Chapter 3 - THE MAN INSIDE THE HOUSE
Alexander Mercer arrived at breakfast smiling.
That alone made me distrust him.
I watched him through the library’s security monitor while Dominic stood beside me.
I should have been in bed.
Instead, I wore borrowed sweatpants beneath my bandages and had one arm trapped in a sling.
“You’re supposed to be recovering,” Dominic said.
“You’re supposed to be a terrifying criminal mastermind. Yet here we both are watching your brother eat pancakes.”
“He likes pancakes.”
“That makes him practically innocent.”
Dominic looked at me.
I was beginning to discover that irritating him was dangerously enjoyable.
Onscreen, Alexander kissed Caleb’s head.
Caleb immediately stole bacon from his plate.
Alexander laughed.
Nothing about him looked murderous.
He was thirty-five, five years younger than Dominic, with the same dark hair but none of his brother’s severity. Where Dominic made rooms quiet, Alexander made people relax.
That worried me.
“Where did you find the cuff link?” I asked.
“Under a broken table.”
“Too convenient.”
Dominic glanced over.
“Exactly.”
“You think somebody planted it?”
“I think if Alexander wanted Caleb dead, he wouldn’t leave jewelry behind.”
“Comforting.”
Dominic switched cameras.
Julian Cross appeared on grainy footage from the night of the gala.
He entered through the catering entrance at 7:42 p.m.
At 8:03, he disappeared into a service corridor.
At 8:11, the shooting began.
At 8:12, he walked calmly out the front entrance.
Nobody stopped him.
“Your security system is terrifyingly bad.”
“My security system was deliberately compromised.”
That was different.
Dominic enlarged another frame.
A guard opened the service door for Julian.
I recognized him.
“Frank Delaney.”
Dominic nodded.
One of his oldest security men.
“Where is he?”
“Missing.”
The door opened behind us.
I flinched.
Dominic’s hand immediately went beneath his jacket.
It was only Caleb.
He looked at me suspiciously.
“You’re supposed to be in bed.”
I pointed at Dominic.
“So is he.”
Caleb considered this.
“Dad never listens.”
“I’m discovering that.”
Caleb approached and handed me a folded piece of paper.
“I made this.”
It was a drawing.
Three stick figures stood beneath an enormous black house.
One was Caleb.
One was Dominic.
The third wore a green dress and had absurdly long brown hair.
“That’s you.”
“I figured.”
“You live here now.”
My smile faded.
“Caleb—”
“Dad said.”
My head snapped toward Dominic.
Dominic suddenly became extremely interested in the security monitors.
“Did he?”
“Yep.”
Caleb ran away before I could question him.
I stared.
Dominic sighed.
“You cannot return to whatever apartment you were using.”
“Why?”
“Because Cross knows your identity.”
“So?”
“So the man arranged a shooting inside my home.”
“Your solution is keeping me inside the home where the shooting happened?”
“Yes.”
“That logic needs work.”
“My security has been replaced.”
“I’m not staying forever.”
“I didn’t say forever.”
Something strange passed between us.
I looked away first.
That afternoon, Dominic took me somewhere nobody except family was permitted.
His father’s private archive.
It occupied a locked basement room beneath Blackthorne.
Rows of ledgers filled steel shelves.
“What are we looking for?”
“My father’s relationship with Julian.”
Dominic opened a cabinet.
“Julian handled shipping acquisitions between 2009 and 2018.”
“My father worked for one of those companies.”
“Exactly.”
We spent two hours searching.
Then I found my father’s handwriting.
A note had been written in the margin of a shipping ledger.
E.V. KNOWS THE SONG.
My heart stopped.
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
I pointed.
“That’s my father’s writing.”
“What song?”
I knew immediately.
When I was little, my father used to play the same melody whenever he worked late.
Moonlight Sonata.
But that wasn’t what frightened me.
My father had owned an antique music box.
He always joked that if our house ever burned down, it was the one thing I should save.
I had forgotten about it until now.
“Where are your father’s personal effects?”
Dominic looked confused.
“Storage.”
“Show me.”
We found the box forty minutes later.
Not my father’s.
Dominic’s.
A carved walnut music box that had belonged to Vincent Mercer.
I wound it.
Moonlight Sonata began playing.
My hands shook.
“Turn it over.”
Dominic did.
Nothing.
“Open the base.”
“There is no opening.”
“There is.”
I found the tiny catch.
The false bottom released.
Inside was a USB drive.
Dominic and I stared at each other.
“My father gave this to yours,” I whispered.
Dominic inserted it into an offline laptop.
One encrypted file appeared.
Password protected.
ELEANOR.
I typed my childhood nickname.
Nellie.
Access denied.
My mother’s birthday.
Denied.
Then I remembered something Dad always said.
Numbers lie when people make them. Music doesn’t.
I entered the first eight notes of the sonata as corresponding numbers.
The file opened.
Hundreds of financial documents appeared.
Names.
Bank transfers.
Politicians.
Judges.
Police officials.
Corporate executives.
And one name repeated dozens of times.
JULIAN CROSS.
Dominic scrolled farther.
Then stopped.
Another name appeared beside Cross.
VINCENT MERCER.
Dominic’s father.
I looked at him.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
But his voice had changed.
His father had not merely known.
He had participated.
Then Dominic opened the final document.
A handwritten letter appeared.
Nathaniel,
If we fail, our children inherit this war. I won’t allow that. Cross believes I am still loyal. Let him. Collect the evidence. I’ll get your daughter out.
—Vincent
Dominic read it twice.
His father had been helping mine.
The story we had believed for eight years had been wrong.
Vincent Mercer wasn’t Julian’s partner.
He was trying to destroy him.
A sound came from the hallway.
Dominic immediately shut the laptop.
Footsteps.
Then silence.
He opened the door.
Nobody.
But lying on the floor was Caleb’s toy dinosaur.
Dominic picked it up.
His face drained of color.
Caleb never came into the basement.
Dominic grabbed his phone.
“Find my son.”
The entire estate locked down.
Thirty seconds later, Caleb’s nanny screamed upstairs.
We ran.
His bedroom window stood open.
The curtains moved in the cold Hudson River wind.
Caleb was gone.
On his pillow lay a single photograph.
It showed me at twenty-three years old.
On the back, four words had been written.
BRING ME WHAT NATHANIEL HID.
May you like
And underneath:
COME ALONE, ELEANOR.
