Chương 10
Tobias saw it.
“Don’t.”
“I’m not answering.”
“Put it down.”
“No.”
“Rosalind.”
“For fifteen years everyone has decided what I should and shouldn’t know.”
“That message is designed to make you react.”
“It worked.”
Penelope whispered, “Could it be Julian?”
I looked at her.
“Call him from Evelyn’s phone.”
Tobias shook his head.
“No outgoing calls tied to this location.”
“Then drive somewhere else.”
“We don’t know whether his phone is compromised.”
“That’s the point.”
I held up Penelope’s second phone.
“If he answers this number while somebody else is texting from it, we learn something.”
Tobias stared at me.
Then the corner of his mouth moved.
“What?”
“That was sensible.”
“Try not to sound shocked.”
“I’m adapting.”
It was almost funny.
Almost.
Evelyn handed Penelope a cheap prepaid phone.
“Call Julian’s office number, not his personal one.”
Penelope knew it from memory.
That irritated me for reasons I decided not to inspect.
She dialed.
A receptionist answered after four rings.
Penelope changed her voice slightly.
She sounded younger.
“I’m trying to reach Mr. Mercer regarding a freight authorization.”
The receptionist asked for a name.
“Clara Benson.”
I looked at her.
She shrugged.
Apparently adultery involved improvisational skills.
The receptionist put her on hold.
Soft instrumental music filled the kitchen.
Tobias checked the front window again.
Evelyn stood beside the back door.
I kept watching the second phone.
No new messages.
Then Julian Mercer came on the line.
“This is Julian.”
Penelope closed her eyes.
It was a tiny reaction.
Relief.
“Julian, it’s me.”
Silence.
Then his voice changed.
“Where are you?”
“Safe.”
“Penelope, where are you?”
“I said safe.”
“Garrett is looking for you.”
The four of us exchanged glances.
“How do you know?”
“He called me.”
Penelope’s face tightened.
“Why would he call you?”
Another silence.
Julian said, “Because he knows.”
She sat down.
“Knows what?”
“About us.”
Her hand moved protectively over her stomach.
I felt no satisfaction.
Not even a little.
“What did he say?”
“He asked whether I had seen you.”
“And?”
“I told him no.”
“Did he believe you?”
“No.”
Tobias mouthed, Ask about the message.
Penelope nodded.
“Did you text my other phone?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Why would I lie about that?”
She looked at me.
I gave her nothing.
“There’s someone texting me from an unknown number.”
“What are they saying?”
“That Rosalind survived.”
The line went quiet.
Too quiet.
Tobias leaned closer.
Julian finally said, “Is that true?”
Penelope looked at me.
I shook my head.
She answered, “I don’t know.”
“Pen.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Fine.”
His voice dropped.
“If Rosalind survived, she needs to stay away from Baltimore.”
My heart kicked.
Tobias took the prepaid phone and put it on speaker.
“Why?”
Julian’s breathing changed.
“Who is that?”
“Tobias.”
A long pause followed.
Then Julian laughed once.
“No, it isn’t.”
Tobias looked at his own legs.
“That response is becoming tiresome.”
“You’re alive?”
“Yes.”
“And walking?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“Julian.”
“What?”
“Why should Rosalind stay away from Baltimore?”
The humor vanished.
“Because Garrett called somebody at Mercer Marine thirty minutes ago.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
Penelope looked at me.
Evelyn closed her eyes briefly.
Julian continued.
“They spoke for six minutes.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You run the company.”
“I run operations.”
“Your father founded it.”
“Yes.”
“Can you access his calls?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know Garrett called?”
“I was standing outside his office when it happened.”
Tobias’s voice flattened.
“And you happened to be there.”
“I work there.”
“Tonight?”
“We have an overnight shipment.”
That was plausible.
Our industry did not respect dinner.
Neither did emergencies involving cranes, permits, weather windows, or clients who believed money could alter physics.
Julian said, “After the call, my father told security to lock the south archive.”
Evelyn’s eyes opened.
“What archive?”
Julian heard her.
“Who’s that?”
“Evelyn Shaw.”
Another pause.
Then something shifted in his voice.
“Evelyn?”
She stepped toward the phone.
“You know me?”
“No.”
“You hesitated.”
“My father knows you.”
That surprised her.
I saw it.
“How?”
“He keeps a photograph of you in his desk.”
Nobody spoke.
Julian continued cautiously.
“It’s old.”
Evelyn’s face became unreadable.
“What photograph?”
“You’re standing beside a dock with three men.”
“Which men?”
“My father, Charles Aldridge, and somebody I don’t recognize.”
Garrett’s father.
I looked at Evelyn.
She had spent the evening talking about Charles Aldridge as though she had investigated him from a distance.
“Evelyn.”
Her eyes remained on the phone.
“How old is the picture?”
“Maybe twenty years.”
“Describe the fourth man.”
“Tall, dark hair, glasses.”
“That could be anyone.”
“He has a scar over his right eyebrow.”
Tobias inhaled sharply.
I turned.
“What?”
He looked at Evelyn.
She did not look back.
“My father.”
The kitchen seemed to empty of air.
Julian said, “What?”
Tobias’s voice was very quiet.
“Our father had that scar.”
I remembered it immediately.
A pale line through his eyebrow from a shipyard accident before I was born.
He used to claim it came from fighting pirates whenever Penelope asked about it as a child.
Evelyn put both hands on the table.
“You need to hang up.”
“No,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You knew Julian’s father.”
“It was business.”
“You knew Garrett’s father.”
“Yes.”
“You knew my father.”
“Of course I knew your father.”
“That photograph sounds less like an investigation and more like a meeting.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“Both things can be true.”
“Then explain.”
“Not here.”
Tobias’s patience broke.
“Stop saying that.”
His voice cracked harder than mine ever had.
Evelyn stared at him.
He stepped closer.
“You told me Charles Aldridge arranged the crash.”
“I told you the evidence pointed toward him.”
“You showed me a photograph.”
“Yes.”
“You built my entire understanding of what happened around that photograph.”
“I built nothing.”
“I spent eleven years pretending my body was broken because you told me somebody was waiting to see whether I recovered.”
“And somebody was.”
“Who?”
Evelyn did not answer.
May you like
That was an answer.
I felt something inside me shift.
