Chapter 14 - THE DAUGHTER OF JULIAN CROSSAlexander caught the photographer.
Not elegantly.
The man ran into an alley.
Alexander intercepted him with an SUV door.
When Dominic arrived, the photographer was sitting against a brick wall holding his nose.
Alexander shrugged.
“He attacked the vehicle.”
“You hit him with the door.”
“The vehicle defended itself.”
The photographer wasn't one of Julian's men.
He was a private investigator.
Someone had hired him anonymously three weeks earlier to follow Lydia.
Payment came through cryptocurrency.
Instructions arrived by encrypted email.
One instruction mattered.
If Lydia met Eleanor Vale, photograph everyone present.
“What happens after that?” I asked.
The investigator looked terrified.
“I don't know.”
Dominic crouched.
“Wrong answer.”
“I swear.”
We believed him.
Eventually.
Lydia came to Blackthorne.
Dominic hated it.
Caleb insisted.
I overruled both.
She slept in the east guest wing beneath enough surveillance to monitor a small country.
That night, she told us everything she remembered about Julian.
“He wasn't always cruel.”
Dominic laughed.
Lydia ignored him.
“That's what made him dangerous. Monsters aren't monsters every minute.”
That silenced the room.
She remembered pancakes on Sundays.
Christmas gifts.
Her father teaching her chess.
Then she remembered locked rooms.
Men arriving after midnight.
Her mother crying.
Evelyn telling her:
“If I ever disappear, remember I tried to stay.”
Lydia had forgotten those words until Rebecca helped her recover old childhood memories.
I understood why she had trusted Rebecca.
Rebecca had believed her.
The following morning, Alexander discovered something stranger.
Julian Cross had been moved between federal facilities six weeks earlier.
During transport, the convoy stopped unexpectedly for eleven minutes.
Official report: mechanical issue.
There was no mechanical issue.
Someone met the convoy.
We obtained traffic-camera footage.
A black vehicle approached.
One person exited.
A woman.
Lydia stared at the grainy image.
“My mother.”
If Evelyn Cross was alive, she had voluntarily approached the prison convoy carrying the husband she had supposedly fled twenty-seven years ago.
Nothing made sense.
Until we examined Rebecca's journal again.
One page had been torn out.
Indented writing remained on the paper beneath it.
I used pencil shading.
Words appeared.
EVELYN IS NOT HIDING FROM JULIAN.
Another line.
JULIAN IS HIDING HER FROM THEM.
“Them?” Alexander asked.
Dominic looked at me.
“Hale's network?”
“Maybe.”
But Hale's organization had collapsed.
Unless it hadn't.
Networks don't disappear because one leader goes to prison.
Someone always survives.
Alexander searched the names from Nathaniel's ledger against recent corporate registrations.
One pattern emerged.
Seven companies tied to Hale had quietly consolidated beneath a private equity firm.
Northstar Meridian.
Its chairman was a respected philanthropist named Charles Voss.
I knew the name.
My father had mentioned him once.
A shipping lawyer.
Alexander opened an old ledger scan.
There it was.
CHARLES VOSS.
Not underlined.
Not marked as an owner.
Just one note:
C.V. — NEVER PUT IN WRITING.
Dominic stared.
“Hale wasn't the top.”
“No.”
My father had exposed a network.
We had destroyed its public leader.
But someone else had spent eight years rebuilding the pieces.
My phone rang.
Unknown number.
Dominic said, “Speaker.”
I answered.
An elderly woman's voice spoke.
“Eleanor?”
Lydia stood so quickly her chair fell.
“Mom?”
Silence.
Then the woman began crying.
“Lydia?”
Lydia grabbed the phone.
“Mom?”
“Oh, God.”
Twenty-seven years disappeared in one word.
Lydia sobbed.
“Where are you?”
Evelyn's breathing became frantic.
“Listen to me. Julian cannot know I called.”
Dominic frowned.
“Mrs. Cross, Julian appears to be the person trying to bring you together.”
“No.”
Fear filled her voice.
“Julian isn't sending those messages.”
I looked at Dominic.
“Who is?”
Evelyn whispered:
“Charles Voss.”
A sound came from her side of the call.
A door opening.
Evelyn gasped.
May you like
Then whispered four words before disconnecting.
“He knows about Caleb.”
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