Chapter 5 - The Woman Who Knew Daniel Was Going to DieMara Voss was gone before we reached the mansion.
That was the first thing Jonah told Elias.
Not arrested.
Not questioned.
Gone.
We were still in the car when his phone rang. Evan had fallen asleep against my shoulder, his injured wrist resting carefully across his chest. Samuel sat in the front passenger seat, looking out at the wet Boston streets as evening settled between the buildings.
Elias answered on the second ring.
He listened for less than thirty seconds.
Then his face changed.
It wasn't dramatic.
That was something I was beginning to understand about him.
When ordinary people received bad news, they reacted. They cursed, demanded explanations, or let fear show.
Elias became quieter.
And somehow that was worse.
“When?” he asked.
Another pause.
“Did anyone see her leave?”
He listened.
“Her phone?”
Another pause.
“Don't touch her office. Don't remove anything. Lock the room and have counsel contact the investigators.”
He ended the call.
I watched him.
“Mara?”
“Yes.”
“She's gone?”
“She left the mansion approximately forty minutes ago.”
Samuel turned in his seat. “Did she know about the warehouse?”
“She shouldn't have.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Elias looked at him.
“No. I don't know.”
I tightened my arm around Evan.
Forty minutes.
We had spent longer than that inside Unit 417.
Someone could have called her.
Someone could have been watching the Harbor Exchange.
The man in the sedan returned to my thoughts.
“What did she take?” I asked.
“Apparently very little. Her coat, purse, and personal computer.”
“Personal computer?”
“She used it for household scheduling.”
“And everything else?”
“Still there.”
“That doesn't sound like someone planning to disappear forever.”
“No.”
Samuel turned around completely.
“It sounds like someone who expects to come back.”
Elias's eyes met his.
“Yes.”
The car suddenly felt too small.
I looked down at Daniel's notebook in my lap.
Hours earlier, it had felt like an ending.
Now it felt like the beginning of something we had misunderstood.
“Take Evan home,” I said.
Elias looked at me.
“No.”
I almost laughed.
“You don't get to say no.”
“I mean you're not going back to that apartment tonight.”
“My apartment is not your decision.”
“Someone watched the building this morning.”
“And?”
“And Mara disappeared less than an hour after we opened a storage unit that had been sealed for three years.”
“That doesn't prove she knows where I live.”
“She hired you.”
The words stopped me.
Of course she knew.
Mara had processed my employment paperwork.
My address.
My emergency contact.
My work schedule.
Everything.
I looked at Evan.
He was still asleep.
His face looked younger when he slept. Sixteen instead of the stubborn, exhausted adult he sometimes tried to become.
“What are you suggesting?” I asked.
“A hotel.”
“No.”
“Adeline—”
“No place connected to you.”
He considered that.
“Fair.”
Samuel glanced between us.
“I have a sister in Cambridge.”
Elias shook his head immediately. “No civilians.”
Samuel's expression hardened.
“You're forgetting I was a civilian until your company rented half my building to criminals.”
Elias accepted the rebuke.
“I haven't forgotten.”
“Then don't tell me who gets to help.”
I was beginning to understand why Daniel had trusted Samuel.
He had the rare ability to speak to Elias Baron as though money and power were merely inconveniences.
“What about the clinic?” I asked.
Elias frowned.
“What about it?”
“They work with shelters.”
Jonah glanced at me through the mirror.
“They do.”
“There are temporary apartments for families dealing with medical problems. Evan's doctor mentioned them last year.”
Evan stirred.
“I heard that,” he mumbled.
I looked down.
“You're supposed to be asleep.”
“I was until everyone started planning my kidnapping.”
Samuel smiled faintly.
Elias didn't.
“We're not kidnapping you.”
“Good. Because Adeline gets very annoying when she's worried.”
“I am sitting right here.”
“I know.”
He opened his eyes.
“What's happening?”
I told him.
Not everything.
But enough.
Mara had left the mansion.
Someone might know about Unit 417.
We weren't going home tonight.
Evan listened without interrupting.
When I finished, he asked the question I had avoided.
“Do you think Mara killed Daniel?”
The car became silent.
Elias looked at me before answering.
“I don't know.”
Evan's jaw tightened.
“That's what everyone keeps saying.”
“Because guessing would be worse.”
“My brother is dead.”
“I know.”
“No, you knew him for a few weeks.”
Elias didn't react.
Evan continued.
“We knew him our whole lives.”
“I know that too.”
“Then stop acting like this is one of your business problems.”
“Evan,” I said.
“No.”
His voice cracked.
That was what silenced me.
Not the anger.
The grief beneath it.
For three years, Evan had rarely cried about Daniel. He had been thirteen when we lost him, old enough to understand death and young enough to believe he needed to become the man Daniel had left behind.
He had never been given permission to simply be Daniel's little brother.
