Chapter 6 - The Dead Man in the Photograph
Sophia left the room.
Richard found her in the stairwell three floors down.
She was sitting on a step, staring at nothing.
He sat beside her.
“My father died in a plane crash.”
Richard didn't speak.
“I was eleven.”
Her hands shook.
“There was a funeral.”
“Did they recover him?”
Sophia looked at him.
“No.”
Richard understood.
Private aircraft.
Atlantic storm.
Wreckage recovered off Nova Scotia.
Two passengers presumed dead.
No bodies.
For eight years, Simone had believed herself a widow.
Now they reopened everything.
Adrian Sinclair had not been an executive at Sinclair Medical Group.
He had been an investment banker.
Charming.
Brilliant.
Restless.
His marriage to Simone had deteriorated before his supposed death.
But there was one detail Simone had never told Sophia.
They had been planning to divorce.
That revelation devastated her.
“You lied to me.”
“You were eleven.”
“So?”
“You'd just lost your father.”
“Apparently I didn't!”
Sophia slammed the door and disappeared down the hallway.
Richard did not follow.
This time Simone did.
She found Sophia outside the chapel.
“I was angry at him,” Simone said.
Sophia kept walking.
“He was having an affair.”
Sophia stopped.
Simone's voice shook.
“I discovered it six weeks before the crash.”
“With who?”
“I never knew.”
Sophia turned.
“And you never thought maybe he disappeared intentionally?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because there were pieces of his plane in the ocean!”
“But no body.”
“I loved him!”
The words echoed.
Simone covered her mouth.
Sophia stared.
Then Simone said more quietly, “Even when I hated what he did, I loved him.”
Richard watched from a distance.
He understood something then.
Simone had not buried herself in work because her husband died.
She had buried herself because he died before she could decide whether to forgive him.
Grief without closure.
Anger without a person to receive it.
No wonder she had become hard.
Police facial-recognition analysis on the photograph was inconclusive.
But an investigator found something else.
Adrian's death certificate had been issued based on legal presumption, not physical identification.
His life insurance had never been claimed.
Simone had refused.
“I didn't want the money.”
Then Richard asked the question.
“If Adrian is alive, why come back now?”
Malcolm answered.
“Because Simone woke up.”
Two nights later, the hospital board held an emergency meeting.
Simone attended in person.
Richard had never seen her in her real world before.
Dark suit.
Hair pulled back.
No hospital gown.
No weakness.
Twenty-three executives fell silent when she entered.
Richard watched from the rear beside security.
Grant's seat was empty.
Malcolm called the meeting.
Apex's merger proposal was suspended.
An independent forensic audit was authorized.
Three directors objected.
Simone removed two from committee positions before lunch.
Richard almost smiled.
The woman he had sung to was back.
Afterward, Simone found him waiting outside.
“Well?”
“You're scary.”
She smiled.
“Good.”
Then a man's voice came from behind them.
“She always was.”
Simone stopped breathing.
Richard turned.
A man stood twenty feet away.
Late forties.
Gray at the temples.
Expensive black coat.
Scar near his right ear.
Sophia emerged from the conference room.
The folder in her hands fell to the floor.
“Dad?”
Adrian Sinclair looked at his daughter.
For the first time, his confidence disappeared.
“Hello, Sophie.”
Sophia crossed the distance.
Richard thought she might hug him.
Instead she slapped him.
Hard.
“You were alive.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Eight years?”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury you!”
“Sophia—”
She hit him again.
Security stepped forward.
Simone raised a hand.
“Let her.”
Adrian looked at Simone.
Their eyes met after eight years.
“I can explain.”
Simone's voice was ice.
“You have thirty seconds before I have you arrested.”
Adrian told them a story that sounded impossible.
Eight years earlier, he had discovered money laundering involving investors connected to Apex.
He had planned to expose it.
Someone sabotaged his plane.
The pilot died.
Adrian survived after being thrown from the wreckage.
A fishing vessel found him.
He believed Simone and Sophia would become targets if anyone knew.
“So you vanished?” Sophia demanded.
“I thought it protected you.”
“For eight years?”
“I watched from a distance.”
Sophia looked sick.
“You watched?”
“Birthdays. School. College.”
“You watched me think you were dead?”
Adrian's eyes filled.
“I made the wrong choice.”
Richard saw Simone's expression.
She didn't believe all of it.
Neither did he.
“Why were you meeting Grant?” she asked.
Adrian went silent.
There it was.
The flaw.
Adrian eventually admitted he had infiltrated Grant's network.
He claimed he was gathering evidence.
“Then where is Grant?”
“I don't know.”
Simone laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
Richard stepped forward.
Adrian finally noticed him.
“You're Carter.”
Richard's body tightened.
“How do you know my name?”
Adrian looked toward Simone.
“Everyone knows your name now.”
“No.”
Richard took another step.
“You knew it before looking at me.”
Adrian said nothing.
Richard understood.
“You've been watching me too.”
Simone's expression changed.
“Adrian?”
He looked at her.
“I had to know who was getting close to you.”
Richard's fists clenched.
“My daughter had a stranger come to her school.”
“That wasn't me.”
“Prove it.”
“I can't.”
Security separated them.
Adrian was questioned for six hours.
His story checked out in fragments but not completely.
The FBI became involved because of the interstate financial crimes.
Then investigators made another discovery.
The threatening photograph left on Richard's truck had a partial fingerprint.
It did not belong to Adrian.
It belonged to Grant Holloway.
Grant was still in Boston.
He had never boarded the flight from Logan.
Someone else had used his passport.
The hunt intensified.
That evening, Richard entered Simone's room.
She sat alone in darkness.
“You okay?”
“No.”
He sat beside her.
She laughed weakly.
“I'm apparently still married.”
“Technically?”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
Richard smiled.
Then silence.
Simone looked at him.
“Does this change anything?”
He knew what she was asking.
Whatever had been growing between them had existed in the strange space between widowhood and recovery.
Now her husband was alive.
“Yes,” Richard said.
Pain crossed her face.
He continued.
“But not what I feel.”
Simone looked down.
Richard stood.
“You need answers.”
“So do you.”
“I can wait.”
She looked at him.
“You waited twenty-eight nights when you thought I'd never open my eyes.”
“I'm getting pretty good at it.”
Her eyes filled.
Richard left before either of them made the situation harder.
At 2:13 a.m., his phone rang.
Sophia.
He answered immediately.
“What's wrong?”
Her breathing was frantic.
“Richard.”
“What happened?”
“My dad's gone.”
Richard sat up.
“What?”
“He left the secure floor.”
“Call security.”
“I did.”
“Sophia, where are you?”
A pause.
Then she whispered:
“In his car.”
Richard's heart stopped.
“What are you doing?”
“I put a tracker in his coat.”
“Sophia—”
“He's meeting someone.”
“Get out of there.”
“Too late.”
Richard heard a car door.
May you like
Then Sophia whispered the last thing Richard wanted to hear.
“Grant Holloway just got in.”
