Chapter 6 - The BoathouseThe attack lasted ninety-three seconds.
The photograph suggested something far more dangerous.
Julian Mercer had known Cassandra personally.
Very personally.
The image was dated three months before Julian's plane crash.
Cassandra stood beside him at a marina in Connecticut.
She wasn't merely standing near him.
Her hand rested against his chest.
Julian's arm circled her waist.
They were smiling.
Elena studied Adrian.
“You didn't know?”
“No.”
His answer was sharp.
“I knew Julian had a relationship he refused to discuss. I didn't know it was her.”
Detective Shaw looked between them.
“This changes motive.”
“It changes everything,” Adrian said.
He enlarged the photograph.
In the background was a white yacht.
Name visible along the stern.
NORTHSTAR.
Elena pointed.
“There.”
Adrian stared.
Project Northstar hadn't begun as an accounting term.
It was a boat.
Thomas's phone contained hundreds of files.
Encrypted emails.
Photos.
Voice recordings.
Copies of expense reports.
And a hidden folder titled J.M.
Julian Mercer.
They returned to Adrian's Manhattan townhouse before opening it.
Shaw refused to come.
“If anyone learns I gave you that phone, I'm finished.”
Adrian looked at him.
“You could help expose them.”
“I have a wife and a nine-year-old daughter.”
Elena understood.
Shaw placed Thomas's phone on the table.
“Then expose them fast.”
He left.
At midnight, Elena sat in Adrian's study while his cybersecurity specialist decrypted the J.M. folder.
Adrian stood near the fireplace.
Silent.
Angry.
Elena realized the photograph had reopened something he had spent years turning into determination.
“You loved him.”
Adrian looked at her.
“He raised me.”
“Your parents?”
“Father died when I was fourteen. Mother got sick two years later.”
His gaze moved toward an old photograph on the bookshelf.
Two teenage boys.
Julian older.
Adrian younger.
“Julian was twenty-two when he became my guardian.”
Elena picked up the picture.
“He looks like you.”
“He hated when people said that.”
“Why?”
“He said he was better-looking.”
Elena smiled.
Adrian did too.
Briefly.
Then the computer chimed.
The folder opened.
The first file was an audio recording.
Adrian pressed play.
Julian's voice filled the room.
“If you're hearing this, I've probably failed to stop Cassandra.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
It was the first time he'd heard his brother's voice in years.
Julian continued.
“I met Cassandra Vale during the Brookhaven acquisition investigation. At first I thought she wanted to help.”
Another voice entered.
Cassandra's.
You promised you wouldn't record me.
Julian answered.
You promised nobody would get hurt.
Elena looked at Adrian.
The recording continued.
Cassandra said, My father built Northstar before I was old enough to understand what it was.
Julian: Then shut it down.
Cassandra: You don't understand.
Julian: I understand hidden cameras in hotel suites. I understand judges accepting women and money. I understand senators being recorded. I understand companies being threatened into contracts.
Cassandra: Harrison started it.
Julian: And you're running it now.
Silence.
Then Cassandra said softly:
I'm trying to survive him.
Julian: By becoming him?
The recording ended.
Adrian stared at the speaker.
Elena whispered, “She was involved with him.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe she loved him.”
Adrian's face hardened.
“Don't.”
“I'm not defending her.”
“She killed him.”
“We don't know that.”
“You watched her try to kill you.”
“And maybe she did the same to him. But if we're going to prove it, assumptions won't help.”
Adrian looked at her.
She held his gaze.
Eventually he nodded.
They opened the next file.
Video.
Julian sat at a desk.
“If Cassandra tells the truth, Harrison Vale created Northstar twenty years ago.”
He explained.
Vale International's luxury hotels gave the family access to powerful people.
Private suites.
Board meetings.
Political fundraisers.
Affairs.
Drug use.
Bribes.
Secret negotiations.
Hidden cameras turned private weakness into corporate leverage.
Harrison built the network.
Cassandra expanded it.
But according to Julian, father and daughter had begun fighting over control.
“Harrison wants the system buried,” Julian said. “Cassandra wants to use it.”
Adrian paused the video.
“So Harrison wasn't protecting her yesterday.”
Elena remembered the hospital.
“He was afraid of her.”
“Exactly.”
Another file contained emails between Julian and Cassandra.
Most were cautious.
A few were intimate.
I wish we had met before all this.
You can still walk away.
Not without destroying him.
Come with me.
I can't.
Then one final email from Julian:
I found the master archive. Tomorrow I'm taking it to federal investigators.
Sent the night before his plane crashed.
Elena felt sick.
“Where was he flying?”
“Washington.”
“To meet prosecutors?”
Adrian nodded.
The computer specialist opened another document.
Flight maintenance record.
Someone had accessed Julian's aircraft four hours before departure.
Name:
DANIEL ROURKE.
Elena recognized it immediately.
“Cassandra's security chief.”
Adrian grabbed his phone.
“Still works for the family?”
“Yes.”
“Then we have our killer.”
“Maybe.”
Adrian looked frustrated.
“Why do you keep saying maybe?”
“Because we need evidence, not rage.”
He stared at her.
Then slowly lowered the phone.
“You're right.”
She returned to the files.
One encrypted folder remained.
MASTER LOCATION.
Password required.
Elena searched Thomas's notes.
Nothing.
Adrian searched Julian's emails.
Nothing.
Then Elena remembered something Cassandra had told her while drunk at a gala months earlier.
“My father gave me everything except the one thing I wanted.”
At the time Elena thought she meant affection.
Now she wondered.
“What did Cassandra want most?”
Adrian frowned.
“Control.”
“Maybe Northstar.”
She typed CASSANDRA.
Incorrect.
HARRISON.
Incorrect.
NORTHSTAR.
Incorrect.
Adrian watched.
Elena tried JULIAN.
The folder opened.
Inside was a map.
One location marked.
Bellweather Estate.
Specifically beneath the boathouse.
Adrian whispered, “The archive.”
A noise came from downstairs.
Glass breaking.
His security system began screaming.
Adrian stood.
“Stay here.”
“No chance.”
He opened a drawer and removed a handgun.
Elena stared.
“You keep that in your desk?”
“I have enemies.”
“You're proving Cassandra's point.”
Another crash.
Adrian moved into the hallway.
His security guards shouted downstairs.
Then gunfire.
Elena froze.
Adrian turned.
“Lock the door.”
He ran toward the staircase.
Elena did not lock the door.
Instead she looked back at the computer.
Someone had broken into Adrian's home minutes after they opened Julian's files.
That meant Cassandra knew.
Which meant their advantage was already disappearing.
Elena copied the folder onto three drives.
Then another thought struck her.
May you like
If the master archive was beneath the Bellweather boathouse, Cassandra had pushed Elena into the lake only yards away from the evidence capable of destroying her entire family.
And somewhere outside the study, armed men were now willing to kill them before sunrise.