“I don't care about Northstar,” Evan said. “I don't care about shipping routes or warehouses or your company. I want to know who killed him.”
Elias leaned forward.
“So do I.”
“Why?”
The question was almost cruel.
Elias could have defended himself.
Instead, he said, “Because he saved my life, and when he needed me to believe him, I didn't believe him enough.”
Evan stared at him.
“That doesn't make him your brother.”
“No.”
“It doesn't make you family.”
“No.”
“Then why do you care?”
Elias looked toward the window.
“Because sometimes failing someone creates an obligation that doesn't disappear when they die.”
Evan's anger faltered.
I understood the sentence better than he did.
Guilt could become a kind of loyalty.
A terrible one.
But real.
Evan leaned back.
“Fine.”
“Fine what?” I asked.
“I'll go wherever we're going.”
“That might be the easiest argument I've won with you this year.”
“Don't get used to it.”
Jonah contacted the clinic.
Twenty minutes later, we had an address.
The apartment belonged to a nonprofit organization that provided temporary housing to families whose medical circumstances made their regular homes unsafe or inaccessible.
It wasn't connected to Elias.
That mattered to me.
He paid nothing.
That mattered more.
We arrived shortly after nine.
The apartment was small, clean, and furnished with donated furniture. There were two bedrooms, a kitchen with mismatched plates, and a living room where someone had left a basket of paperback novels beside the sofa.
Evan inspected the refrigerator.
“There is actual food.”
I opened it.
Milk.
Eggs.
Vegetables.
Bread.
Someone had even left soup.
“Don't sound so surprised.”
“Our refrigerator contains mustard and emotional damage.”
Samuel laughed.
Even Elias smiled.
I didn't.
Mostly because Evan wasn't entirely wrong.
Jonah stayed downstairs.
Samuel returned home after promising to speak with investigators the following morning.
Elias stood near the apartment door.
For the first time since morning, he seemed uncertain.
It was strange seeing uncertainty on him.
“I should leave,” he said.
I nodded.
He looked at Evan.
“Take the antibiotics.”
Evan sighed.
“Yes, Mom.”
Elias blinked.
I covered my mouth.
Evan looked horrified by his own words.
For half a second, nobody knew what to do.
Then Elias laughed.
Not politely.
Actually laughed.
Evan groaned.
“Forget I said that.”
“Never.”
“You're terrible.”
“I've been called worse.”
Elias opened the door.
“Adeline.”
Something in his tone told me the conversation wasn't finished.
I followed him into the hallway.
The door closed behind me.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then he held out Daniel's notebook.
I hadn't realized he had taken it from the car.
“You should keep this.”
I accepted it.
“Thank you.”
“I had copies made of the relevant pages before we left the warehouse.”
“You work quickly.”
“I've learned that evidence has a habit of disappearing.”
I looked at him.
“So do people.”
His face tightened.
“Mara won't disappear.”
“You don't know that.”
“No.”
There was that answer again.
No promises he couldn't keep.
It should not have made me trust him more.
It did.
“What happens tomorrow?”
“Independent investigators will review Daniel's records. Counsel will contact law enforcement. Thomas Vale will be located if possible.”
“And Mara?”
“We find her.”
“We?”
He caught himself.
“I find her.”
“No.”
“Adeline.”
“She knew Daniel.”
“That doesn't mean you need to be involved.”
“She knew where I lived. She hired me. She put me on those cleaning routes.”
“I know.”
“What if that wasn't an accident?”
His expression changed.
I continued.
“What if she hired me because of Daniel?”
The possibility had been forming quietly since Samuel said her name.
Mara had interviewed dozens of applicants.
Why me?
Why a woman with no experience working in a mansion?
Why assign me to the private floors?
Why schedule me near restricted offices on precisely the nights information was accessed?
Elias had believed someone was using me.
Maybe he had been right.
Just not in the way he thought.
“Mara knew Daniel had a sister,” I said.
“Yes.”
“She could have recognized my name.”
“Yes.”
“She could have hired me deliberately.”
“Yes.”
“And then placed me near those rooms so that if records leaked, I would look responsible.”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
The hallway suddenly seemed colder.
“She wasn't just hiding what happened three years ago.”
“No.”
“She was preparing another version of the same story.”
Elias looked toward the apartment door.
“Which is why you stay here.”
I wanted to argue.
Instead, I asked, “What aren't you telling me?”
His gaze returned to mine.
“What makes you think I'm hiding something?”
“Because every time you become very calm, something terrible has happened.”
That almost earned a smile.
Almost.
Instead, he reached inside his coat and removed a folded sheet of paper.
“Mara left this on her desk.”
My name was written across the front.
Not Elias's.
Mine.
I unfolded it.
There was only one sentence.
ASK ADELINE WHAT DANIEL DID WITH THE SECOND LEDGER.
I read it twice.
