Chapter 4
Daniel wanted to go immediately.
I told him that was exactly what whoever sent the message expected.
“We don’t know who’s waiting there.”
“That’s why I’m not bringing you.”
“The message specifically says to bring me.”
“And that is exactly why you’re staying here.”
I stared at him.
“You don’t get to make that decision.”
His expression sharpened.
“I absolutely do.”
“No. You employ me. You do not own me.”
That stopped him.
For a second, neither of us spoke.
Then he looked toward the nursery.
“I almost lost my son tonight.”
“I know.”
“I’m not going to walk you into some trap too.”
“Emily was my best friend.”
“And Noah is my son.”
“And she died trying to protect him.”
He looked away.
That was the one argument he could not defeat.
Marcus entered the hall.
“I traced the text as far as I could. It bounced through multiple internet numbers.”
“Can police trace it?” Daniel asked.
“Eventually. Not before sunrise.”
Daniel rubbed his face.
“We tell Detective Shaw.”
I was surprised.
“What happened to keeping things quiet?”
“This is different. I’m not going to play games with whoever this is.”
Marcus called Shaw.
She arrived forty minutes later wearing jeans, a navy jacket, and the irritated expression of someone who had not slept.
She read the message.
Then she looked at me.
“You recognize the address?”
“Yes.”
“Who has access?”
“The landlord, probably. I moved out four years ago.”
“Emily?”
“She moved out before I did.”
“Any chance she kept a key?”
“Not unless she wanted a key to someone else’s apartment.”
Shaw studied the message again.
“It’s probably a trap.”
Daniel crossed his arms.
“Agreed.”
“But sometimes traps still contain information.”
I looked at her.
“You want us to go?”
“I want you to appear to go.”
She explained the plan.
Daniel and I would arrive before sunrise.
Police would be nearby but out of sight.
Marcus would follow separately.
We would wear tracking devices.
No weapons.
No heroics.
“If anyone tells you to move to another location,” Shaw said, “you refuse.”
Daniel nodded.
I did too.
At five fifteen, we left the estate.
The sky was still dark.
Dallas felt unnaturally quiet.
Daniel drove.
I sat beside him.
Neither of us said much.
After twenty minutes, he spoke.
“Tell me about Emily.”
The question caught me off guard.
“What do you want to know?”
“Anything that doesn’t involve threats, contracts, or death.”
I looked out the window.
“She hated bananas.”
Daniel glanced at me.
“What?”
“She could smell one from across a room and would act like somebody had opened toxic waste.”
He almost smiled.
“She loved terrible reality television. She sang too loudly in the car. She once spent three hundred dollars rescuing a dog she found behind a grocery store.”
“What happened to the dog?”
“Her mother kept him.”
Daniel was quiet.
“Was she happy about Noah?”
I thought carefully.
“At first, the pregnancy was just a job.”
He flinched.
“But that changed.”
“When?”
“The first time she felt him move.”
I smiled through tears.
“She called me at two in the morning and screamed that there was an alien inside her.”
Daniel laughed once.
A small, broken sound.
“She started calling him Peanut.”
He looked down at the road.
“She loved him?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn’t she keep him?”
“She was scared that fighting for him would put him in more danger.”
Daniel’s hands tightened around the steering wheel.
“I wish I had known.”
“I know.”
“I would have helped her.”
“I think she believed that in the end.”
We reached the old apartment building at five forty-eight.
It looked smaller than I remembered.
Old brick.
Narrow balconies.
A flickering hallway light.
Daniel parked.
The police were nowhere visible.
That was the point.
We walked inside.
Apartment 3C was at the end of the third-floor corridor.
I stared at the door.
A yellow envelope was taped to it.
My name was written across the front.
CLAIRE.
Daniel stopped me from touching it.
“Wait.”
He texted Shaw.
She replied almost immediately.
Photograph first.
He did.
Then I carefully removed the envelope.
Inside was a key.
And a note.
BASEMENT STORAGE. NUMBER 18.
Daniel looked toward the stairwell.
“No.”
“The police are watching.”
“We were told not to change locations.”
“It’s in the building.”
“That still counts.”
His phone vibrated.
Shaw.
GO. TEAM COVERING BASEMENT EXIT.
We descended.
