Chapter 2 - Someone Tried to Erase Me Again
Smoke was already curling beneath the server-room door.
I reached it first.
“Don’t open that!” Adrian’s security chief shouted.
I stopped inches from the handle.
The fire suppression system activated with a violent hiss.
Staff scattered.
Victor Ames appeared behind us, pale and sweating.
“That system shouldn’t have triggered.”
“No kidding,” I said.
Security Chief Daniel Reyes looked at him.
“What’s stored in there?”
Victor hesitated.
“Reservations. Payroll. Vendor records.”
“And security archives,” I said.
Victor looked at me sharply.
I continued.
“Plus employee access logs and Celeste’s expense approvals.”
Daniel’s expression hardened.
“Everyone stays out.”
Within minutes, FDNY personnel were inside.
It wasn’t a large fire.
Someone had pushed burning material into a trash container beside the primary network cabinet.
The suppression system had saved most of the hardware.
But someone had wanted it destroyed.
Badly.
Adrian stood beside me near the bar while firefighters moved through the hallway.
Neither of us spoke about DNA.
Not yet.
There were immediate problems.
Someone had just attempted to erase evidence.
And considering Celeste was already sitting inside a police cruiser, she had either arranged it earlier or had help.
Daniel approached us forty minutes later.
“No accidental ignition source.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“Arson?”
“Looks that way.”
Victor interrupted.
“That’s speculation.”
Daniel turned slowly.
“You seem unusually eager to defend whoever did it.”
Victor’s face changed.
“I’m defending the restaurant.”
I watched him.
Victor had managed Bellamy House for twelve years.
Perfect suits.
Perfect manners.
Perfect ability to look away whenever Celeste hurt someone.
People like Victor rarely got their own hands dirty.
They simply made sure the sink was nearby.
A nurse from Dr. Levin’s private laboratory arrived at 11:36 p.m.
She took samples from Adrian and me under police observation because Daniel insisted on documenting chain of custody.
Adrian asked if I wanted privacy.
I almost smiled.
Privacy had become a strange concept after two hundred strangers had watched my blouse get ripped open.
“I’m fine.”
The nurse sealed the kits.
Adrian watched the package disappear into her case.
“When?”
“Preliminary confirmation within several hours,” she said. “Formal verified results tomorrow.”
Celeste’s words kept circling my mind.
You have absolutely no idea what happened twenty years ago.
I turned to Adrian.
“Tell me about your daughter.”
His face softened.
“Her name was Eleanor Grace Vale.”
I felt nothing.
That frightened me.
I had expected some internal bell to ring.
Some buried memory.
Nothing did.
“She was five,” Adrian continued. “She loved strawberry pancakes. Dinosaurs. Yellow rain boots. She hated having her hair brushed.”
A flash crossed my mind.
Yellow.
Rain.
A woman’s hand gripping mine.
Gone before I could catch it.
Adrian noticed.
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
He waited.
I appreciated that he didn’t push.
Then Daniel returned carrying a plastic evidence bag.
Inside was a black access card.
He held it toward Victor.
“Recognize this?”
Victor’s face emptied.
His name was printed on it.
VICTOR AMES — EXECUTIVE ACCESS.
Victor swallowed.
“My card was stolen.”
“When?”
“I didn’t realize it was missing.”
Daniel glanced at me.
I understood the look.
Convenient.
Victor began speaking faster.
“Celeste comes into my office constantly. She could have taken it.”
“She was in police custody when the alarm triggered,” I said.
Victor snapped toward me.
“Are you accusing me?”
“No.”
I folded my arms.
“I’m listening to you accuse yourself.”
His eyes turned cold.
That was the first honest look Victor Ames had ever given me.
Police separated him for questioning.
Meanwhile, the restaurant emptied.
Guests had long since left.
The marble dining room looked strangely small without its glamorous audience.
Broken crystal remained beneath the table where everything had started.
My stained uniform lay folded on a chair.
Adrian looked toward it.
“I’m sorry.”
“For Celeste?”
“For every person who worked here and was treated badly while I thought money and occasional visits were enough to call myself an owner.”
That answer surprised me.
Most wealthy men I had met apologized by explaining why nothing had been their responsibility.
Adrian didn’t.
He looked tired.
Old.
Human.
At 1:47 a.m., Dr. Levin called.
Adrian put the phone on speaker because I asked him to.
“Mister Vale,” the doctor said, “the preliminary analysis shows a parent-child probability greater than 99.99 percent.”
No one moved.
I heard the refrigerator behind the bar hum.