Then again.
“I don't know what this means.”
“I believe you.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“You didn't this morning.”
“This morning I was an idiot.”
Despite everything, a laugh escaped me.
“You said it, not me.”
“I've had an educational day.”
I looked at the message again.
Second ledger.
Daniel's notebook had contained evidence.
But it wasn't a ledger.
“What ledger?”
“Northstar maintained two sets of financial records.”
“One legitimate?”
“One designed to look legitimate.”
“And the second?”
“Payments. Bribes. Unregistered transfers. Names.”
“Thomas had it?”
“I believed he destroyed it.”
“But Mara thinks Daniel had it.”
“Yes.”
I looked toward the apartment.
Evan.
Sixteen years old.
Sick.
Tired.
Trying to become a man because Daniel was no longer here to be his brother.
“No,” I whispered.
Elias followed my gaze.
“What?”
“Daniel wouldn't give something like that to me.”
“He gave you the key.”
“Because he knew I could decide whether to use it.”
I turned back to Elias.
“But a ledger that could destroy people? He wouldn't put that in my apartment.”
“Where would he put it?”
I knew immediately.
And the knowledge frightened me.
Elias saw the answer on my face.
“Adeline?”
“Daniel had a storage locker.”
“Where?”
“Not Harbor Exchange.”
“Where?”
“Fort Bragg.”
Elias went completely still.
“He kept one near the base,” I continued. “When he came home, he said he had too much equipment to travel with. After he died, the company told us his personal belongings had already been shipped.”
“Did you receive them?”
“Some.”
“Some?”
“Two boxes.”
“What was inside?”
“Clothes. Books. Boots. A watch.”
“Anything else?”
I thought back.
Three years.
Cardboard boxes on our kitchen floor.
Evan sitting beside me.
Daniel's smell still clinging to his jacket.
And something I had forgotten.
A small black case.
Locked.
“What?” Elias asked.
“There was a case.”
“What kind?”
“Metal. About the size of a briefcase.”
“Where is it?”
“I don't know.”
His eyes sharpened.
“What happened to it?”
“It wasn't ours.”
“How do you know?”
“Because a man came for it.”
The hallway became silent.
“What man?”
“I thought he worked with Daniel.”
“Name?”
“He said his name was Michael.”
“Last name?”
“I don't remember.”
“What did he look like?”
“Forties. Maybe older. Gray hair. Scar beside his left ear.”
Elias's expression changed so completely that my stomach dropped.
“You know him.”
He didn't answer immediately.
“Elias.”
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
“Michael Voss.”
I stared at him.
“Voss?”
“Mara's father.”
The paper trembled in my hand.
“He came to our apartment.”
“When?”
“Two days after Daniel's funeral.”
“And you gave him the case?”
“He had paperwork.”
“What paperwork?”
“I don't remember.”
“Think.”
I glared at him.
He stopped.
“Sorry.”
I closed my eyes.
Three years earlier.
Grief.
Funeral flowers.
Unpaid bills.
Evan crying in the bathroom because he didn't want me to hear.
A stranger at the door.
A document with Daniel's company logo.
“He said Daniel's employer had accidentally included classified materials among his belongings.”
“Did you see identification?”
“I was twenty-two and burying my brother.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
The words came harder than I intended.
But Elias didn't defend himself.
I continued.
“I wasn't investigating strangers. I wasn't looking for conspiracies. I was trying to remember whether Evan had eaten dinner.”
“I understand.”
“No. You understand now.”
He nodded.
“Yes.”
That was the difference between him and most powerful men I had met.
He didn't require forgiveness before admitting fault.
“What happened to Michael Voss?” I asked.
“He died eighteen months ago.”
“How?”
“Heart attack.”
“Are you certain?”
“As certain as I can be.”
I looked at Mara's note.
Second ledger.
“If the ledger was in that case, Michael had it.”
“Possibly.”
“Then why would Mara ask me where Daniel put it?”
“Because perhaps Michael didn't find it.”
A chill moved through me.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe the case wasn't the hiding place.”
I thought of Daniel.
His habit of hiding birthday money in books because he didn't trust wallets.
His love of puzzles.
His insistence that the obvious place was usually the first place someone looked.
Then I remembered the boxes.
Books.
Daniel's books.
Most had been sold.
We needed rent.
But one remained.
Evan had refused to let me sell it.
An old hardcover copy of The Count of Monte Cristo.
Daniel had read it three times.
It was sitting on our bookshelf.
Inside our apartment.
The apartment someone had watched that morning.
I looked at Elias.
He understood before I spoke.
“We need to go back.”
“No.”
“The book—”
“I'll send Jonah.”
“No.”
“Adeline.”
“That belonged to Daniel.”
“And someone may be waiting for you.”
“Then we don't walk in blindly.”
His eyes narrowed.
“What are you suggesting?”
