Chapter 4 - The Woman They Took
Charlotte did not scream.
Dominic almost wished she had.
Instead she became terrifyingly calm.
“When?”
Peter handed her the phone.
The photograph showed Emma inside a concrete room. No windows. Metal chair. Gray floor. A newspaper lay beside her foot.
Today’s date.
“She was supposed to work tonight,” Charlotte whispered.
“At the hospital?” Augustus asked.
Charlotte looked at him sharply.
“How do you know where she works?”
Augustus did not answer quickly enough.
“You kept watching me.”
“From a distance.”
“You promised—”
“I promised tonight.”
“You’ve known where I was?”
“Not continuously. I found you eighteen months ago.”
Charlotte’s face broke.
“You knew?”
“I knew you were alive. I knew you worked at the Marlowe. I knew you shared an apartment with Emma Sullivan. I did not approach you.”
“That isn’t freedom.”
“No,” Augustus said quietly. “It isn’t.”
Dominic stepped between them.
“You can hate him tomorrow. Emma needs us tonight.”
Charlotte hated that he was right.
She looked at Peter’s phone.
Another message appeared.
MIDNIGHT. COME ALONE.
A location followed.
Red Hook.
Dominic shook his head.
“No.”
Charlotte glared at him.
“You’ve lost the privilege of giving me orders.”
“It’s a trap.”
“Obviously.”
“Then don’t walk into it.”
“If they wanted me dead, they could have shot me ten minutes ago.”
Augustus looked at Dominic.
“She’s right.”
“I know.”
Dominic hated both of them for saying it.
Adrian recovered partial footage from the security system. The attacker had worn a catering jacket and exited through a service stairwell.
But another camera caught a vehicle.
Black SUV.
Partial plate.
Dominic’s team traced it within minutes to a corporation owned by Vanessa Rainer.
Dominic called his aunt.
She answered on the first ring.
“Dominic.”
“Where is Emma Sullivan?”
Silence.
Then Vanessa laughed.
“I have no idea who that is.”
“Your SUV left my club six minutes after she was photographed.”
“Then perhaps you should hire better accountants.”
“Did you steal the watch?”
“Why would I steal something already belonging to our family?”
Dominic looked at Charlotte.
“Our family?”
Vanessa hung up.
That phrase bothered him.
At 11:26 p.m., they reached an abandoned shipping warehouse in Red Hook.
Charlotte wore a wire.
Dominic objected until she threatened to go without telling him.
Augustus objected until she reminded him she had spent seven years surviving without him.
So both men did something unfamiliar.
They listened.
Charlotte entered alone.
“Emma?”
Her voice echoed.
A light switched on.
Emma sat in the center of the warehouse.
“Claire!”
Charlotte ran toward her.
“Stop!”
Dominic’s voice exploded through her earpiece.
Charlotte froze.
A thin wire stretched across the floor three feet ahead.
She crouched.
Tripwire.
Emma began sobbing.
“I’m sorry.”
Charlotte looked at her.
“For what?”
“They made me call you.”
“Who?”
A man stepped from behind a shipping container.
Not Vanessa.
Peter Wallace.
Charlotte stared.
Peter smiled.
“You rich people really do believe uniforms.”
Dominic’s voice came through her earpiece.
“Keep him talking.”
Charlotte did.
“You let yourself get hit at the club.”
“Small cut. Lots of blood.”
“You planted the watch.”
“Yes.”
“Vanessa?”
“Useful idiot.”
Peter approached Emma.
“She thought she hired me. She never understood she was being hired.”
“By whom?”
Peter smiled.
“That’s worth considerably more than your hourly wage.”
Charlotte heard movement behind her.
She turned.
Two men blocked the exit.
Peter held out his hand.
“The backup.”
“What backup?”
“Your mother wasn’t stupid enough to leave one copy.”
“I don’t have anything.”
Peter sighed.
“Then Emma dies.”
Charlotte looked at her friend.
Emma shook her head violently.
“Don’t.”
Peter raised his gun.
Charlotte said, “My earring.”
Peter paused.
“The encryption key.”
“I know.”
“It’s yours if Emma walks.”
Peter considered.
Then smiled.
“No.”
A warehouse door crashed open.
Dominic’s men entered from both sides.
Everything happened quickly.
Peter grabbed Emma.
Charlotte threw herself sideways.
A gun fired.
Dominic reached Charlotte and dragged her behind a forklift.
Augustus’s security team took the second entrance.
Within twenty seconds, both gunmen were down.
Peter had vanished.
Emma remained alive.
Charlotte crawled to her and cut the restraints.
Emma collapsed against her.
“You came.”
“Of course I came.”
Behind them, Dominic watched silently.
Later, paramedics checked Emma while police swept the building.
Charlotte sat on the back bumper of an ambulance.
Dominic approached.
She stiffened.
He stopped six feet away.
“I owe you an apology.”
“You owe me several things.”
“I know.”
“Start with why.”
He frowned.
“Why what?”
“Why did you hit me?”
His answer came slowly.
“Because I was angry.”
“That explains your feeling. Not your decision.”
Dominic looked at the ground.
“My father believed humiliation was useful.”
“And you?”
“I spent fifteen years believing I was different from him.”
Charlotte waited.
“Tonight I learned I wasn’t different enough.”
It was not forgiveness.
But it was the first answer he had given her that sounded true.
Dominic reached into his pocket.
Her silver earring.
“You dropped this.”
Charlotte took it.
Their fingers almost touched.
She pulled away first.
Augustus approached carrying something recovered from the warehouse.
A small metal box.
Inside were dozens of photographs.
Charlotte.
At work.
At the grocery store.
On the subway.
Emma.
Augustus.
Dominic.
Someone had been watching all of them.
At the bottom was a photograph taken twenty years earlier.
Catherine Carver and Evelyn Rainer stood outside a house.
Between them was a little girl.
Charlotte.
Beside Charlotte stood a dark-haired boy.
Dominic.
He stared.
“I don’t remember this.”
Charlotte turned the photograph over.
Catherine’s handwriting covered the back.
Charlotte and Dominic, summer 2001. If anything happens to us, Augustus knows why.
Charlotte looked at her father.
“You knew Dominic when I was a child?”
Augustus closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“Then stop giving us pieces.”
Augustus looked between them.
“All right.”
He took a breath.
“Your mothers weren’t protecting money.”
“What were they protecting?” Charlotte asked.
May you like
Augustus’s answer changed everything.
“You.”
