Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE LAST PHOTOGRAPH
I stared at the photograph until the edges bent beneath my fingers.
Hannah stood beside a man in a charcoal coat outside what looked like a medical office.
Her face was turned toward him.
His profile was clear.
Dark hair.
Long nose.
Scar near the right temple.
Thomas Vale.
My former attorney.
My father’s most trusted financial adviser.
And a man I had watched disappear beneath six feet of Wisconsin earth eight years earlier.
“Where did this come from?” I asked.
Marco stood across my desk.
“Anonymous packet sent to child services.”
“Postmark?”
“Downtown Milwaukee.”
“Fingerprints?”
“None useful.”
I looked at the other photographs again.
Sophie walking through my estate gates.
Me carrying Noah.
Mason asleep beneath a blanket while two armed security men stood twenty feet away.
The images were designed to look terrible.
A crime boss.
Three children.
A vulnerable mother.
Someone wanted the state asking questions.
Someone wanted Hannah afraid.
But the photograph of Thomas was different.
That one wasn’t meant for child services.
It was meant for me.
A message hidden inside an accusation.
I called Hannah.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
“Where is she?”
Marco checked his phone.
“Guest cottage.”
Months earlier, after Hannah recovered from pneumonia and her landlord tried to evict her while she was hospitalized, I had offered the small cottage near the east gardens.
She refused twice.
Then Sophie asked whether the babies would have their own room.
Hannah accepted on one condition.
Rent.
One dollar per month.
She paid it on the first.
Proud people have unusual ways of accepting help.
I stood.
“Lock the estate.”
Marco looked at me.
“Boss?”
“Nobody leaves.”
“What happened?”
I handed him the photograph.
His face changed immediately.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I attended his funeral.”
“So did I.”
Marco stared.
“Closed casket.”
That detail mattered suddenly.
Thomas had supposedly died in a car fire outside Madison.
Dental identification.
Police report.
Funeral.
Closed casket.
Everything neat.
Everything final.
I had believed it.
I walked toward the guest cottage.
Rain had started.
Sophie opened the door before I knocked.
“Mr. Andrew!”
She wore purple socks and a pajama shirt covered in moons.
“Why are there more guards?”
“Where’s your mother?”
“In the kitchen.”
Hannah appeared behind her.
She saw my face.
Then the photograph in my hand.
And stopped.
Sophie noticed.
“Mom?”
Hannah’s fingers tightened around the doorframe.
“Go check on the twins.”
“But—”
“Sophie.”
The little girl frowned but obeyed.
Hannah waited until she disappeared.
Then whispered, “Where did you get that?”
“You know him.”
She looked away.
“Who is he?”
“No one.”
“Wrong answer.”
Her eyes flashed.
“This is my home.”
“My property.”
“That doesn’t mean you get to interrogate me.”
“Someone is trying to take your children.”
That silenced her.
I stepped inside and closed the door.
“This photograph was mailed to child services with pictures designed to make me look like a danger to Sophie and the twins.”
Hannah went pale.
“Child services?”
“Yes.”
“Are they coming?”
“Probably.”
Her fear was immediate.
“They can’t take them.”
“They won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know I can afford better lawyers than whoever sent the envelope.”
She almost laughed despite herself.
Then she looked at the photograph again.
“His name is Thomas.”
“I know.”
Her head snapped up.
“You know him?”
“He worked for my father.”
Every trace of color left her face.
“That’s impossible.”
“He handled Moretti—”
I stopped.
Old habit.
This was Whitaker territory now.
“My family’s finances for twelve years.”
Hannah stared at me.
“He said he was an accountant.”
“He was many things.”
“When did you meet him?”
“Eight years ago.”
Her expression changed.
Exactly eight.
“How?”
She sat down slowly.
“I was twenty-one.”
I waited.
“My mother had just died. I was working nights at a pharmacy and taking community-college classes.”
“Thomas approached you?”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“I found him bleeding behind my apartment building.”
I became very still.
“Bleeding?”
“Gunshot wound.”
“Where?”
“Shoulder.”
“Did you call police?”
“He begged me not to.”
“Why?”
“He said people were trying to kill him.”
“Which people?”
“He never said.”
Hannah looked toward the hallway, making sure Sophie could not hear.
