Chapter 6 - THE SAFE HOUSE FIRE
They moved again before midnight.
This time Vincent chose the location himself.
An old Calder property outside the city.
No company databases.
No digital calendar.
No household staff.
A farmhouse in Westchester his mother had owned under her maiden name.
Gavin had never visited it.
At least Vincent believed he had not.
Angela stayed with Nora and Ellie.
Vincent stationed Greer and Mendoza outside.
Then he returned to Manhattan with Malcolm.
They needed Gavin to believe the attack had frightened them into hiding.
Instead, it had done the opposite.
By morning, the forensic audit had copied six years of Gavin’s internal communications.
Enough to prove theft.
Not enough to explain the larger operation.
Then Malcolm found something worse.
A calendar entry from three years earlier.
Private dinner: D.S.
Derek Sloan.
The relationship between Gavin and Derek had begun long before Nora Harper entered either man’s life.
“They were partners,” Malcolm said.
Vincent looked at the screen.
“Derek wasn’t sent to Nora just to recover evidence.”
“What else?”
“Control.”
Vincent scrolled.
Derek had received payments through a private security firm every month.
Surveillance.
Intimidation.
Collections.
Gavin had built his own organization inside Vincent’s.
A parasite living inside a larger body.
Vincent’s phone rang.
Angela.
He answered immediately.
“Vinny.”
Something in her voice made him stand.
“What?”
“Smoke.”
His blood turned cold.
“Where?”
“The barn.”
“Get out.”
“We’re already outside.”
“Where’s Ellie?”
Silence.
“Angela.”
“Nora thought she was with me.”
Vincent stopped breathing.
“Find her.”
“We are.”
He was moving before the call ended.
The drive to Westchester took forty-six minutes.
Vincent made it in thirty-two.
Smoke rose above the tree line.
The barn was burning.
Flames had spread toward the rear porch of the farmhouse.
Nora ran across the yard when Vincent’s car stopped.
“Ellie’s inside.”
He grabbed her shoulders.
“Where?”
“Upstairs. Maybe. She went back for the fox.”
Of course.
The stuffed fox.
The one Gavin’s man had stolen at Bellweather had been recovered from a dumpster.
Ellie had refused to sleep without it.
Vincent looked at the upstairs windows.
Smoke rolled behind the glass.
A firefighter shouted from the driveway.
“We’re searching!”
Vincent ignored him.
Angela caught his arm.
“Don’t.”
He looked at her.
Twenty-four years disappeared.
Angela at seventeen.
I don’t want to go with him.
Vincent at nineteen.
Don’t be dramatic.
He had failed once by doing nothing.
He would not fail now by doing something stupid enough to make the rescue harder.
He forced himself to stay outside.
Every second hurt.
Nora screamed Ellie’s name.
Then an upstairs window opened.
A small hand appeared.
“Mom!”
Nora nearly collapsed.
A firefighter raised a ladder.
Smoke poured outward.
Vincent stood beneath the window.
“Ellie!”
She looked down.
Even from the ground, he saw her terror.
“I can’t!”
“Yes, you can.”
“It’s hot!”
“Listen to me.”
She coughed.
“I’m listening.”
“The firefighter is coming up.”
“I want you.”
The words struck him.
Vincent moved toward the ladder.
The captain tried to stop him.
“She trusts me.”
“She needs trained personnel.”
“Then let him climb. I’ll stay below.”
The firefighter reached Ellie.
She refused to release the window frame.
Vincent stood where she could see him.
“Ellie.”
“I’m scared.”
“So am I.”
That surprised her.
“You are?”
“Yes.”
“But you’re Mr. Calder.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
The firefighter secured her.
Vincent continued.
“Being scared doesn’t mean you stop.”
Ellie looked down.
“Remember the restaurant?”
She nodded.
“You gave me a note when you were scared.”
Another nod.
“Do the next brave thing.”
The firefighter lifted her.
Ellie finally released the window.
Thirty seconds later, Vincent caught her at the bottom of the ladder.
She wrapped herself around him.
He held her while she coughed against his shoulder.
Nora reached them and pulled both into her arms.
For a strange moment, Vincent found himself holding mother and daughter while firefighters ran around them.
He did not know what to do with that feeling.
So he simply stayed.
The fire was controlled before it reached the main structure.
Then Greer found the device.
A crude ignition mechanism inside the barn.
Arson.
Again.
Mendoza found tire tracks leading from the service road.
Gavin had found them.
Which meant one of Vincent’s assumptions was still wrong.
That evening, Ellie slept in Angela’s apartment in Manhattan.
Nora sat beside her.
Vincent stood in the kitchen.
Angela joined him.
“You’re thinking too loudly.”
“I’m not speaking.”
“You never had to.”
He looked toward the bedroom.
“He found them again.”
“Yes.”
“I’m running out of people I can trust.”
Angela folded her arms.
“That includes yourself.”
Vincent looked at her sharply.
She continued.
“You keep trying to solve this using the same system Gavin understands.”
“My system.”
“Exactly.”
“He knows your houses. Your men. Your companies. Your habits.”
Vincent said nothing.
Angela stepped closer.
“So stop playing inside your own rules.”
The sentence stayed with him.
At 2:00 a.m., Malcolm arrived.
He looked exhausted.
“I traced one of Gavin’s offshore transfers.”
“To where?”
“A company tied to a storage facility near Red Hook.”
Vincent pulled on his coat.
Malcolm stopped him.
“There’s more.”
He placed a photograph on the table.
A grainy security image.
Gavin entering a federal building.
Six months earlier.
Vincent frowned.
“Why was he there?”
“We don’t know.”
“Informant?”
“Maybe.”
Angela looked between them.
“What does that mean?”
Vincent stared at Gavin’s photograph.
“It means he may have been planning to survive the collapse by handing me to the government.”
Malcolm nodded.
“And keeping everything he stole.”
Vincent felt something settle into place.
Gavin wanted him isolated.
Indicted.
Discredited.
Possibly imprisoned.
Then Gavin would inherit what remained.
But if Gavin already had a relationship with federal investigators, there was one battlefield he believed Vincent would never enter voluntarily.
Angela had told him to stop playing by his own rules.
Vincent looked at Malcolm.
“Call Assistant U.S. Attorney Rebecca Cole.”
Malcolm stared.
“Why?”
“Tell her I want a meeting.”
Angela’s eyebrows rose.
Malcolm took off his glasses.
“You understand what you’re saying?”
“Yes.”
“You may have to disclose things that have nothing to do with Gavin.”
“I know.”
“You could lose businesses.”
“I know.”
“You could lose your freedom.”
Vincent looked through the bedroom doorway.
Ellie was asleep beside her mother, one arm wrapped around the stuffed fox.
Twenty-four years ago, Vincent had protected himself from discomfort and sent his sister out the door.
He had spent half his life regretting it.
May you like
He would not make the same choice twice.
“Call her.”
