Emily did not sleep.
At four in the morning, she sat on a leather couch in Adrian Mercer’s guest room wearing one of his housekeeper’s sweaters and staring at Danny’s old photograph.
Adrian had insisted she stay.
This time she had not argued.
Her apartment had been destroyed.
Someone knew her real identity.
And Raymond Cole—the man she had trusted after Danny’s death—had never been the detective he claimed to be.
Every rule Emily had lived by for three years suddenly looked different.
Maybe she had not escaped because she had been clever.
Maybe she had escaped because somebody wanted her gone.
That possibility was worse.
At seven, Adrian knocked.
“Come in.”
He carried breakfast.
Eggs, toast, fruit.
Emily looked at the tray.
“You have people for this.”
“I fired the chef.”
“Why?”
“He complained about making scrambled eggs.”
Despite everything, she smiled.
Adrian noticed.
He did not comment.
He placed the tray down.
“Leo found something.”
Emily’s smile vanished.
“What?”
“The diner caller is named Thomas Vale.”
“Does that mean anything to you?”
“No.”
“He was employed by the same transportation contractor Danny worked for.”
Emily sat upright.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
Adrian handed her a printed file.
Thomas Vale.
Warehouse supervisor.
Terminated one week after Danny’s death.
“Why would he keep Danny’s picture?”
“That’s the question.”
Emily scanned the page.
There was a photograph of Vale from years earlier.
Younger.
Cleaner.
But unmistakably the same man.
“Can we talk to him?”
Adrian’s expression told her the answer was complicated.
“He’s missing.”
“What do you mean?”
“Leo’s people were transporting him to a secure location. Their vehicle was forced off the road.”
Emily stared at him.
“Is he dead?”
“We don’t know.”
“So someone rescued him.”
“Or silenced him.”
Emily pushed the file away.
“This is insane.”
“Yes.”
“You say that like we’re discussing the weather.”
“I find panic inefficient.”
“I find being hunted inconvenient.”
“That too.”
She looked at him.
For the first time, she understood why people followed Adrian Mercer.
It wasn’t because he shouted.
He didn’t.
He created the impression that chaos had to ask permission before entering the room.
Emily wished she possessed half of that control.
“Danny’s notebook,” Adrian said. “Tell me everything you remember.”
“It was black. Cheap cover. He wrote in it constantly during his last month.”
“Numbers?”
“Mostly.”
“Names?”
“Initials.”
“Which?”
Emily closed her eyes.
“RC.”
Adrian’s gaze sharpened.
“Raymond Cole.”
“Maybe.”
“Anything else?”
“V.V. sometimes. M thirteen. H six.”
“H6 could be warehouse six.”
“Or nothing.”
Adrian nodded.
“What about RC?”
Emily hesitated.
“There was one page where Danny circled it.”
“Did he write anything beside it?”
“One word.”
“What word?”
She looked at Adrian.
“Brother.”
Adrian frowned.
“Brother?”
“Yes.”
Neither spoke for several seconds.
Adrian eventually said, “Cole had a brother.”
Emily’s pulse jumped.
“Who?”
“Vincent Cole.”
“Police?”
“No.”
“What did he do?”
“He worked for me.”
The pieces shifted.
“Your traitor.”
“Possibly.”
“What happened to Vincent?”
“He disappeared two days after the warehouse attack.”
Emily felt cold.
“And you never connected Raymond to him?”
“I didn’t know Raymond was impersonating a detective around Danny’s family.”
“Then maybe RC doesn’t mean Raymond.”
“Maybe it means both.”
Adrian walked toward the window.
“Vincent managed shipping security for me. He knew routes, cargo, driver schedules.”
“He could have organized the theft.”
“Yes.”
“And Danny found out.”
“Yes.”
“So Vincent killed him.”
“Maybe.”
Emily stood.
“You keep saying maybe.”
“Because assuming too early gets people killed.”
“My brother is already dead.”
“And I’m trying to prevent you from joining him.”
The words hit harder than Adrian intended.
His expression changed.
“Sorry.”
Emily looked away.
“No. You’re right.”
A long silence followed.
Then she asked, “Why do you care?”
Adrian frowned.
“About what?”
“Me.”
“You warned me.”
“That’s not enough.”
“It is for me.”
She shook her head.
“I don’t believe that.”
Adrian sat in the chair opposite her.
“When I was twenty-eight, I trusted the wrong person.”
Emily waited.
“My father had built an organization that survived by suspicion. I thought I could operate differently.”
“That went well?”
“No.”
A humorless smile.
“I was almost killed. Two friends were killed. After that, loyalty became expensive.”
“Danny earned yours.”
“Yes.”
“With one note.”
“With a note he knew could get him killed.”
Emily looked at Danny’s photograph.
“So this is a debt.”
“Partly.”
“What’s the other part?”
Adrian held her gaze.
“You.”
