”
“I didn't know his name.”
Mina's eyes filled.
“What did you see?”
“A man being questioned.”
“Questioned?”
Alfred's silence answered.
She slapped him.
The sound cracked through the room.
Lev, standing outside, didn't enter.
Alfred didn't move.
“Did you kill my brother?”
“No.”
“Did you stop them?”
His eyes lowered.
“No.”
That answer was almost as bad.
Mina walked away from him.
Alfred let her.
“My father told me the man had sold information to a rival organization,” he said. “I believed him.”
“You always believe whatever lets your family remain innocent.”
“My family has never been innocent.”
“Then why didn't you investigate?”
“Because the next morning my father told me the man had been released.”
Mina laughed bitterly.
“And you believed that too?”
“I was twenty-four.”
“So was Owen.”
Alfred flinched.
Mina saw it.
Good.
She wanted him to hurt.
“My brother was twenty-four when he died.”
Alfred closed his eyes.
“He had a fiancée. He wanted kids. He called me every Sunday because our parents were dead and he thought being my brother meant he had to become my father too.”
“Mina…”
“You watched.”
“I didn't understand.”
“You chose not to.”
The words landed.
Alfred didn't defend himself.
Hours later, Lev found Daniel.
Or rather, Daniel allowed himself to be found.
He requested a meeting in a church in Cambridge.
Mina insisted on going.
Alfred objected.
She went anyway.
Daniel sat in the last pew.
Time had changed him. His hair had gone gray around the temples, and a scar crossed his jaw.
Mina stopped ten feet away.
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I thought it kept you alive.”
“You were wrong.”
Daniel looked at Alfred.
“Still collecting people your family destroys?”
Alfred ignored the insult.
“Tell us about Owen.”
Daniel did.
Owen had discovered Marino and Alfred's father were laundering money through Costello Maritime.
But that wasn't the worst part.
They were also stealing from their own organization.
Owen planned to expose them.
Marino found out.
“Your father ordered him frightened,” Daniel told Alfred. “Marino ordered him killed.”
Mina frowned.
“You said Alfred's father killed him.”
“I said he ordered what happened. I needed you away from Alfred long enough to meet me.”
Alfred stepped forward.
“You lied to her.”
“Yes.”
“Bad choice.”
Mina blocked Alfred with one hand.
“Continue.”
Daniel explained that Owen had copied everything onto a small encrypted drive.
Before he died, he hid it.
Marino had spent eight years searching for it.
“Where?”
Daniel looked at Mina.
“Owen gave it to you.”
“No.”
“He did.”
“I would remember.”
“He knew you wouldn't keep it if you understood what it was.”
Daniel reached into his coat slowly.
Alfred's hand moved toward his weapon.
Daniel produced an old photograph.
Mina recognized it immediately.
She and Owen at a Red Sox game.
She had kept the picture for years.
Daniel turned it over.
On the back, Owen had written:
For when you need to remember home.
Mina stared.
Daniel said, “The word home was the clue.”
Her apartment.
She remembered something.
After Owen's funeral, she'd received a box of his belongings.
Among them was an old brass house key that opened nothing.
She had kept it anyway.
“It's a key,” she whispered.
Daniel nodded.
“To a locker.”
“Where?”
“South Station.”
Alfred's phone suddenly buzzed.
Lev.
His face changed while reading.
“What?”
Alfred showed them.
A photograph had arrived from Marino's number.
It showed Mina's apartment.
Her belongings were scattered across the floor.
On the wall, written in red paint:
BRING ME THE KEY.
Underneath:
OR I TAKE THE HEIR.
Mina's hand covered her stomach.
Alfred became terrifyingly still.
Daniel whispered, “He knows.”
“Yes,” Alfred said.
Then he looked at Mina.
For the first time since she'd known him, his next words weren't an order.
“What do you want me to do?”
She stared at him.
The question mattered.
He was giving her the choice.
Mina took a breath.
“We find Owen's evidence.”
“And then?”
May you like
She looked at the photograph of her destroyed apartment.
“Then we end this.”
