Chapter 5 - My Father’s Last SecretI lunged.
Calvin shoved open a swinging door, knocking a tray from a server’s hands.
Plates shattered.
Someone yelled.
Behind us, men were shouting.
Calvin pulled me down a narrow hallway toward an emergency exit.
“Who are they?”
“My father’s men.”
“You expect me to trust you?”
“No.”
He kicked open the door.
“Just trust that they’re worse.”
We burst into an alley.
A black SUV turned the corner.
Calvin pushed me behind a delivery truck.
“Stay low.”
“You knew where I was!”
“I tracked the burner.”
“You said throw it away!”
“I was trying to reach you first.”
The SUV stopped.
Doors opened.
Calvin grabbed my shoulders.
“When I say run, go toward Third Avenue.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll follow.”
“That sounds exactly like something a man planning not to follow would say.”
For the first time that morning, his mouth almost curved.
“There’s my wife.”
A man rounded the truck.
Calvin hit him before he could speak.
The movement shocked me.
My husband worked in commercial real estate.
He played tennis badly.
He complained about carrying groceries.
Yet he dropped a man twice his size with three precise strikes.
Another attacker came from behind.
Calvin turned.
Too late.
The man slammed him against the brick wall.
I grabbed the nearest object—a metal trash-can lid—and swung.
It connected with the attacker’s shoulder.
He cursed.
Calvin finished the job.
Then stared at me.
“Remind me never to criticize your cooking.”
“Wrong moment.”
We ran.
Stephanie was waiting three blocks away in a borrowed sedan.
“How did she—”
“I called her before I found you.”
We jumped inside.
She accelerated before the doors fully closed.
For twenty minutes, nobody spoke.
Then I looked at Calvin.
“Who are you?”
He stared out the window.
“My name really is Calvin.”
“Comforting.”
“I worked for my father when I was younger.”
“Doing what?”
“Things I’m not proud of.”
“Financial crimes?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
His jaw tightened.
“I found people.”
“What people?”
“Debtors. Employees who disappeared. Witnesses.”
Stephanie glanced at him through the mirror.
“You told Brooke you sold commercial buildings?”
“I do now.”
I turned toward him.
“Did you hurt people?”
“No.”
“You hesitated.”
“I scared people.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Calvin looked at me.
“Once.”
The car felt suddenly smaller.
“A man had evidence against Evelyn. My father ordered me to retrieve it.”
“What happened?”
“I broke his hand.”
Stephanie whispered, “Jesus.”
Calvin continued.
“I was twenty-four. I told myself I was protecting my family.”
“And afterward?”
“I hated myself.”
He left his father’s operation months later.
Then Richard supposedly died.
Calvin believed the nightmare was over.
Until Richard returned.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“A place my father doesn’t know.”
Stephanie laughed nervously.
“Does such a place exist?”
Calvin gave directions to an old warehouse in Brooklyn owned by one of his legitimate companies.
Inside was a small office with no internet connection.
I opened my father’s archive again.
Calvin stood behind me.
When he saw the letter addressed to me, his expression changed.
“You never read this?”
“No.”
“What cipher is he talking about?”
“I don’t know.”
Stephanie searched the documents.
An hour later she found a scanned inventory of my father’s personal effects.
One item had been marked separately.
Harrington pocket watch — engraved B.L.
I knew it immediately.
Dad’s watch.
The one I inherited.
The watch currently sitting inside my apartment.
Calvin swore.
“My father knows.”
“How?”
“He knew your father kept physical ciphers.”
I stood.
“We have to get it.”
“No.”
“Without the watch, nobody accesses the reserve.”
“Which makes your apartment the first place they’ll search.”
“My apartment is exactly where your father expects me not to return.”
Stephanie nodded reluctantly.
“She has a point.”
Calvin stared at both of us.
“No.”
I folded my arms.
“You lied to me for six years. You do not get veto power today.”
Twenty minutes later we were driving back to Manhattan.
We entered through the parking garage.
Calvin knew the security blind spots.
That fact did not improve my opinion of him.
Our apartment door was open.
Inside, drawers had been dumped.
Furniture overturned.
Paintings pulled from walls.
My father’s old wooden keepsake box lay shattered.
But the watch wasn’t there.
Because I had hidden it inside something Calvin hated.
A porcelain swan my mother gave us.
I lifted the swan.
The base popped open.
Calvin stared.
“You’ve had a secret compartment in that ugly thing for six years?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me?”
“Apparently we both enjoy surprises.”
The watch was inside.
I twisted the back.
Nothing.
Stephanie noticed tiny engraved letters.
B.L.
My initials.
Below them were numbers.
4-13-7-21.
“Cipher,” she whispered.
Then we heard applause.
Slow.
Measured.
From the hallway.
A man walked into the destroyed apartment.
Late sixties.
Silver hair.
Expensive dark suit.
A familiar smile.
I had seen that face in wedding photographs.
Funeral photographs.
Family portraits.
Richard Lawson.
Dead for nine years.
Alive in my living room.
“My son,” he said, looking at Calvin.
Then his eyes moved to me.
“And finally, Brooke.”
Calvin stepped in front of me.
Richard smiled.
“Still pretending to be her husband?”
Calvin’s fists tightened.
Richard looked at the watch.
“Give me what belongs to my family.”
I stepped beside Calvin.
“No.”
Richard sighed.
“Your father said the same thing.”
My blood chilled.
May you like
Then he added:
“About an hour before I killed him.”
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