Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WHO HAD BEEN DEAD FOR TWENTY YEARS
Molly read the message six times.
COME ALONE.
MIDNIGHT.
OLD HARBOR TERMINAL.
BRING PATRICK’S NOTEBOOK.
NO DYLAN.
NO POLICE.
OR REBECCA DIES FOR REAL THIS TIME.
Dylan reached for the phone.
Molly pulled it away.
“No.”
“You’re not going.”
“She’s my aunt.”
“She may not even be there.”
“You recognized her.”
“Yes.”
“Then she’s alive.”
“Molly.”
“You knew.”
The accusation stopped him.
“You knew she existed.”
“I knew Rebecca.”
“And?”
“I thought she died.”
“When?”
“Thirteen years ago.”
“That’s two years before my father.”
“Yes.”
Molly paced the clinic hallway.
“My parents told me she died when I was six.”
“That was apparently the first disappearance.”
She looked at him sharply.
“Explain.”
Dylan sat.
“Rebecca worked for my mother.”
“Doing what?”
“Accounting.”
Molly laughed bitterly.
“Apparently everyone in my family worked for organized crime except me.”
Dylan didn’t react.
“My mother used Rebecca to track money my father hid from her. Not because she wanted it. Because she wanted proof.”
“Proof of what?”
“Human trafficking.”
Molly went still.
Dylan’s voice lowered.
“My father’s organization wasn’t only gambling and unions. Some of his partners moved women through properties he controlled.”
“And your mother found out.”
“Yes.”
“She tried to stop it?”
“Yes.”
“Your father?”
“He found out she was collecting records.”
Molly looked at the photograph.
“Rebecca helped her.”
Dylan nodded.
“When my mother died, Rebecca disappeared. I assumed my father had killed her too.”
“Your mother didn’t die naturally.”
“No.”
Molly shut her eyes.
Another murder.
Another family lie.
“What happened?”
“Her car exploded.”
Molly looked at him.
“You were how old?”
“Twenty-five.”
“And your father?”
“Died eighteen months later.”
“How?”
Dylan’s expression became unreadable.
“Heart attack.”
She stared.
“Was it?”
“Yes.”
She wasn’t sure whether to believe him.
He saw that.
“You can ask Kessler. He signed the medical report.”
Molly rubbed her face.
“So Rebecca somehow survived.”
“Yes.”
“My father knew.”
“Probably.”
“And he was driving her somewhere when Conrad attacked him.”
Dylan looked at Patrick’s notebook.
“That would explain why he was desperate.”
Molly’s throat tightened.
“My father died saving his sister.”
“Maybe.”
“Stop saying maybe.”
“I won’t tell you something is certain when it isn’t.”
She hated him for being right.
Atlas lifted his head from the recovery bed.
Molly sat beside him.
“You’ve known all these secrets longer than I’ve known the truth about my own family.”
Atlas licked her hand.
Dylan watched.
“We’ll get Rebecca back.”
“We?”
“Yes.”
“The message specifically says no Dylan.”
“That makes me more interested in going.”
“It makes me interested in keeping you away.”
He almost smiled.
“That may be the first time anyone has tried.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Molly stood.
“I’m not bait.”
“No.”
“Then stop planning around me like I’m an object.”
Dylan was quiet.
“What would you do?”
“Give them what they think they want.”
“The notebook.”
“A copy.”
“They’ll check.”
“Then we give them the original.”
Dylan frowned.
“That notebook is the only evidence we have.”
“No.”
She held up her phone.
“I photographed every page at the cemetery.”
Dylan stared.
“When?”
“While you were arguing with your security chief.”
For the first time, he smiled fully.
It changed his face.
“Patrick’s daughter.”
“Don’t sound so impressed.”
“I am.”
“Try hiding it.”
By ten that night they had a plan.
Molly hated most of it.
Dylan hated the rest.
She would enter the abandoned harbor terminal carrying Patrick’s notebook.
Dylan’s people would remain outside the perimeter.
No visible weapons.
No police.
But Molly would wear a tiny audio transmitter beneath her sweater.
“If they search me?”
“They may find it.”
“Comforting.”
Dylan handed her a small pendant.
“My mother wore this.”
Molly looked at him.
“I’m not taking your mother’s jewelry.”
“It has a tracker.”
“Oh.”
“Less sentimental.”
“Much.”
He fastened it around her neck.
His fingers brushed her skin.
Neither spoke.
The moment was brief.
Complicated.
Molly stepped away first.
Dylan cleared his throat.
“If anything changes, you walk.”
“And Rebecca?”
“We adapt.”
“No. If I see her, I don’t leave without her.”
“Molly.”
“That part isn’t negotiable.”
Dylan stared at her.
Then nodded.
“Fine.”
The old harbor terminal rose over the river like the skeleton of something enormous.
Broken windows.
Rusted loading cranes.
Rain began falling as Molly approached the entrance.
One overhead bulb burned inside.
Libby waited beneath it.
No evening gown now.
Black jeans.
Dark coat.
Hair tied back.
Without diamonds and champagne, she looked younger.
And meaner.
“You actually came.”
“You sound disappointed.”
Libby smiled.
“Notebook?”
Molly lifted it.
“Rebecca?”
“Inside.”
Libby searched her.
Molly held her breath.
Hands moved over her pockets.
Waist.
Ankles.
Then Libby saw the pendant.
“Pretty.”
“My mother’s.”
A lie.
Libby tugged it.
The clasp held.
“Keep it.”
Molly exhaled internally.
They entered the terminal.
Rebecca sat in a wheelchair twenty yards away.