Something changed in the room.
Emily broke eye contact first.
“That’s a terrible answer.”
“It’s the truthful one.”
Before she could respond, Leo entered.
“We found the notebook.”
Emily stood so quickly she nearly knocked over the tray.
“Where?”
“Pawn shop in Queens.”
“Someone pawned it?”
“No. Someone tried to.”
Leo placed a photograph on the table.
The black notebook.
Danny’s notebook.
Emily touched the image.
“Who?”
“A seventeen-year-old kid. Says a man gave him five hundred dollars to sell a bag of stuff from your apartment.”
“Can we get it?”
“Already did.”
Twenty minutes later, Emily held the notebook.
Three years seemed to vanish.
Danny’s fingerprints might still have been beneath hers.
She opened it.
Pages of numbers.
Routes.
Truck IDs.
Names disguised as initials.
Adrian sat beside her.
They worked for hours.
At first it made no sense.
Then Adrian recognized warehouse codes.
H6.
Harbor Warehouse Six.
M13.
Mercer route thirteen.
V.V.
Vale Vehicles.
Thomas Vale’s department.
RC appeared repeatedly.
Next to payment amounts.
Dates.
Addresses.
Then Emily reached the final pages.
One had been torn out.
The next contained only a sentence.
If anything happens to me, E knows where Mom kept Christmas.
Emily stared.
Adrian read it twice.
“What does that mean?”
Emily’s heart began pounding.
“I know.”
“Where?”
She stood.
“Our mother had a Christmas tradition.”
“What kind?”
“She hated banks.”
Adrian blinked.
“That’s a tradition?”
“She kept emergency money inside an old Christmas decoration.”
“Where is it now?”
Emily grabbed her coat.
“Philadelphia.”
Three hours later, Adrian’s sedan crossed into Pennsylvania.
Emily had not returned home since Danny’s funeral.
Her mother had died two years before him.
Their childhood house had been sold.
But the Christmas decorations had gone to storage.
Emily still paid the bill anonymously every year because she could never bring herself to throw them away.
The storage facility sat outside Philadelphia.
Unit 417 smelled like dust and cardboard.
Emily walked past old furniture.
Her mother’s sewing machine.
Danny’s baseball trophies.
Then she found the red plastic tub.
She opened it.
A ceramic Santa Claus lay wrapped in newspaper.
Emily turned it upside down.
The felt bottom had been cut.
Inside was a small flash drive.
Adrian stared.
“Your brother was careful.”
“He learned that late.”
Back in the car, Leo connected the drive to an isolated laptop.
Files appeared.
Invoices.
Photographs.
Audio recordings.
Payment ledgers.
Adrian’s expression hardened with every click.
“What?”
Emily leaned closer.
Adrian opened a photograph.
Vincent Cole stood beside Thomas Vale.
Beside them was another man.
Older.
Silver hair.
Expensive suit.
Emily recognized him.
“No.”
Adrian looked at her.
“You know him?”
She could barely speak.
“That’s the man from the warehouse.”
“The gray coat?”
“Yes.”
Adrian’s face became stone.
His voice dropped.
“His name is Malcolm Shaw.”
“Who is he?”
“My attorney.”
Emily stared at him.
“Your attorney?”
“For seventeen years.”
On the screen, Malcolm Shaw shook Vincent Cole’s hand.
Danny had labeled the image with a single sentence.
THE MAN MERCER TRUSTS MOST.
Adrian leaned back slowly.
Emily saw something she had never seen in him before.
Not fear.
Betrayal.
His phone rang.
Leo answered.
His face changed.
“Adrian.”
“What?”
“It’s Shaw.”
Adrian looked at Emily.
Leo put the call on speaker.
Malcolm Shaw’s warm, cultured voice filled the car.
“Adrian. I hear you’ve had an interesting evening.”
Adrian said nothing.
Shaw continued.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
Emily felt Adrian’s hand tighten beside her.
“What?”
“The Brennan notebook.”
Silence.
Then Shaw laughed softly.
“Come now. We’re past pretending.”
Adrian’s voice was cold.
“What do you want?”
“The drive.”
Emily looked toward him.
Shaw answered.
“In exchange, I’ll tell Miss Brennan exactly what happened to her brother.”
Emily stopped breathing.
Adrian’s eyes met hers.
Then Shaw added the words that changed the stakes again.
“Oh, and Emily?”
She froze.
“Yes?”
“You should know Danny wasn’t alone when he died.”
A pause.
“There was someone with him.”
Emily gripped the seat.
“Who?”
Shaw laughed quietly.
“Bring me the drive, and perhaps you’ll finally meet her.”
The call ended.
Emily stared at the dark phone.
“Her?”
Adrian looked equally disturbed.
“Whoever she is,” he said, “Shaw thinks she matters more than the evidence.”
Emily closed Danny’s notebook.
“Then we find her before he does.”