Chapter 2 - “No.”
His eyes moved to her.
“No?”
“Not yet.”
“A woman nearly died.”
“And releasing everything immediately tells whoever planned this exactly what evidence exists.”
“Pike planned it.”
“Maybe.”
“He planted the gun.”
“Probably.”
“We watched him do it.”
“We watched him do something deeply suspicious. That’s not the same as seeing the object leave his hand.”
Gabriel hated precision when Mara used it against him.
She knew.
She continued.
“What did Cole know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then find out before you start a war with a corporation whose annual security budget could fund a small nation.”
Gabriel leaned back.
“I don’t start wars.”
Mara looked at Vincent.
Vincent suddenly became interested in his shoes.
Gabriel sighed.
“Recently.”
“Better.”
Mara closed the laptop.
“You also do nothing to Pike.”
“I wasn’t planning anything.”
“Gabriel.”
He said nothing.
“No broken fingers. No damaged cars. No threatening visits. No messages through cousins. No disappearing business partners.”
“You have a very insulting opinion of me.”
“I have invoices.”
Vincent laughed this time.
Gabriel glared.
Mara became serious again.
“You help Emma by becoming the most boring witness in North Carolina.”
“That sounds unbearable.”
“You preserve evidence. You document everything. You let attorneys handle contact. You do not give Blackridge any opportunity to turn this into a feud involving Gabriel Moretti.”
“And if they go after her again?”
“Then we protect her.”
“How?”
“Legally.”
Gabriel stared.
Mara raised one eyebrow.
“Try it once.”
Emma woke the following afternoon.
The first thing she heard was beeping.
The second was a woman telling her not to move.
Her eyes opened.
White ceiling.
Hospital lights.
Then pain arrived.
Deep.
Heavy.
Enormous.
“My baby.”
A nurse leaned over her.
“Your son is alive.”
Emma began crying immediately.
“Where?”
“Neonatal intensive care.”
“I need him.”
“You’ve just had major surgery.”
“I need to see him.”
“You will.”
Emma moved one hand toward her stomach.
Flat.
Bandaged.
Wrong.
A broken sound escaped her throat.
“No.”
“Emma.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s alive.”
“Bring him.”
“He’s too fragile.”
Emma sobbed.
She asked whether he had fingers.
Toes.
Hair.
Whether he cried.
Whether he knew she existed.
The nurse answered what she could.
Ten fingers.
Ten toes.
A little blond hair.
He had made a faint cry.
He was receiving breathing support.
Then Emma remembered the gas station.
Her face changed.
“The Blackridge man.”
The nurse glanced toward the door.
“What about him?”
“He shot me.”
“I know.”
“They’ll say I did something.”
The nurse hesitated.
Emma saw it.
“They already did.”
The nurse did not answer.
Emma’s breathing quickened.
“I didn’t have anything.”
“Try to stay calm.”
“No. Listen to me. There was nothing in my hands.”
A man’s voice came from the doorway.
“I know.”
Emma turned.
Gabriel Moretti stood there.
Fresh clothes.
Dark trousers.
White shirt.
Exhaustion around his eyes.
“You.”
“Me.”
The nurse frowned.
“Family?”
“No.”
Emma swallowed.
“Let him stay.”
“Five minutes.”
When the nurse left, Gabriel stayed near the doorway.
Emma noticed he did not approach without permission.
She liked that.
“My baby?”
“Alive.”
“You saw him?”
“No. Hospital security apparently does not recognize charm as medical authorization.”
Emma almost laughed.
It hurt.
She winced.
Gabriel’s faint humor disappeared.
“What happened after I left?”
He told her.
Not everything.
Enough.
Then Emma asked, “Did they find something in my car?”
Gabriel’s face went still.
Her heart sank.
“What?”
“A handgun.”
“No.”
“I believe you.”
“There was no gun.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because the man who found it entered your car only after Pike had already searched it.”
Emma stared at him.
“What are you saying?”
Gabriel pulled a chair closer but still did not sit until she nodded.
Then he sat.
“I am saying the timeline is suspicious.”
“You saw him put it there?”
“I saw him enter his vehicle, return with his arm concealed, lean inside yours, and leave with an empty hand.”
Emma became very still.
“Do you have video?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Then they can’t lie.”
Gabriel looked away.
That frightened her.
“What?”
“Video makes lying harder.”
“You just said you have everything.”
“I do.”
“Then they can’t say I attacked them.”
“They can say anything.”
Emma’s face collapsed slightly.
“Then what’s the point of having proof?”
Gabriel met her eyes again.
“Because proof gives the truth somewhere to stand.”
The gas-station recordings disappeared before sunrise.
Vincent discovered it first.
Someone with administrator credentials had remotely accessed the system and erased six hours of footage.
Interior cameras.
Exterior cameras.
All gone.
The station owner swore he had not authorized it.
His cloud backup had also been deleted.
Gabriel’s SUV recording became the only known independent video of the shooting.
Mara looked at him across her office desk.
“This just became much worse.”
“It was already bad.”
“No. Before, we had one unstable man making a terrible decision.”
“And now?”
“Now somebody with access to the station’s system is cleaning up after him.”
Vincent placed another file on the desk.
“And this.”
Inside was the photograph Gabriel remembered.
Nolan Pike receiving an envelope behind Blackridge’s industrial recovery yard.
Cole Mercer visible in the background.
Mara studied it.
“How long have you had this?”
“Eight months.”
“And you did nothing?”
“It had nothing to do with us after we recovered the missing money.”
Mara stared at him.
“That sentence is going to become expensive.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“I was trying to keep my company clean.”
“So you saw possible corruption involving Blackridge and decided not to know more.”
“Yes.”
“And now a pregnant woman is in intensive care.”
Gabriel said nothing.
Mara softened slightly.
“You didn’t shoot her.”
“No.”
“But you’re wondering whether somebody might have stopped this earlier.”
“Yes.”
“That question will eat you alive if you let it.”
“Maybe it should.”
“No. Guilt is useful only if it changes future behavior. Otherwise it’s vanity.”
Gabriel looked at the photograph again.
“What do we do?”
“Find Cole.”
Two days later, Emma met her son.
A nurse pushed her wheelchair into neonatal intensive care.
Emma saw the incubator.
Then she stopped breathing.
He was so small.
That was the first thought.
The second was that he looked furious.
Tiny fists beside his cheeks.
Thin blond hair beneath a knitted blue cap.
Wires.
A breathing tube.
Tape that looked enormous against his face.
Emma touched the clear wall.
“Hi.”
Her voice shattered.
“Hi, baby.”
The nurse opened a small access door.
“You can touch him.”
Emma looked back.
“Really?”
“Gently.”
Emma slid her hand inside.
Two fingers touched his back.
Warm.
Moving.
Alive.
She cried without sound.
“I haven’t named him.”
“You have time.”
“Cole liked Caleb.”
The mention of Cole created a new pain.
Different from surgery.
No less real.
Emma looked at the tiny baby.
“Caleb.”
His fingers moved.
“That one,” she whispered.
“My Caleb.”
Cole Mercer appeared three days later.
Alive.
Bruised.
Dehydrated.
Terrified.
He had spent nearly a week inside an abandoned hunting cabin sixty miles away.
Nobody had kidnapped him.
Nobody had chained him to a chair.
Nobody had physically forced him to disappear.
Cole had run.
The truth hurt Emma more than any dramatic alternative would have.
When Mara brought him into her room, Emma stared at him for nearly a minute.
Then she slapped him.
Her arm was weak.
The impact was not.
Cole accepted it.
“You left me.”
“I know.”
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“You knew Blackridge might come looking.”
“Yes.”
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