Chapter 5 - THE TORN COAT
“Get out of the house, Tyler!” I screamed into the phone, the freezing Chicago wind whipping my hair across my face. “Climb out the window! Run to Mrs. Gable’s house next door and lock the door!”
“I can’t, Mom,” Tyler choked out, his voice a terrified whisper. “I’m hiding in the hall closet. They’re right outside. They have guns.”
My blood ran cold. The streetlights around the restaurant suddenly felt blindingly bright, exposing me.
“Don’t make a sound,” I pleaded, tears streaming down my face. “I’m calling the police. I’m coming.”
The line went dead.
I dropped the phone, my hands shaking so badly I couldn't dial 911.
Daniel Whitmore caught my arm, steadying me. His billionaire composure vanished, replaced by the lethal, razor-sharp instincts of a man who had grown up fighting for his life on the streets.
“What happened?” Daniel demanded.
“Men are in my house,” I sobbed, hyperventilating. “They have my son trapped. They’re looking for a ledger.”
Arthur gasped, clutching his chest. He looked like he was about to collapse.
“A ledger?” Arthur wheezed, his face turning an ashen gray. “Oh, God. They know. Peter’s father figured it out.”
“Figured what out?!” I yelled, grabbing the old man by the lapels of his frayed navy blazer. I didn’t care that he was seventy-six. My son was going to die. “What ledger, Arthur?!”
“The one your father kept,” Arthur wept, leaning heavily against Daniel. “Thomas didn’t just give them the money the night he was beaten. He was a meticulous man. He kept a secondary set of books for the warehouse sale. He recorded every threat, every bribe Marcus Vance ever made. He hid it before he died.”
A reversal hit me like a physical blow.
My father wasn't just a victim. He was a whistleblower who never got to blow the whistle. He had gathered the evidence to destroy the Vance family empire, but his heart gave out before he could use it.
“And they think I have it?” I cried, panic choking me. “I don't have a ledger! I don't know what you’re talking about!”
“They don't care,” Daniel said, his voice dropping into a deadly calm. He reached into his tailored suit jacket and pulled out a sleek satellite phone. He didn't dial 911. He pressed a single speed-dial button.
“I need a cleanup team at 1422 Elm Street,” Daniel barked into the phone. “Armed. Four hostiles inside. Secure the teenager in the hall closet. Do not let the police get there first. Go.”
He hung up and looked at me. “Get in my car.”
A massive black SUV rolled up to the curb instantly, as if it had been waiting in the shadows. The driver, a heavily built man with a scarred jaw, threw the back doors open.
I scrambled inside. Daniel pushed Arthur in next to me and slid in beside him.
The SUV tore away from the curb before the doors were even closed, the tires screaming against the asphalt.
“Daniel, you can't send your men in there,” Arthur pleaded, his hands shaking. “If Marcus Vance’s thugs get killed, he will start a war that will burn this city down.”
“He already started it when he touched her family,” Daniel said coldly.
The ride to my small, run-down house in the suburbs took twelve agonizing minutes. I sat clutching my phone, praying for a text, a call, anything from Tyler. Nothing came.
When the SUV skidded to a halt in front of my house, the front door was hanging wide open, splintered from the frame.
I didn't wait for Daniel’s security guard to clear the area. I threw my door open and sprinted across the overgrown lawn.
“Tyler!” I screamed, bursting through the ruined doorway.
The living room was destroyed. The couch was slashed open, stuffing pouring out like snow. The drywall had been smashed in with hammers.
But it was empty.
No thugs. No cleanup team.
“Tyler!” I yelled again, running toward the hallway.
The closet door was open. Empty hangers lay scattered on the floor.
I dropped to my knees, sobbing uncontrollably. They took him. They took my boy.
“Rachel,” a deep voice said from the kitchen.
I spun around.
Standing in the kitchen, perfectly unharmed, was Tyler. He was pale, shaking, and holding a baseball bat, but he was alive.
Standing next to him were two of Daniel’s heavily armed security men.
“Mom!” Tyler dropped the bat and ran to me, crashing into my arms. I held him so tight I thought I might crack his ribs, burying my face in his shoulder.
Daniel walked into the house, his eyes scanning the destruction with cold fury. Arthur followed slowly behind him, leaning heavily on a cane one of the guards had given him.
“The house was empty when we arrived, Boss,” the head security man reported to Daniel. “They tossed the place and left about three minutes before we got here. They didn't find the kid.”
I pulled back, looking at Tyler’s terrified face. “Did they hurt you? Did they see you?”
“No,” Tyler whispered, wiping his eyes. “They didn't even look in the closet. They went straight for dad's old tool bench in the garage. I heard them smashing it apart. Then one of them yelled that they found it, and they left.”
Arthur let out a ragged gasp. He grabbed the doorframe to steady himself.
“The tool bench,” Arthur choked out. “That’s where Thomas hid the ledger. He told me he built a false bottom into one of the drawers.”
My heart sank. They had the evidence. Peter and his father had the only proof of their crimes, and now they could destroy it forever.
“It’s over,” Arthur wept softly. “Marcus Vance won. He always wins.”
“No,” Daniel said sharply.
Daniel walked over to the closet where Tyler had been hiding. Lying on the floor amidst the fallen coats was my old, worn winter coat. The one I had grabbed from the restaurant.
But it looked different.
“Rachel,” Daniel said, pointing to the coat. “Did they do this?”
I looked closer. The thick lining of the coat had been sliced open with a knife. The fabric was torn, revealing the cheap insulation inside.
But I hadn't worn that coat home. I had left it in the restaurant locker room when I grabbed my purse.
“That’s not my coat,” I said, confused.
Daniel frowned. He reached down and picked up the heavy wool garment.
As he lifted it, something fell out of the slashed lining and clattered onto the hardwood floor.
It wasn't a ledger.
It was a heavy, ornate brass key.
May you like
And wrapped around the bow of the key was a note, written in Peter’s unmistakable handwriting.
We have the ledger. But we don't have the safety deposit box it unlocks. Bring Arthur to the address on the back of this note in one hour, or the kid’s tuition isn't the only thing he won't survive.
