Chapter 3 - THE MAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Adrian did not touch the watch.
That frightened Evelyn more than if he had thrown the table over.
Gabriel Rourke had worked for Patrick Mercer before Adrian was old enough to drive.
He had taught Adrian how to read shipping manifests.
How to tell when a man was lying without asking a second question.
How to walk into a funeral and know which widow needed money before pride forced her to ask.
After Patrick’s death, Gabriel had remained.
He had helped Adrian survive the first violent year of leadership.
Adrian trusted very few people.
Gabriel Rourke had always been one of them.
“Explain,” Adrian said.
Preston sat down carefully.
His guards remained standing.
“So I’m allowed to keep my teeth?”
“That depends entirely on your next sentence.”
Evelyn looked at Adrian.
“Let him speak.”
His eyes shifted toward her.
The anger remained there.
But he nodded.
Preston touched his cheek.
“Three weeks ago, Rourke came to one of my freight offices in Camden. Alone.”
“What did he want?”
“Short-term liquidity.”
Adrian almost laughed.
“My company has liquidity.”
“He wasn’t borrowing for your company.”
Evelyn leaned forward.
“How much?”
“Eight million.”
The first missing transfer.
She had expected it.
Still, hearing the number gave it weight.
Preston continued.
“He said an old Mercer obligation had come due. Something Adrian couldn’t be involved in yet.”
Adrian’s stare turned cold.
“And you believed him?”
“No.”
“Yet you handed him eight million?”
“He gave me collateral.”
Preston pointed toward the watch.
Adrian finally picked it up.
His thumb moved across the damaged metal case.
Evelyn watched grief pass over his face too quickly for anyone who did not know him to recognize.
She knew him.
She saw it.
“He said my father gave it to him,” Adrian said.
“Not exactly.”
Preston reached into the inside pocket of his jacket again.
This time he removed a photograph.
Old.
Color faded at the edges.
He placed it beside the watch.
“There was this too.”
Adrian picked it up.
Four men stood beside a loading dock.
The picture was probably twenty years old.
Patrick Mercer stood on the left, younger than Adrian remembered him near the end.
Beside Patrick stood Gabriel Rourke.
Beside Gabriel was Franklin Hale, Preston’s father.
The fourth man made Evelyn stop breathing.
“No,” she whispered.
Adrian looked at her.
Evelyn reached for the photograph.
Her fingers trembled.
She hated that they trembled.
The fourth man wore faded work pants and a canvas jacket.
He was heavier than she remembered him.
His dark hair was longer.
But she knew his smile.
Joseph Monroe.
Her father.
Evelyn stared at the picture.
“What is this?”
Preston’s anger disappeared completely.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“My father hated men like you.”
“Apparently he knew them.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
The answer came without sarcasm.
That bothered her.
She turned the photograph over.
Nothing had been written on the back.
“Where did you get this?”
“With the watch.”
“From Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That if I wanted proof the obligation was real, I should look at the man on the far right.”
Evelyn swallowed.
“What obligation?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
Adrian looked sharply at Preston.
“You gave him eight million without knowing?”
“My father kept records too.”
“Of this?”
“Not the photograph.”
Preston hesitated.
“Of a debt.”
Evelyn stared at him.
“What debt?”
Preston looked at Adrian.
“A debt between our fathers.”
Adrian stood.
The room reacted.
He ignored every weapon.
“What debt?”
“I don’t know the full story.”
“You’re lying.”
“No.”
“Try again.”
Preston met his gaze.
“My father used to keep a black notebook in the safe at our house in Haddonfield. Not business accounts. Personal things. Dates. Names. Promises.”
Evelyn’s mind moved quickly.
“And Gabriel knew about it.”
“Yes.”
“What was written beside Patrick Mercer’s name?”
Preston looked at her.
“Forty-two.”
The room went silent again.
Evelyn felt cold.
“Million?”
“That’s what I assumed.”
Adrian turned the watch over in his hand.
“Where are the remaining thirty-four?”
“I don’t have them.”
“Eight moved through you.”
“Yes.”
“And thirty-four vanished afterward.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because after I gave Rourke eight million, somebody moved another fourteen through one of my old freight clearing accounts without my permission.”
Adrian’s gaze sharpened.
“Your clean employees?”
Preston’s expression darkened.
“I said my people were clean because I’ve spent two weeks trying to prove one of them did it.”
“And?”
“They didn’t.”
Evelyn understood.
“You think the same authentication system was used again.”
Preston nodded.
“That watch isn’t just sentimental.”
Adrian looked at him.
“What did you do with the fourteen?”
“I never touched it. It entered the account and left fifty-three minutes later.”
“Destination?”
“Split.”
“How many ways?”
Preston looked at Evelyn.
“Forty-two.”
A chill ran along her arms.
Forty-two separate destinations.
Forty-two million missing.
Forty-two written in Franklin Hale’s private notebook.
And now her dead father standing beside both men responsible for the companies at the center of it.
Evelyn reached for the watch.
“May I?”
Adrian handed it to her.
It was heavier than she expected.
She examined the back.
The serial number matched the seven digits she had traced through the transfers.
Then she noticed a small groove near the case.
“Was this always damaged?”
Adrian leaned closer.
“No.”
Evelyn pressed her thumbnail gently against the groove.
The rear panel shifted.
Preston frowned.
“I tried opening it.”
“You tried pulling.”
Evelyn pressed and rotated.
The back released.
Inside, beneath the old mechanism, someone had engraved three letters.
J.M.
Evelyn’s throat tightened.
Joseph Monroe.
Her father.
Below the initials was a date.
May 18, 2006.
She stared at it.
“That was six days before my father died.”
Nobody spoke.
Adrian’s face changed.
“How did he die?”
“Warehouse accident.”
“What kind?”
“A lift failure. He was working late.”
Evelyn heard the old sentence in her mother’s voice.
An accident.
Wrong place.
Wrong time.
Nothing anyone could have done.
Preston pulled the photograph closer.
“Look at his wrist.”
Evelyn did.
Her father was wearing the silver bracelet.
The one she now wore.
The ship charm was visible near his hand.
She stopped breathing.
“He gave me this the week before he died.”
Adrian looked at her.
“Evie.”
She barely heard him.
A memory surfaced.
Her father sitting on the edge of her bed.
Sixteen-year-old Evelyn angry because he had missed another school event.
Joseph turning the bracelet over in his thick hands.
If I give you something, kiddo, you take care of it.
She had thought he meant the bracelet.
Now she wasn’t sure.
Preston picked up the photograph.
“There’s something else.”
He ran his thumb along the cardboard edge.
A thin backing sheet had separated slightly with age.
Evelyn took it from him and carefully pulled.
A second layer came loose.
Handwriting appeared underneath.
Her father’s handwriting.
Evelyn knew it instantly.
Three short lines.
Patrick gave me the watch.
If Mercer won’t listen, find his son.
He deserves to know what forty-two really means.
Adrian read over her shoulder.
His face turned gray.
Evelyn looked at him.
“My father wanted me to find you.”
“No.”
She pointed to the words.
“He wrote it.”
“He wrote ‘find his son.’ Not you.”
“Then who was supposed to?”
Preston answered.
“Gabriel Rourke.”
Evelyn turned.
Preston stared at the photograph.
May you like
“Because according to my father’s notebook, Gabriel was the only other man who knew what happened to the forty-two.”
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