Two armed men stood behind her.
Molly stopped.
The woman looked up.
Her face changed.
“Oh.”
Her voice broke.
“Oh, Patrick.”
Molly couldn’t move.
Rebecca began crying.
“No,” she whispered. “Not Patrick.”
Molly stepped forward.
“I’m Molly.”
Rebecca covered her mouth.
“My God.”
“Aunt Rebecca?”
The woman nodded.
Molly crossed the space between them.
One guard blocked her.
“Stay.”
Rebecca stared at her.
“You have your father’s face around the eyes.”
Molly’s throat closed.
“You’re alive.”
“Barely.”
“Why didn’t you come home?”
Rebecca looked toward Libby.
“Because every time I tried, someone died.”
Libby snapped her fingers.
“The family reunion is touching. Notebook.”
Molly held it out.
Libby took it.
She flipped through several pages.
“Original?”
“Yes.”
Libby smiled.
“Smart girl.”
“Now let her go.”
Libby laughed.
“You believed that?”
Molly’s stomach dropped.
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?” Molly whispered.
Rebecca looked terrified.
“I told them you’d come.”
Molly stared.
Libby’s smile widened.
Then a third man stepped from the shadows.
Raymond Cole.
Molly’s blood turned cold.
“You escaped.”
Raymond touched the bruising on his jaw.
“Dylan’s security is good. Conrad’s is better.”
Molly looked around.
“Where is Conrad?”
“Waiting.”
“For what?”
Raymond reached into his coat.
He removed a small metal device.
An old microcassette recorder.
Molly recognized the tapes from locker 317.
“He wants something Patrick recorded.”
“What?”
“A confession.”
“Whose?”
Raymond looked at Rebecca.
“Dylan Burroughs’s mother.”
Molly turned.
Rebecca nodded.
“Eleanor recorded everything before she died. Names. Routes. Judges. Politicians.”
“Where?”
“That’s what Patrick refused to tell anyone.”
Libby threw the notebook onto a table.
“It isn’t in here.”
“No.”
Raymond approached Molly.
“But Patrick told Rebecca he left the answer with his daughter.”
Molly stared.
“I don’t have anything.”
“Maybe you don’t know you do.”
He reached for her pendant.
The tracker.
Molly stepped back.
Raymond smiled.
“Nervous?”
“No.”
He grabbed it.
At that exact moment, a low growl rolled through the terminal.
Everyone froze.
Libby’s face changed.
“No.”
The growl came again.
From darkness.
Atlas stepped into the light.
Bandaged.
Weak.
Furious.
And beside him stood Dylan Burroughs.
Molly stared.
“You brought an injured dog?”
Dylan glanced at Atlas.
“He brought himself.”
Behind Dylan appeared six men.
Weapons lowered but ready.
Libby raised hers.
“You were told not to come.”
Dylan looked at her.
“I stopped taking your instructions around the time you kicked a woman on the floor.”
Raymond grabbed Molly.
A gun pressed against her ribs.
Dylan stopped.
Atlas snarled.
“Call him off,” Raymond said.
Dylan’s eyes stayed on Molly.
“Atlas.”
The dog stopped.
But didn’t sit.
Molly felt Raymond’s hand shake.
He was afraid.
Good.
Rebecca suddenly shouted.
“Molly, the song!”
Everyone looked at her.
Molly frowned.
“What?”
“Your father’s song. The one he sang when you couldn’t sleep.”
Molly’s heart hammered.
She hadn’t thought about it in years.
A ridiculous old folk song.
Her father always changed one line.
Not a lyric from the actual song.
Something he made up.
“Three stones by the river,” Molly whispered.
Rebecca nodded frantically.
“Say the rest.”
Molly closed her eyes.
Her father’s voice returned from twenty years ago.
Three stones by the river.
One under the tree.
Turn where the angel watches.
And bring the truth to me.
Molly opened her eyes.
“The cemetery.”
Raymond tightened his grip.
“No.”
Rebecca shouted, “Not Patrick’s grave!”
Molly looked at her.
“Then where?”
“The other angel.”
Dylan understood first.
“Mill Creek.”
Rebecca nodded.
“There’s an abandoned church beside Mill Creek.”
Raymond cursed.
Libby aimed at Rebecca.
Everything happened at once.
Molly slammed her heel down on Raymond’s foot.
Atlas lunged.
Dylan moved.
A gun fired.
Rebecca screamed.
Molly hit the ground.
When she looked up, Raymond was running.
Libby was gone.
One guard had surrendered.
The other lay groaning with Atlas standing over him.
Dylan reached Molly.
“Are you hit?”
“No.”
Rebecca cried out.
Molly crawled to her.
Blood covered the older woman’s shoulder.
Not fatal.
But serious.
Dylan called for medics.
Rebecca grabbed Molly’s wrist.
“Listen.”
“I’m here.”
“You need to find the recording before Conrad.”
“We will.”
“No.”
Rebecca’s fingers tightened.
“You don’t understand.”
She looked toward Dylan.
“Eleanor didn’t only confess what his father did.”
Dylan came closer.
“What did my mother say?”
Rebecca’s eyes filled with tears.
“She named the person who ordered her death.”
Dylan went still.
“Conrad?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No.”
Molly stared.
“Then who?”
Rebecca looked directly at Dylan.
“Your fiancée’s father didn’t work for Conrad.”
She struggled for breath.
May you like
“Conrad worked for him.”
And across the city, Victor Kemp—the respected businessman nobody had considered the true enemy—was already heading toward Mill Creek.
