Chapter 3 - THE MAN WITH THE CANE
Vincent did not summon Sebastian immediately.
He looked at Sophie first.
“What did your dad mean?”
Sophie shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
Exactly the answer a seven-year-old should have given.
Mara moved beside her daughter.
“That’s enough.”
Vincent’s eyes shifted toward her.
“Then you tell me.”
Mara hesitated.
Vincent waited.
He had spent half his life learning that silence made people reveal more than threats did.
Finally she said, “Daniel met Charlie when he was eighteen.”
Vincent’s chest tightened.
“Where?”
“At a church kitchen in South Philadelphia.”
That sounded like Charlie.
His brother had been incapable of passing somebody who needed help without slowing down.
“Daniel had left home,” Mara continued. “His stepfather drank. There were fights. Daniel slept in his car for almost a month.”
Vincent looked at the green coat.
“Charlie gave him this.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Daniel didn’t have one.”
Of course.
Vincent could hear Charlie saying it.
You have three coats, Vin. I need two. He needs one.
That was the arithmetic Charlie lived by.
“What does Sebastian have to do with it?”
“Charlie got Daniel work at South Yard.”
That surprised him.
Rowan South Yard was one of Vincent’s oldest operations.
Warehouses.
Truck repair.
Freight transfers.
Union drivers who had worked for Rowans since Vincent was a child.
“Sebastian ran South Yard then,” Mara said.
Vincent stared at the photograph again.
“Daniel worked for my family?”
“For eight months.”
“And then?”
“Charlie died.”
Mara looked at Sophie.
“Daniel left Philadelphia.”
“Why?”
“He never told me everything.”
Vincent heard the qualification.
“Everything.”
“No.”
“Some things?”
“Yes.”
“What things?”
Mara’s voice lowered.
“He believed Charlie had found something happening at South Yard.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent almost snapped at her.
Then he remembered she had not created this secret.
She had inherited it.
Like Sophie inherited grief.
“What happened when Daniel came back?”
Mara looked surprised.
“How do you know he came back?”
“Because he died in a Rowan warehouse two years ago.”
Her face changed.
There it was.
The connection Vincent had never been given.
Daniel Ellis had died after a fall at a freight facility in South Philadelphia.
Vincent remembered the incident.
His operations people called it a workplace accident.
Insurance settled.
The union signed off.
He sent flowers to the widow.
He had never known the widow later came to manage his home.
“Daniel was working at South Yard again.”
“Yes.”
“Who hired him?”
Mara looked away.
“Sebastian.”
Vincent’s stomach tightened.
“When?”
“About six months before he died.”
“Why?”
“He needed a safety coordinator who knew the old yard.”
“You knew Sebastian before you came here.”
“Yes.”
Vincent laughed once.
It contained no humor.
“My own housekeeper was hired by my consigliere after her husband died inside one of my warehouses, and nobody thought I should know?”
“He said you did know.”
That stopped Vincent.
“What?”
Mara held his gaze.
“Sebastian told me you approved everything.”
“My job?”
“The settlement.”
“I did approve the settlement.”
“And the rest.”
“What rest?”
Her mouth tightened.
“He said you wanted Daniel’s death left alone.”
Vincent became completely still.
“I never said that.”
Mara studied his face.
For the first time in three years, she appeared to consider the possibility.
“He told me there were things Daniel had gotten involved in. Family things.”
“I was told he fell during a maintenance inspection.”
“He did.”
“Then what was there to leave alone?”
Mara looked toward Sophie.
“Not here.”
Vincent followed her eyes.
He understood.
“Sophie, would you like hot chocolate?”
She looked suspiciously at him.
“With marshmallows?”
“Apparently I employ people capable of marshmallows.”
That earned him a tiny smile.
Mara called the nanny.
While they waited, Sophie handed the green coat to Vincent.
“Can you keep it safe?”
He almost said no.
Then he saw Charlie’s initials.
“Yes.”
Sophie nodded.
“Daddy liked it better than his nice coat.”
“Your father had good judgment.”
“My mom said it was ugly.”
Mara sighed.
“It was ugly.”
The nanny arrived.
Sophie took two steps toward the door.
Then came back and hugged Vincent around the waist.
Only for a second.
“Thanks for the five minutes.”
Vincent’s hand settled awkwardly on her hair.
“You’re welcome.”
After she left, the room felt much colder.
Vincent turned toward Mara.
“What did Daniel get involved in?”
She sat slowly.
“The week before he died, he came home angry.”
“About what?”
“A night shipment.”
“Whose?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Did he mention Moretti?”
Mara looked at him sharply.
That was an answer.
The Moretti family controlled two river docks and enough union loyalty to make every trucking agreement in South Philadelphia delicate.
Vincent and Angelo Moretti had maintained peace for eleven years.
Not friendship.
Boundaries.
Mara continued.
“Daniel said somebody was using South Yard after midnight without the normal safety crew.”
“Did he report it?”
“To Sebastian.”
“And?”
“Sebastian told him to forget it.”
Vincent looked toward the photograph.
“Daniel didn’t.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“He found something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because Daniel stopped telling me.”
Her voice cracked.
“He thought silence would protect Sophie and me.”
Vincent’s anger disappeared.
Not entirely.
Enough.
“What happened the night he died?”
“Daniel went to South Yard because someone had opened Bay Fourteen.”
Vincent frowned.
That bay had been closed for years.
“Why?”
“He said he needed proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“I don’t know.”
She wiped her eyes angrily.
“Then Sebastian came to my house the next morning.”
Vincent stared.
“Before the police finished their report?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That Daniel’s death was an accident.”
“That is what I was told.”
“He also said I should stop asking questions if I wanted Sophie safe.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“My uncle threatened you.”
“No.”
Mara surprised him.
“He was warning me.”
“You believed that?”
“I still do.”
“Why?”
“Because Sebastian looked terrified.”
Vincent did not like that.
Sebastian Rowan did not frighten easily.
Mara went to the coat.
She ran her fingers along the torn lining.
“Daniel hid things in seams.”
Vincent remembered the photograph.
Mara searched the other side.
Something metallic clicked against her ring.
She pulled free a small brass token.
A number had been stamped into it.
14.
Vincent recognized it instantly.
Old Rowan loading-bay access tokens.
They had stopped using them years ago.
Mara stared.
“I’ve never seen this.”
Vincent had.
He looked at the date stamped underneath.
The night Daniel died.
The library door opened.
Sebastian Rowan entered carrying his familiar silver-headed cane.
He saw Mara.
Then the coat.
Then the brass token.
For the first time Vincent could remember, his uncle lost all color.
Vincent placed the token on the desk.
“Tell me why Daniel Ellis died with access to Bay Fourteen.”
Sebastian stared at it.
Then he said:
May you like
“Because Bay Fourteen was supposed to have been sealed before you inherited this family.”
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