Chapter 3 - WHAT THOMAS REED LEFT BEHIND
Evelyn’s first thought was not about herself.
“Molly.”
Dominic was already moving.
“Address.”
She gave it to him.
He called a man named Marco and ordered two vehicles to her apartment.
“No uniforms. Nobody enters until my people clear the building.”
“You’re sending armed men to my sister?”
“I’m sending armed men between your sister and whoever photographed her.”
“That won’t exactly make her feel better.”
“Alive people can complain.”
Evelyn glared at him.
Dominic met her eyes.
Then, unexpectedly, his voice softened.
“I’ll explain it to her myself.”
Twenty minutes later, Molly answered Evelyn’s video call from the back seat of a Calder security vehicle.
She was twenty-three, pale from treatment and furious about being rushed from her apartment.
“Evie, who are these people?”
“You’re safe.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I know.”
“Is this because of your boss?”
Dominic glanced over.
Molly noticed him.
“Oh.”
Evelyn almost laughed despite everything.
Molly lowered her voice.
“That’s your boss?”
“Not now.”
“He looks exactly like the kind of problem you told me never to date.”
Dominic raised an eyebrow.
Evelyn ended the call.
“That was rude,” he said.
“You were listening.”
“You put it on speaker.”
Warren remained downstairs under guard.
Dominic had chosen not to punish him.
That surprised Evelyn.
She had expected brutality from a man with Dominic Calder’s reputation.
Instead, Dominic had quietly ordered his people to locate Warren’s daughter.
It made him more difficult to understand.
Dominic spread copies of Thomas Reed’s old employment records across his office desk.
Evelyn recognized the hospital logo.
“My father worked nights for almost twenty years.”
“Not only at the hospital.”
He slid another page toward her.
Thomas Reed had been listed as a temporary security consultant for Calder Freight.
Evelyn stared.
“This is wrong.”
“It isn’t.”
“He never worked for your family.”
“My father paid him for fourteen months.”
“Why?”
“That part is missing.”
Dominic opened the old ledger again.
“My father kept meticulous records. Payments. Favors. Debts. People he trusted.”
“Was my father one of them?”
“Apparently.”
Dominic tapped a line beside Thomas’s name.
ARCHIVE ACCESS — EAST WAREHOUSE.
Evelyn frowned.
“What archive?”
Dominic leaned back.
“Twenty years ago my father started keeping duplicate financial records away from our accountants.”
“Why?”
“Because our accountants occasionally became witnesses.”
The bluntness startled her.
Dominic continued.
“When he died, I found most of those records. One section was missing.”
“What section?”
“The names of people who had been laundering money through legitimate city contracts.”
Evelyn stared at him.
“Your money?”
“Some of it.”
“That sounds illegal.”
“It was.”
She blinked.
“You just admitted that.”
“You already think I’m a criminal.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
For one second their eyes held.
Then Dominic looked away.
“My father was trying to dismantle parts of the organization before he died. Somebody didn’t want that.”
“And my father?”
“May have helped him.”
Evelyn thought of Thomas Reed coming home at dawn, smelling of vending-machine coffee and winter air.
He had taught his daughters to notice exits.
To watch people’s hands.
To never stand directly in front of an elevator door.
At the time, Evelyn had thought those were habits of an overprotective security guard.
Now they felt different.
“After Dad died, I packed his things.”
“Anything unusual?”
“No.”
“Safe-deposit key?”
“No.”
“Storage locker?”
“No.”
“Notebook?”
Evelyn shook her head.
Then stopped.
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
“There was a watch.”
“What kind?”
“Old silver pocket watch. It didn’t work.”
“Where is it?”
“At my apartment.”
Dominic stood.
“We’re going.”
“No.”
“No?”
“If someone photographed Molly there, they could be waiting.”
“That’s why I’m going.”
“That’s why I’m not.”
His mouth tightened.
“You warned me about Warren because you noticed something my security team missed. I respect that.”
“That sounds dangerously close to a compliment.”
“Don’t get accustomed to it.”
Despite herself, she smiled.
It vanished when Dominic said, “But I’m not asking.”
Forty minutes later, Evelyn entered her apartment between two armed guards.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
She went to the bedroom closet and pulled down a battered blue box.
Her father’s belongings were exactly where she had left them.
Photographs.
Hospital badge.
A cheap fountain pen.
Wedding ring.
And the silver pocket watch.
Dominic took it carefully.
The hands were frozen at 2:17.
“The accident happened at 2:17 a.m.,” Evelyn said.
Dominic turned it over.
A tiny engraving marked the back.
E.R.
“My initials.”
“Or something else.”
He pressed the crown.
Nothing.
Then twisted it left.
A click sounded.
The back opened.
Inside was no mechanism.
There was a small brass key.
Evelyn stared.
“My father hid that?”
Dominic removed it.
A number was etched into the metal.
314.
A sound came from the hallway.
Dominic’s head snapped up.
His hand went inside his jacket.
Glass shattered in the living room.
“Down!”
He pulled Evelyn behind the bed as a bullet struck the wall.
Another hit the doorframe.
Dominic returned fire once.
Footsteps raced toward the stairwell.
His guards pursued.
Evelyn’s ears rang.
Dominic crouched beside her.
“Hit?”
“No.”
He checked anyway, running his hands quickly over her shoulders and arms.
Then he stopped.
They were inches apart.
For the first time, Evelyn saw something beneath his controlled expression.
Fear.
Not for himself.
For her.
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
His hand remained against her arm for one second longer than necessary.
Then his phone buzzed.
Marco.
Dominic answered.
“We lost him,” Marco said. “But he dropped something.”
“What?”
“A photograph.”
Dominic’s face darkened.
“Of whom?”
A pause.
“Evelyn.”
Dominic looked at her.
“When?”
“Taken inside the Calder mansion.”
Evelyn felt her skin crawl.
“Someone in your house has been watching me.”
Dominic stood.
“No.”
He looked at the photograph Marco had sent.
“It’s worse.”
He enlarged the image.
Evelyn was asleep in the small staff bedroom.
The photograph had been taken from inside her room.
May you like
Dominic’s voice went quiet.
“Someone in my house has been close enough to kill you for months.”
