Chapter 2 - THE NAME DEREK WAS AFRAID TO SAY
Derek stopped ten feet from me.
Rainwater ran from the shoulders of his coat onto the emergency-room floor.
He was thirty-seven, lean, tired-looking, with the face of a man who had not slept properly in weeks.
I recognized him now.
Derek Sloan.
Former night dispatcher at Cole River Freight.
Dismissed two years earlier after three trucks disappeared from a South Yard route.
My operations chief had called it incompetence.
Derek had called it a setup.
I had never bothered deciding which version was true.
The little girl behind me had.
“Don’t let him take Rosie.”
Derek heard her.
His expression tightened.
“Sophie.”
So now I had her name.
Seven-year-old Sophie Mercer pressed herself against the back of my coat.
“Stay there,” I told her.
Derek raised both hands.
“I didn’t come to hurt anybody.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I came for the girls.”
“No.”
His eyes moved toward the pediatric doors.
“Rosie needs to leave this hospital.”
I stepped closer.
“Interesting opening argument.”
“You don’t understand.”
“No. But you’re going to help.”
Two of my men had already moved behind him.
Derek noticed.
Good.
“Where is Lena?”
He looked away.
The wrong reaction.
“Derek.”
“I don’t know exactly.”
Sophie whispered:
“He knows.”
He looked at her.
“Sophie, your mom told me—”
“She said not to go with you.”
Pain crossed his face.
Real pain.
That interested me.
A nurse appeared.
“Mr. Cole?”
I turned.
“The baby?”
“She’s very sick, but she’s responding. Severe dehydration, high fever, respiratory infection. We’re admitting her.”
Sophie grabbed my sleeve again.
“Is she dying?”
The nurse knelt.
“No, sweetheart. She’s very sick, but we’re helping her.”
Sophie nodded.
“Can I see her?”
“Soon.”
The nurse looked toward Derek.
“We need a parent or legal guardian for the admission forms.”
Derek stepped forward.
“I’m her father.”
Sophie’s entire body stiffened.
“No.”
The nurse paused.
I looked at Derek.
“Try again.”
His jaw tightened.
“I can sign.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“The baby needs treatment.”
“She’s getting treatment.”
I moved closer.
“Are you her father?”
He looked at Sophie.
Then back at me.
“No.”
The nurse wisely stepped away.
Sophie whispered:
“Mama said he’d say that.”
Derek closed his eyes.
“She was trying to keep you from panicking.”
“She was scared of you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Sophie—”
“Enough.”
My voice stopped him.
I looked toward one of my men.
“Get Sophie dry clothes. Shoes too.”
Sophie immediately said:
“I’m not leaving.”
“You’re going twenty feet away.”
“No.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
“I’ll stay where you can see me.”
She considered that.
“Rosie too?”
“Rosie stays with the doctors.”
Finally she nodded.
One of the nurses wrapped a blanket around her and guided her toward a chair near the pediatric doors.
She never stopped watching Derek.
Neither did I.
“Talk.”
Derek lowered his voice.
“Lena called me yesterday.”
“She emailed me eleven times this month.”
“I know.”
The answer made me colder.
“You know?”
“She told me.”
“Why didn’t she call?”
“She didn’t trust your phones.”
“My private number was on her daughter’s metro card.”
“She trusted that.”
“Why?”
He looked toward Sophie.
“Because Michael gave it to her.”
I stopped.
There are names that change a room.
Michael was one of them.
My younger brother had been dead eighteen months.
Warehouse fire.
South riverfront.
Thirty-six years old.
No wife.
No children.
At least that was what I had believed.
“What did you say?”
Derek swallowed.
“Michael Cole gave Lena your number three years ago.”
“You knew my brother?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“River Freight.”
“Michael barely worked River Freight.”
“He worked there more than you knew.”
That sounded impossible.
Which meant it was probably true.
Michael had spent years trying to prove he could build something outside my shadow.
He hated security escorts.
Hated family meetings.
Hated when men lowered their voices around him because of my name.
After his death, Vincent Shaw—my consigliere—had told me Michael was inspecting warehouse renovations the night of the fire.
I had never asked why he was there after eleven.
Grief makes cowards of people who think they are brave.
I had accepted the easiest answer.
“Where is Lena?”
Derek looked toward the windows.