“I let him hide in my apartment for three days.”
“You hid a wounded stranger?”
“I was twenty-one and stupid.”
“Or kind.”
She ignored that.
“He eventually left. Then came back weeks later.”
“And?”
“We became close.”
There it was.
“How close?”
Hannah looked directly at me.
“Sophie is his daughter.”
The room became completely silent.
I had expected many answers.
Not that.
“Sophie?”
“Yes.”
“Thomas is her father?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas disappeared before I could tell him I was pregnant.”
I looked toward the hallway.
Six-year-old Sophie.
Purple socks.
Four dollars and sixty-three cents.
Thomas Vale’s daughter.
The child of a man who had been buried before she was born.
“What happened?”
“One morning he kissed me goodbye and said he’d be back by dinner.”
Hannah’s voice tightened.
“He never came back.”
“You heard he died?”
“Two weeks later.”
“How?”
“A stranger called.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he say?”
“That Thomas Vale died in a car accident and that I should forget I ever knew him.”
Cold settled in my chest.
“Did he threaten you?”
“Not directly.”
“Meaning yes.”
“He knew where I worked. He knew my address.”
She rubbed both hands over her face.
“I moved.”
“Did Thomas know you were pregnant?”
“No.”
“And the twins?”
“Different father.”
“Where is he?”
Hannah’s expression hardened.
“Gone.”
I did not ask.
Not yet.
Then Sophie appeared at the hallway corner.
She held Noah against her chest.
“I heard my name.”
Hannah stood.
“You should be in bed.”
Sophie looked at the photograph in my hand.
“Who’s that?”
Neither of us answered quickly enough.
Children notice hesitation more than lies.
Sophie walked closer.
She stared at Thomas.
Then at Hannah.
“Mom?”
Hannah took the photograph.
“No one you need to worry about.”
Sophie’s brow furrowed.
“I’ve seen him.”
My blood went cold.
Hannah crouched.
“What?”
“The man.”
“Where?”
Sophie pointed toward the front window.
“Outside.”
“When?”
“Before we moved here.”
Hannah’s face drained.
“How many times?”
Sophie thought.
“Three.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought he was your friend.”
I crouched beside her.
“What did he do?”
“Watched.”
“Did he talk to you?”
“No.”
“Did he ever follow you?”
She nodded.
“One time.”
Hannah gripped the edge of the table.
“When?”
“The day I went to buy formula.”
I looked at her.
The grocery store.
The day Sophie found me.
My heart began pounding slowly.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Sophie hugged Noah tighter.
“I was walking and the stroller wheel got stuck.”
“Yes.”
“A man helped me.”
“What man?”
She pointed at Thomas’s photograph.
“Him.”
Hannah made a broken sound.
“What did he say?”
Sophie frowned, remembering.
“He asked where I was going.”
“And you told him?”
“To buy formula.”
“What else?”
“He said the big store on Mason Street was cheaper.”
Mason Street.
The grocery store I owned.
The grocery store I visited every Thursday afternoon because my mother used to shop there.
A routine known to very few people.
“What else?”
“He said if I saw a tall man with a silver ring, I should ask him.”
I looked down.
My signet ring.
Sophie smiled faintly.
“He said you help children.”
I stood.
Thomas had directed Sophie straight to me.
Not by chance.
Not luck.
He knew where I would be.
He knew she was his daughter.
He knew she needed help.
And instead of going to Hannah himself, he placed his six-year-old child in the path of a mafia boss.
Hannah whispered, “Why?”
I looked at the photograph.
Thomas standing beside her only months earlier.
Alive.
Watching.
Planning.
Then my phone rang.
Marco.
“What?”
“We found someone outside the north wall.”
“Who?”
“He surrendered.”
That surprised me.
“Name?”
A pause.
“Thomas Vale.”
Hannah stopped breathing.
I turned toward the window.
Marco continued.
“He says he’ll speak only to you.”
“Why?”
Another pause.
“He says because if he enters this estate, somebody inside will try to kill him.”
I looked toward my guarded mansion.
My own men.
My own walls.
Then at Sophie.
Thomas had not sent her toward me because he trusted my name.
He had sent her toward me because he knew someone close to me had betrayed us both.
May you like
And whoever had buried Thomas eight years ago was still inside my house.
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