Chapter 3
I went to the pier with the police.
That decision surprised everyone around me, including me.
Detective Mara Ellis drove ahead of us. She had taken Delia’s statement at the hospital and listened when I told her about my mother’s message. At the gate, she warned me to touch nothing until her team had checked it.
I almost told her Pier 44 was mine.
The truth was more complicated. My family held a long lease and ran freight through the property. The land belonged to a city trust, and my mother still controlled the vote on any transfer of our lease.
Victor wanted that vote. He had brought it up at dinner twice in the past month.
Inside the terminal, the manager showed us a row of old lockers behind the office. The lock on number 318 hung broken. The door stood open.
The locker was empty except for a dust mark where a flat box had rested.
“Security cameras?” Ellis asked.
“Only at the entrance,” the manager said. “These rooms are scheduled for demolition.”
He showed her the overnight footage. A hooded figure had entered using a maintenance code. The image was too poor to identify a face, but the time was clear.
1:17 a.m.
Celeste had been at my house then. I had seen her in the conservatory minutes before the ambulance arrived.
She had sent someone else.
Ellis requested the code records and photographed the locker. I called Delia from outside, where I could hear her without the terminal machinery behind me.
“Did Ewan use a locker at the pier?”
“Yes. He rented one through a friend so no one in your office would see his name.”
“What did he keep there?”
“Copies of freight records. He thought someone was using his routes to move things off the books.”
“Victor?”
“He didn’t know yet.”
I watched snow collect on the railing.
“Did he tell you what he planned to do?”
“He was going to bring the records to you. I asked him to go to the police first.”
I knew which choice Ewan had made. He had believed I would protect him.
“Why didn’t Mother take the box after his death?”
“I didn’t know it existed until she tried to tell me. She had the number written down, but the stroke came before she could explain where she put it. We found the note in her things months later. By then the pier office had closed that section, and I couldn’t get access without your help.”
“You could have asked me.”
“I was afraid,” Delia said. “I’d just watched what happened to Ewan.”
I could not argue with her.
Back in the terminal, Ellis told me the maintenance code had been issued to a contractor owned by a Vandermark subsidiary. It was a lead, nothing more. She would seek the worker records.
My phone rang as we walked out.
Victor Vandermark.
I answered.
“I hear there’s trouble at your pier,” he said. “We should talk before the city gets involved.”
“The city already owns the land.”
A pause.
“You sound tired, Adrian.”
“I was up all night.”
“Celeste was frightened. She called me.”
I watched Ellis get into her car.
“Delia Marlowe was hurt,” I said.
“I know. I’m sorry to hear it.”
He sounded sorry in the careful way Celeste had sounded concerned in my driveway.
Victor invited me to his office. I told him I would call later.
At home, I asked Tomas to bring me the agreement Victor’s lawyers had sent before the wedding. It was still on my desk under a folder of guest lists.
The agreement proposed transferring our Pier 44 lease into a joint company. Victor would clear the debt on two of my warehouses in return. I had intended to sign after the wedding, when our families were formally joined.
My mother’s vote was required because she controlled half our family trust. A doctor had previously certified that she could understand decisions, although she could not speak. She had refused the transfer when I asked about it weeks earlier.
I had assumed she distrusted Victor out of habit.
The agreement contained a new page I had not seen. It authorized Victor’s company to manage the terminal while the trust considered the transfer. My signature alone would put him inside the gates.
The page was dated three days earlier.
I called my lawyer, Nina Park, and asked who had added it.
“Celeste sent it,” Nina said. “She said you had requested an interim arrangement.”
“I didn’t.”
“She also asked whether Helena’s refusal could be set aside.”
I looked toward the hallway that led to my mother’s room.
“What did you tell her?”
“That Helena is capable of refusing, and I would not bring a petition against her without cause.”
Nina went quiet. “Adrian, what happened?”
I asked her to come to the house.
A little after noon, Ellis called. The worker who had used the maintenance code was missing. His name was Leo Sutter, and his last listed address belonged to a motel Victor’s company rented by the month.
Then Delia called from the hospital.
“My sister just found Owen’s school photograph missing from the frame by her front door.”
I gripped the edge of my desk.
“Is Owen with her?”
“Yes. She picked him up early. But whoever went inside knew where to look.”
Outside my window, Tomas was speaking to the guards at the front gate. My mother lay upstairs. Delia was still in the hospital. A child I had never met was hiding with his aunt.
May you like
I had let Victor’s family into every part of my life that mattered.
I called Ellis and gave her Delia’s sister’s address.
