Chapter 2 - THE PINK MOONI did not call out.
Combat had taught me that announcing your presence was sometimes the quickest way to lose the advantage.
I killed the headlights two houses away, stepped from the truck, and moved toward my home through the neighbor’s dark side yard.
Smoke leaked from the nursery window.
Not thick black smoke.
Controlled smoke.
Someone was not trying to burn down the house.
They were trying to destroy something specific.
I reached the backyard and saw the kitchen door hanging open.
The police had supposedly secured this place.
Either someone had broken through their seal, or they had never truly secured it at all.
I entered.
The smell hit me immediately.
Gasoline.
Burned fabric.
Fresh plaster.
I moved through the hallway and heard footsteps upstairs.
One person.
Maybe two.
A dull metallic crash followed.
Then a man cursed.
I climbed the stairs silently.
The nursery door stood open.
Someone wearing black clothes and a respirator was ripping drywall from behind the crib.
The pink moon mural had been smashed apart.
A second man stood beside a metal trash can where photographs and papers burned.
“Nothing,” the first man snapped. “She moved it.”
“Check the floor.”
I recognized the second voice.
Not the man himself.
The voice.
I had heard it at Blackwood family Christmas dinners.
It belonged to Graham Pike, Victor Blackwood’s longtime head of security.
I stepped into the doorway.
“Looking for something?”
Both men spun.
Pike’s eyes widened.
He reached beneath his jacket.
Bad decision.
I crossed the room before he cleared whatever he was reaching for.
His wrist hit the wall.
The weapon fell.
The other man charged.
I drove him into the crib hard enough to break the wooden rail.
He stumbled.
Pike swung at me.
I ducked, hit him once in the ribs, and slammed him against the wall.
“Where is it?” I demanded.
He spat blood onto the floor.
“You should have stayed overseas.”
That sentence told me more than anything else he could have said.
“You knew I was coming home?”
His face changed.
There it was.
Fear.
He drove his shoulder into me and broke free.
The second man threw a lamp.
Glass exploded.
They ran.
I followed them down the hallway, but by the time I reached the back stairs, a black SUV was tearing away from the house.
I memorized the partial plate.
Then I returned upstairs.
The nursery looked like someone had taken a sledgehammer to Claire’s dreams.
The rocking chair we picked together was overturned.
Stuffed animals had been gutted.
Baby clothes had been ripped apart.
The mattress was sliced open.
Whoever attacked Claire had believed she hid something here.
And they still hadn’t found it.
Pink moon.
I studied the mural.
Most of the painted moon had been destroyed.
Behind it was a shallow cavity.
Empty.
Pike had been right.
She moved it.
But where?
I stood in the center of the nursery and forced myself to think like Claire.
She knew she was being watched.
She knew her family could enter the house.
She had hidden something important enough for them to beat a pregnant woman almost to death.
What would Claire trust?
Not the walls.
Not furniture.
Something nobody else would understand.
My eyes landed on the mobile hanging above the crib.
Seven tiny wooden stars circled one silver cloud.
Claire made it herself.
Seven stars.
Seven brothers.
I reached up.
One star felt heavier.
I twisted it open.
Empty.
The second was empty.
Third.
Fourth.
Sixth.
Nothing.
The seventh contained a tiny brass key.
I stared at it.
Not evidence.
A key.
Behind me, the floor creaked.
I turned, ready to fight.
Detective Lena Ortiz stood in the doorway with her weapon lowered.
“What exactly are you doing at an active crime scene?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Your neighbor called about smoke.”
“You were fast.”
“I live twelve minutes away.”
I studied her.
Claire had mentioned Ortiz once.
Years ago they had attended high school together.
Not friends.
But Claire remembered people.
“Someone was here.”
“I gathered that.”
“Graham Pike.”
Her expression sharpened.
“You’re sure?”
“I spent Christmas dinner sitting across from him.”
“Anyone else?”
“Unknown male.”
Ortiz looked at the torn nursery.
Then at the brass key.
“What’s that?”
I closed my fist.
“My wife’s.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“My wife said one thing before losing consciousness. Nursery.”
Ortiz stopped writing.
“She spoke?”
“Yes.”
“What else?”
I hesitated.
“Pink moon.”
Ortiz slowly looked toward the shattered mural.
For the first time, the detective’s professional expression disappeared.
She looked frightened.
“You know what that means?” I asked.
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m telling you that you need to return to the hospital.”
“You knew this wasn’t a home invasion.”
Her silence answered.
I moved closer.
“Who are you afraid of?”
Her jaw tightened.
“You’ve been home less than an hour. You don’t understand what you walked into.”
“Then help me understand.”
Ortiz looked toward the hallway.
“Claire came to me three weeks ago.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“For what?”
“She believed somebody was stealing from the Blackwood Foundation.”
Victor’s charitable foundation controlled hundreds of millions of dollars.
Hospitals.
Veterans’ programs.
Children’s charities.
Claire served as financial director.
“How much?”
“At first she thought maybe two million.”
“At first?”
Ortiz took a breath.
“Then she discovered shell organizations, false construction contracts, dead beneficiaries, offshore transfers.”
“How much?”
“Claire estimated one hundred eighty-six million dollars over twelve years.”
I stared at her.
“And her family?”
“She believed Victor knew.”
“Her brothers?”
“She wasn’t sure which ones were involved.”
I thought of seven men checking their watches.
“What was supposed to happen at midnight?”
Ortiz’s eyes widened.
“What?”
“They kept looking at the clock.”
She reached for her phone.
“What is it?”
“Claire scheduled something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. Three weeks ago she told me if anything happened to her, I should watch for a midnight delivery.”
The clock on my phone changed.
12:07 a.m.
Ortiz stared at her screen.
Nothing.
“No email?”
“No.”
“Maybe they stopped it.”
“Or maybe it didn’t go to me.”
My phone vibrated.
Unknown number.
One message.
CHECK WHERE WE PROMISED OUR DAUGHTER SHE WOULD SEE HER FIRST SUNRISE.
I knew immediately.
Claire and I had chosen a place months ago.
Our unfinished lake cabin forty miles west of Richmond.
We planned to take our daughter there after she was born.
I showed Ortiz.
She shook her head.
“You’re not going alone.”
“You think I trust you?”
“No. But somebody just tried to destroy your house.”
A second message arrived.
This one contained a photograph.
Claire.
Taken weeks earlier.
Standing inside the nursery.
Holding a black ledger.
Behind her, written on the pink moon in tiny letters, were seven names.
Her brothers.
Beside six names was a black X.
Beside the seventh was a question mark.
May you like
And beneath them Claire had written:
ONE OF THEM TRIED TO HELP ME.
Related Stories