A pipe knocking somewhere in the ceiling.
My own heartbeat.
Adrian covered his mouth.
I stared at the phone.
“Can preliminary tests be wrong?”
“It will be independently verified,” Dr. Levin said. “But this result is extremely strong.”
Adrian began crying.
Silently.
His shoulders shook.
I didn’t.
Not then.
All I could think about was a bus station.
The vending machine.
The gray coat.
The woman who promised to come back.
“My mother,” I whispered.
Adrian looked up.
“What happened to her?”
His grief became something darker.
“Your mother died three months after you disappeared.”
I stopped breathing.
“How?”
“A car accident.”
The answer came too quickly.
I looked at him.
“Was it an accident?”
Adrian hesitated.
That told me everything.
“There were questions,” he admitted.
“What questions?”
“Her brakes failed.”
A chill moved through me.
Daniel Reyes stepped closer.
“Mr. Vale.”
Adrian ignored him.
“My wife, Claire, never believed Eleanor had been randomly abducted. She believed someone close to us was involved.”
“Who?”
“She never proved it.”
“Who?”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“My younger brother.”
The restaurant seemed to tilt.
“Your brother?”
“Richard Vale.”
I knew the name.
Richard Vale sat on the board of Vale Meridian.
He was rarely photographed.
The quiet brother.
The respectable uncle.
The man financial magazines called Adrian’s most trusted adviser.
Adrian looked sick.
“Claire believed Richard knew more than he admitted.”
“Why?”
“Because three days before you disappeared, Richard argued with her about my estate plan.”
My mouth went dry.
“What estate plan?”
“I had transferred a majority of my family trust into structures that would eventually benefit you.”
Daniel swore quietly.
I understood.
If Eleanor Vale remained alive, she inherited.
If Eleanor vanished…
“Who benefited?” I asked.
Adrian didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
“Richard.”
He nodded.
“And Celeste?”
Adrian stared across the empty restaurant.
“Celeste’s father worked for Richard.”
Suddenly, the socialite’s terror made sense.
Not all of it.
But enough.
I pulled out my phone.
“There’s something else.”
I opened my private evidence archive.
While documenting Celeste’s fraudulent wine purchases, I had found a repeating vendor code.
CGR-118.
At first I assumed it was a shell distributor.
But something had bothered me.
Its billing address changed every few months.
No website.
No employees.
Payments went far beyond wine.
Hotel rooms.
Cars.
Consulting fees.
One recurring monthly payment had existed for nineteen years.
Adrian leaned toward the screen.
“What is that?”
“I don’t know.”
I opened the recipient record.
The payments went to a small private security firm in New Jersey.
Greybridge Protective Services.
Daniel’s face changed.
“You know them?”
“No.”
He took my phone.
“But I know the founder.”
“Who?”
Daniel looked directly at Adrian.
“Thomas Rourke.”
Adrian stepped backward.
I had never heard the name.
Apparently, everyone else had.
Adrian whispered it as if seeing a ghost.
“Rourke died.”
Daniel shook his head.
“He disappeared.”
“Who is Thomas Rourke?” I demanded.
Adrian looked at me.
“He was my daughter’s security driver.”
The room went still.
“The day Eleanor disappeared,” Adrian continued, “Thomas Rourke was supposed to be watching her.”
I stared at the payment history.
Nineteen years.
Someone connected to Bellamy House had been paying money to a company linked to the man who had failed to protect me.
My hands stopped shaking.
Fear had changed into something cleaner.
Anger.
“Can you trace who approved these?”
I asked Daniel.
He looked at the metadata.
Then at me.
“These approvals use executive authorization.”
“Whose?”
He enlarged the screen.
My stomach tightened.
The authorization initials were R.V.
Richard Vale.
Adrian lowered himself into a chair.
I didn’t.
For twenty years, people had decided what happened to me.
Foster agencies.
Employers.
Landlords.
Men who thought a poor girl would stay quiet.
Women like Celeste.
Maybe even a wealthy uncle who had decided a five-year-old child stood between him and a fortune.
Not anymore.
I took my phone back.
“Where is Richard Vale tonight?”
Adrian looked at Daniel.
Daniel was already making a call.
Seconds later, his expression hardened.
“He left Manhattan forty minutes ago.”
“For where?”
Daniel listened.
Then looked at us.
“LaGuardia.”
Adrian stood.
But I was already grabbing my coat.
May you like
Because someone had tried to erase the evidence once tonight.
I had no intention of letting them erase themselves.
