Chapter 4 - THE SECRET HE MARRIED HER WITHNaomi struck Adrian.
Not hard.
Not with a closed fist.
One open palm against his chest.
“You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“How long?”
“Naomi—”
“How long?”
Adrian’s silence gave her the answer before his words did.
“Eleven months.”
She stepped backward.
Their marriage was three years old.
Her father had been dead thirteen.
Adrian had suspected for almost a year that his own family’s business was connected to Thomas Bennett’s death.
And he had slept beside her every night.
“Eleven months.”
“I didn’t have proof.”
“You had his file.”
“I found the file in an archive last fall.”
“Before Christmas?”
“Yes.”
“Before my birthday?”
“Yes.”
“Before we started trying for a baby?”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
Naomi laughed.
It sounded ugly.
“You let me talk about naming a son after him.”
Adrian’s eyes closed.
“I know.”
“No. Stop saying that.”
She threw the folder onto the table.
“You don’t know what it feels like to realize your husband has been investigating your dead father behind your back.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“There it is again.”
Her voice rose.
“The excuse that has destroyed everything between us.”
“It isn’t an excuse.”
“It’s always your reason.”
Naomi walked toward the bedroom.
Adrian followed only as far as the hallway.
“I didn’t know whether Thomas Bennett was connected to Rook voluntarily.”
She turned so sharply he stopped.
“You thought my father might have been a criminal?”
“I considered every possibility.”
“And you never asked me?”
“What would you have known at seventeen?”
The words were logical.
They still hurt.
Naomi’s eyes filled.
“My father was a good man.”
“I believe that now.”
“You believe it now.”
Adrian lowered his voice.
“When I opened the archive, I found a customs report Thomas filed thirteen years ago. It described discrepancies at Vale terminals.”
“What kind?”
“Containers disappearing between inspection and delivery. Duplicate seals. falsified weight records.”
“And?”
“The report was buried.”
“By whom?”
“Someone inside Customs. Someone my father paid.”
Naomi went cold.
“Your father?”
Adrian’s father, Dominic Vale, had died five years earlier from a heart attack.
Naomi had never met him.
Chicago remembered Dominic as a shipping titan who had transformed a struggling family company into an international empire.
Other people remembered him differently.
Adrian continued.
“Thomas kept investigating privately.”
“How do you know?”
“He copied documents.”
“Where?”
“Most disappeared after his death.”
“Most?”
“One survived.”
Adrian returned to the table and opened the folder.
A photocopy of a handwritten ledger page.
Numbers.
Container codes.
Dates.
Initials.
T.B.
E.R.
D.V.
Naomi stared.
“Dad wrote this?”
“I think so.”
“What is the second book?”
“I don’t know.”
“And Rook?”
“Elias was head of terminal operations then.”
Naomi sat down because suddenly her legs felt unreliable.
“Did your father kill mine?”
Adrian’s expression changed.
“I don’t know.”
“Did Elias?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does anyone in your family ever know anything?”
His jaw tightened.
“That’s why I’ve been investigating.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
She looked toward the ultrasound image lying beside her bag.
“This is why you let me divorce you.”
Adrian went quiet.
Naomi understood.
“You thought sending me away would protect me.”
“I thought the leak was getting closer.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“How close?”
He hesitated.
Naomi stood.
“Tell me.”
“Someone entered our bedroom while we were at dinner six weeks ago.”
Her face drained.
“What?”
“Nothing was taken.”
“How do you know?”
“I had cameras placed afterward.”
“You put cameras in our bedroom?”
“No. Hallway.”
She stared.
He continued.
“They searched your dresser.”
“What were they looking for?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Now?”
Adrian looked at her stomach.
“The pregnancy changes the possibilities.”
Naomi almost shouted.
“Nobody knew.”
“Maybe not about the pregnancy.”
“Then why me?”
“Because of your father.”
That answer settled heavily between them.
Naomi remembered Elias Rook.
Sixty-one.
Gray hair.
Perfect manners.
A habit of calling her “kiddo” even though she hated it.
He had known her father’s name from the beginning.