The basement smelled like dust and old pipes.
Storage cages lined one wall.
Number 18 was at the far end.
The key fit.
Inside sat one cardboard box.
Nothing else.
Daniel opened it carefully.
On top was a photograph.
Emily.
Pregnant.
Standing beside me outside a coffee shop.
Across the street, half hidden behind a parked car, stood Vanessa.
I had never noticed her.
My hands began shaking.
Daniel lifted another photograph.
Vanessa outside Emily’s apartment.
Another.
Vanessa entering the surrogacy agency.
Another.
Vanessa speaking with a man outside St. Catherine’s Hospital.
Daniel froze.
“I know him.”
“Who?”
“My former chief financial officer.”
The man in the picture was probably sixty.
Gray hair.
Expensive suit.
“Name?”
“Richard Vale.”
I knew the name.
Everyone in Dallas business circles did.
Vale had worked for Harrison Global for twelve years.
He retired suddenly after a financial scandal that never became public.
“When did he leave your company?”
“About six months before I married Vanessa.”
Daniel dug deeper.
There was a recorder.
A second flash drive.
And an envelope marked:
FOR DANIEL HARRISON ONLY.
He opened it.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
Daniel,
If you are reading this, I probably failed to get this information to you myself.
Vanessa Reed is not acting alone.
Richard Vale has been moving money through companies connected to your family for years.
I do not understand the entire scheme.
I only know my surrogacy contract was used to hide payments.
Someone wanted your child born under conditions they could control.
Someone wanted access to your family through him.
I know this sounds insane.
Please protect Noah.
Do not trust anyone who tells you the baby was an accident in their plan.
He was the plan.
Emily
Daniel read the last sentence three times.
He was the plan.
I felt sick.
“What does that mean?”
Daniel looked at the photographs.
“I don’t know.”
Suddenly the basement door slammed.
The lights went out.
“Daniel.”
“I’m here.”
A loud metallic sound came from the hallway.
He pulled me behind the storage cage.
Footsteps.
Someone was inside.
Daniel whispered, “Police should be here.”
A man’s voice came through the darkness.
“Leave the box and walk away.”
Daniel stiffened.
I gripped his sleeve.
The voice came again.
“You were never supposed to find this.”
Daniel stepped forward.
“Richard?”
Silence.
Then a gunshot exploded into the ceiling.
I screamed.
“Box. Now.”
Daniel pushed me lower.
“Take it.”
“What?”
“Take the box.”
He stood.
“Daniel!”
He threw a metal folding chair toward the opposite wall.
It crashed loudly.
The man fired toward the sound.
At the same moment, Daniel grabbed my hand.
“Run!”
We sprinted toward the stairs.
The basement door opened.
Detective Shaw rushed in with two officers.
“Police!”
The man ran toward the back exit.
More officers shouted.
Another crash.
Then silence.
Shaw pushed us against the wall.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
“No.”
“Stay here.”
Police flooded the basement.
Minutes later, Marcus appeared.
“You okay?”
Daniel nodded.
“Did they get him?”
Marcus listened to his radio.
His expression darkened.
“No.”
“What do you mean no?”
“There’s a service tunnel behind the boiler room.”
Shaw returned.
“He escaped.”
Daniel cursed.
“But we found something.”
“What?”
“A burner phone.”
She held up an evidence bag.
“The last number called from it belongs to Vanessa.”
Daniel stared at the phone.
“So they’re together.”
“Looks that way.”
I looked back at the storage cage.
“The box.”
It was still there.
But when we returned to it, one thing had changed.
The second flash drive was gone.
Someone had taken it during the chaos.
Daniel searched the floor.
Nothing.
Then he looked at the recorder.
“That’s still here.”
Shaw put on gloves and lifted it.
“What’s on it?”
I pressed play.
Static filled the basement.
Then Emily’s voice.
Then Vanessa’s.
The recording had been made secretly.
Emily sounded frightened.
“Why do you care who raises the baby?”
Vanessa answered.
“Because Daniel will do anything for his son.”
Emily said, “You don’t love him.”
Vanessa laughed.
“No.”
A long silence.
Then Emily asked, “What do you want from him?”
May you like
Vanessa’s answer made Daniel stop breathing.
“Everything.”