I folded Mara's note and put it in my pocket.
“This morning, you followed me because you thought I was hiding something.”
“Yes.”
“You watched me without letting me see you.”
“Yes.”
“Then teach me how you did it.”
For several seconds, Elias stared at me.
Then, very slowly, he shook his head.
“That is the worst idea you've had today.”
“Not even close.”
“Adeline.”
“If Daniel hid the ledger in that book, Mara knows enough to look for it.”
“She may already have it.”
“Then we need to know.”
“I can send people.”
“And if one of your people is helping her?”
That silenced him.
Because three years earlier, Daniel had made the same mistake.
He had trusted the organization around Elias.
And someone inside it had killed him.
Finally, Elias exhaled.
“You stay in the car.”
“We'll discuss it.”
“That phrase is becoming irritating.”
“I learned it from you.”
For the first time since seeing Mara's note, his mouth curved slightly.
Then his expression became serious.
“If we find the ledger, everything changes.”
“Why?”
“Because Northstar wasn't stealing money.”
“What was it doing?”
He looked toward the stairwell.
“Buying people.”
I felt cold.
“Police?”
“Possibly.”
“Politicians?”
“Possibly.”
“Your employees?”
“Definitely.”
“And Daniel discovered it.”
“Yes.”
I looked back at the apartment door.
Three years ago, Daniel had told me he was working extra shifts.
Maybe that had been a lie.
Maybe every late night had been part of something larger.
“Elias?”
“Yes?”
“If Mara had Daniel killed…”
He waited.
I forced myself to finish.
“…and if you find proof, what will you do?”
The Elias Baron from the rumors might have answered differently.
The man standing before me didn't.
“I'll make sure she faces a court.”
I studied him.
“No private revenge?”
“No.”
“No disappearing?”
“No.”
“Even if Daniel died because of her?”
His gaze held mine.
“Especially then.”
I believed him.
And that frightened me more than anything.
Because trusting Elias Baron was beginning to feel less like a mistake.
And more like a choice.
We returned to my building shortly after midnight.
Jonah drove.
Elias sat beside him.
I remained in the back.
Evan stayed at the temporary apartment with a nurse from the housing program after threatening to call the police if we got ourselves killed.
It was probably the most responsible thing he had ever said.
We parked two blocks away.
My street appeared quiet.
Too quiet.
Rain had started again.
Elias gave me a dark jacket.
“Put this on.”
“Why?”
“Your coat is light-colored.”
I put it on.
It smelled faintly of cedar and rain.
His.
I tried not to notice.
We approached through the alley behind the building.
Jonah went first.
Elias stayed beside me.
At the rear entrance, the lock was broken.
My pulse accelerated.
“That wasn't like that before.”
Elias raised one hand.
Jonah disappeared inside.
Thirty seconds.
A minute.
Then he returned.
“Apartment door is open.”
My stomach dropped.
I moved forward.
Elias caught my arm.
“No.”
“My home—”
“Wait.”
“I've been waiting three years.”
His grip loosened immediately.
But he didn't let go.
“Thirty seconds,” he said.
I hated him for being right.
Jonah checked the apartment.
Then called us.
The door hung open.
Drawers had been emptied.
Cushions ripped.
Cabinets opened.
Daniel's photograph lay broken on the floor.
I stopped breathing.
Elias stepped around the glass and picked up the frame.
Carefully.
As if it were something alive.
I walked to the bookshelf.
Books covered the floor.
Every one had been opened.
Pages torn.
Covers bent.
The Count of Monte Cristo was gone.
“They found it,” I whispered.
Elias crouched beside the shelf.
“No.”
I looked at him.
He reached behind the wooden backing.
His fingers found something taped beneath the bottom panel.
A small envelope.
My name was written across it.
Daniel's handwriting.
I sank to my knees.
Elias handed it to me.
Inside was a brass key.
Smaller than the first.
And a note.
Adeline—
If someone searched the books, they still don't understand me.
The ledger isn't here.
It's where you told me nobody ever looks because everyone hates doing laundry.
I stared at the words.
Then I laughed.
I couldn't help it.
Three years of grief.
A destroyed apartment.
Dangerous people.
A criminal organization.
And Daniel had hidden the most important evidence of his life somewhere connected to laundry.
Elias looked confused.
“What?”
I wiped tears from my face.
“Our mother's house.”
“What about it?”
“The old laundry room.”
“Where?”
“Dorchester.”
I stood.
“Daniel rebuilt the cabinets there six months before he died.”
Elias looked at the note.
Then at me.
“He hid the ledger inside your mother's house.”
I nodded.
“Apparently.”
Jonah appeared in the doorway.
“We have company.”
The laughter vanished.
“What kind?” Elias asked.
Jonah looked toward the hall.
May you like
“The kind carrying guns.”
And downstairs, someone kicked open the building's front door.
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