At their wedding, Elias had held Naomi’s hand and said:
Your father would be proud.
At the time, she cried.
Now she felt sick.
“Did Elias know who I was when we married?”
“Yes.”
Naomi froze.
“You knew that?”
“Not until recently.”
“What did he say?”
“That Chicago is a small city.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“Did you believe him?”
“No.”
Naomi’s phone rang from the counter.
Both looked toward it.
Unknown number again.
Adrian reached first.
She stopped him.
“My phone.”
She answered.
Silence.
Then a man’s voice.
“Mrs. Vale?”
Naomi recognized nothing.
“Yes?”
“You don’t know me.”
“Who is this?”
“My name is Samuel Pierce.”
Adrian immediately took out his own phone and signaled Lucas to trace the call.
Samuel continued.
“I worked with your father.”
Naomi stopped breathing.
“When?”
“Thirteen years ago.”
“Where are you?”
“Not somewhere safe.”
Adrian mouthed: keep him talking.
Naomi ignored the instruction because she resented him directing even her breathing.
“What do you know?”
Samuel inhaled shakily.
“Thomas found a second set of manifests.”
“The second book?”
Silence.
“Who told you that phrase?”
Naomi looked at Adrian.
“My husband.”
Samuel laughed bitterly.
“Then Vale finally opened his eyes.”
Adrian heard.
His face did not move.
Naomi asked, “Did Elias Rook kill my father?”
Samuel did not answer.
“Mr. Pierce.”
“I saw Rook at Thomas’s office the night before he died.”
Her heart slammed.
“What happened?”
“They argued.”
“About what?”
“Thomas said he had copied everything.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Rook threaten him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
Samuel’s voice became quieter.
“He said people with families should think harder before pretending courage is free.”
Naomi’s hand went toward her stomach.
Adrian’s face darkened.
“Where are you?” she asked.
Samuel gave an address.
An old motel outside Kenosha.
“I’ve been hiding for twelve years.”
“Why call now?”
“Because somebody sent me a photograph yesterday.”
Naomi’s mouth dried.
“What photograph?”
“You.”
Adrian stepped closer.
Samuel continued.
“You were outside the courthouse.”
Naomi looked at him.
The same photograph.
“Who sent it?”
“No number.”
“What did it say?”
Samuel swallowed audibly.
“Thomas’s daughter is about to make the same mistake.”
The line went dead.
Adrian called Lucas.
“Did you trace it?”
Lucas answered through speaker.
“Kenosha. Likely motel Wi-Fi. I’m sending people.”
“No.”
Naomi looked at Adrian.
“I’m going.”
“Absolutely not.”
She stared at him.
His jaw flexed.
He corrected himself.
“I strongly object.”
“Still no.”
“Naomi, whoever sent Pierce your photograph knows where he is.”
“Exactly.”
“That is a reason to stay here.”
“It is a reason to hear him before he disappears.”
Adrian looked like he wanted to lock every door.
Instead, he inhaled slowly.
“All right.”
Naomi blinked.
“You’re agreeing?”
“I am learning.”
“Very slowly.”
“Painfully.”
They left twenty minutes later.
The motel room door was open when they arrived.
Lucas entered first.
Then Adrian.
Naomi waited exactly thirty seconds before following despite instructions.
The room was empty.
No blood.
No body.
A coffee cup still warm.
A chair overturned.
On the bed lay an envelope.
Her name was written across it.
NAOMI BENNETT VALE.
Inside was a photograph of her father.
Thomas Bennett stood beside a shipping container.
Next to him was Elias Rook.
And between them stood another man.
Younger.
Dark-haired.
Twenty-two years old.
Adrian Vale.
Naomi stared at the photograph.
Then at her husband.
“You knew my father.”
Adrian’s face lost all color.
“No.”
“You’re standing beside him.”
“I don’t remember this.”
“Stop lying.”
“I’m not.”
She turned the photograph over.
A date had been written on the back.
Thirteen years earlier.
Four days before Thomas Bennett died.
May you like
And beneath it, in her father’s handwriting:
Adrian may be the only Vale who doesn’t know yet.
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