“At six this evening, she went to meet someone near the old Jefferson Transit depot.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lie again and this conversation changes.”
His eyes snapped to mine.
“I’m not lying.”
“Then why were you looking for her children?”
“Because she sent me.”
Sophie called from across the room.
“No, she didn’t!”
Derek flinched.
I looked back at him.
“You’re having a bad night.”
“She told me if she wasn’t home by eight, I should get the girls somewhere safe.”
“Then why did Sophie run here instead?”
“Because Lena changed her mind.”
“When?”
“After she spoke to me.”
I waited.
Derek finally reached into his coat.
My men moved.
“Easy.”
He slowly removed a folded piece of red wool.
A torn piece of fabric.
I recognized it from the coat Lena had worn at the house several times during winter cleaning shifts.
“I found this near the MetroLink stairs at Jefferson.”
Sophie saw it.
“That’s Mommy’s.”
Derek nodded.
“She left it where I would find it.”
“How do you know?”
“She tore the inside pocket.”
He unfolded the fabric.
A silver watch fell into his palm.
My heart stopped.
Michael’s watch.
Simple steel case.
Black face.
Scratched near the number four.
I had given it to him on his thirtieth birthday.
He had been wearing it when he died.
At least I had been told he was.
I took it from Derek.
The hands were stopped at 11:42.
The official report placed Michael’s death shortly after midnight.
I turned the watch over.
Someone had scratched two letters into the back.
L.M.
Lena Mercer.
“Why did she have this?”
Derek shook his head.
“She never told me.”
“Where did she get it?”
“She said Michael gave it to her.”
Before the fire.
Meaning my brother had walked into that warehouse without his watch.
Another detail nobody had told me.
Sophie came closer despite the nurse trying to stop her.
“That’s Mike’s.”
I looked at her.
“You knew Michael?”
She nodded.
“Mama said I wasn’t supposed to tell.”
Everything inside me went quiet.
“How well?”
Sophie shrugged.
“He brought pancakes.”
Derek looked away.
I crouched.
“Sophie, was Michael your mom’s friend?”
She nodded.
“Was he around a lot?”
“Before Rosie.”
The words hit harder than they should have.
Sophie continued.
“He fixed my bike.”
“You had a bike?”
“It was purple.”
Of course.
Then she pointed at the watch.
“He told Mommy not to lose that.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at Derek.
“But Derek wanted it.”
I stood slowly.
Derek’s face hardened.
“I wanted Lena to get rid of it.”
“Why?”
“Because people were looking for it.”
“Who?”
No answer.
I stepped closer.
“Who?”
Derek’s jaw worked.
“Marcus Reed.”
That name mattered.
Marcus controlled my South River crews.
Three warehouses.
Two union relationships.
Nearly a quarter of Cole Freight’s overnight movement.
He had sat beside me at Michael’s funeral.
He had carried one corner of my brother’s casket.
“Why would Marcus want Michael’s watch?”
Derek said:
“Because Michael was investigating him.”
My pulse slowed.
The room around us became distant.
“What was Marcus doing?”
“Moving freight through rival territory.”
“For who?”
“The Delaney family.”
The same family pressing into my western routes tonight.
The same family connected to the missing shipments that had put one of my men in this ER.
Everything snapped together too quickly.
Michael.
Marcus.
Delaney.
Lena’s emails.
The watch.
I looked toward Sophie.
“What did your mother tell you about Rosie?”
Her little face tightened.
“Not to let Derek sign.”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
She hesitated.
Then reached into the pocket of her soaked dress.
She pulled out a tiny photograph folded four times.
I opened it carefully.
Michael stood beneath the Gateway Arch.
Lena beside him.
His arm around her.
She was visibly pregnant.
On the back, in Michael’s handwriting:
FOR MY BROTHER, WHEN IT’S SAFE.
I stopped breathing.
Derek looked at me.
“There’s your answer.”
I looked at the baby behind the pediatric doors.
Then at the photograph.
Then at the brother I had buried believing he left no family behind.
Derek’s voice became quiet.
“Rosie isn’t mine, Ethan.”
He nodded toward the hospital room.
“She’s Michael’s daughter.”
And suddenly the sick baby fighting for breath twenty yards away was not simply a child Lena Mercer had asked me to protect.
May you like
She was my niece.
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