Chapter 6 - The Trap at Lincoln Park
Adrian wanted to move us out of Chicago.
I refused.
“You cannot keep uprooting us every time Travis threatens us,” I said.
“He is not making empty threats.”
“And I cannot teach my daughters that fear gets to decide where we live.”
Adrian stood near the windows, his tie loosened for the first time since I had met him.
“You think I want this?”
“No,” I said. “I think you think you can solve everything by building higher walls.”
His expression darkened.
“Walls keep people alive.”
“Sometimes they make people prisoners.”
The words landed between us.
I regretted them immediately.
Not because they were untrue.
Because I saw something in his face—something old and wounded—that told me he understood exactly what I meant.
“My mother died when I was seventeen,” Adrian said after a long silence. “My father told me grief was weakness. He put security around the house. He checked every phone call. He taught me that safety meant control.”
His eyes met mine.
“I spent twenty years believing him.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m trying not to become him.”
The honesty in his voice unsettled me more than anger would have.
Before either of us spoke again, Luca’s phone rang.
He listened, then swore.
“What?” Adrian asked.
“Travis used Camille’s old debit card at a pharmacy near Lincoln Park.”
“I canceled that card,” I said.
“He may have copied it before,” Meredith said from the speakerphone.
Adrian turned to me. “Stay here.”
“No.”
“Camille.”
“He knows I’m being protected. He wants you to react.”
“And if he is nearby?”
“Then we find him.”
Against every instinct Adrian had, he agreed to a controlled operation. Federal agents monitored the pharmacy. Luca stayed close. I remained in the SUV with Adrian while officers swept the area.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message from Josie’s tablet, which had been left at the apartment.
MOMMY, COME TO THE PARK.
My blood froze.
“That isn’t Josie,” I said.
Another message followed.
A photo.
Josie and Willa on a playground slide.
It was old—taken months ago—but I recognized their yellow jackets.
Below it:
YOUR MOTHER LIED TO YOU. ASK HER WHERE SHE HID THE MONEY.
Adrian took the phone from me.
“Victor,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Travis does not write like that.”
A man ran from the pharmacy parking lot.
Luca moved first, taking him down near a row of shopping carts. It was not Travis.
It was a delivery driver carrying a burner phone and a sealed envelope.
Inside were photos of my daughters, my apartment, the restaurant where I worked, and my mother’s grave.
There was also a key.
“Storage unit,” Adrian said.
The key led to a locker beneath an old parking garage. Inside, federal agents found files, burner phones, cash, and an external hard drive containing records of Victor Lennox’s fraud.
But there was one final item.
A small pink backpack.
Willa’s backpack.
Inside was her favorite crayon drawing of our family.
Me.
Josie.
Willa.
And Travis, drawn much smaller than the rest.
On the back, someone had written:
SHE HAS TWENTY-FOUR HOURS TO RETURN WHAT SHE STOLE.
I stared at the message.
“I didn’t steal anything.”
Adrian examined the hard drive.
Then his face changed.
“What?” I asked.
“Your mother’s trust account,” he said. “It wasn’t emptied by Travis.”
My breath caught.
“Then who took it?”
Adrian looked directly at me.
“Victor Lennox did.”
May you like
And somehow, my mother’s death, my missing money, Adrian’s company, and Travis’s violence were all part of the same design.
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