Chapter 6 - VICTORIA’S OFFER
Victoria called Nathan at ten that morning.
He nearly ignored it.
Grace stopped him.
“Answer.”
Nathan looked at her.
“She might tell you something.”
He accepted the call.
Victoria sounded exhausted.
“I need to see you.”
“No.”
“Nathan, please.”
“Your father threatened Grace.”
“My security company is connected to him.”
“You hid my daughter from me.”
“You knew about a forged birth certificate.”
“Tell me why I should meet you.”
Victoria was silent.
Then she whispered.
“Because I can give you Martin Vale.”
Nathan’s expression changed.
Grace heard the name.
She stepped closer.
Nathan asked.
“Where?”
“Not over the phone.”
“Then send me the address.”
“No.”
“Nathan, my father is watching everything.”
“Your father seems to have spent years doing exactly that.”
Victoria began crying.
For once, Nathan could not tell whether it was real.
“I didn’t know he would go this far.”
Nathan looked at Grace.
“She says she didn’t know.”
Grace’s expression did not change.
Nathan returned to the phone.
“Where are you?”
“A hotel near O’Hare.”
“Stay there.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Grayline found me.”
Nathan heard pounding through the phone.
Victoria gasped.
“Oh God.”
“Victoria?”
Another bang.
Then glass shattered.
Victoria screamed.
The line went dead.
Nathan was already moving.
Grace grabbed his arm.
“You cannot go alone.”
“I’m not.”
Nathan called the private security team.
Within eight minutes, two vehicles left the estate.
Nathan insisted Grace and Lily remain behind with protection.
Grace hated it.
But Lily needed her.
Nathan arrived at the hotel seventeen minutes later.
The hallway outside Victoria’s room was empty.
The door hung partially open.
Security entered first.
Nathan followed.
The room had been destroyed.
A lamp was broken.
The television lay face down.
Blood marked the edge of a desk.
Victoria was gone.
Nathan saw a phone on the carpet.
Her phone.
He picked it up using a handkerchief.
The screen was cracked.
A voice recording application was still running.
Nathan stopped.
He played the last forty seconds.
Victoria’s frightened voice filled the room.
“If you’re hearing this, my father knows I’m trying to leave.”
“He has Martin.”
“He has Voss.”
“He has everyone.”
A crash sounded on the recording.
Victoria continued quickly.
“The warehouse on Cicero.”
“Number fourteen.”
“Robert Cole’s ledger is only half the evidence.”
“The other half is—”
A door slammed.
A man shouted.
The recording ended.
Nathan stared at the phone.
One of the security men asked.
“Police?”
Nathan nodded.
“Yes.”
This time he did not wait.
Chicago police arrived.
Nathan provided the recording and the physical evidence from the estate.
Daniel contacted a federal prosecutor he trusted from an earlier corporate investigation.
By noon, the situation had expanded beyond Nathan’s control.
That was exactly what he wanted.
Charles could pressure individuals.
He could not easily erase an investigation once multiple agencies had copies.
Nathan returned home.
Grace met him in the foyer.
“Victoria?”
“Gone.”
Grace closed her eyes.
Nathan showed her a transcript of the recording.
“The warehouse on Cicero.”
Grace read it.
Her hands began shaking.
“I’ve been there.”
Nathan frowned.
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
“What happened?”
Grace looked toward Lily, who was coloring at a table across the room with a security officer nearby.
“Charles took me there before he sent me away.”
Nathan’s face darkened.
“Why?”
“He wanted something my father had hidden.”
“The ledger?”
“I think so.”
“What did they do?”
Grace looked at him.
For several seconds, she seemed unable to speak.
Nathan softened his voice.
“You do not have to tell me everything right now.”
“Yes, I do.”
She forced herself to continue.
“They kept me in an office for six hours.”
“Martin Vale kept asking where my father stored his records.”
“I kept telling him I didn’t know.”
Nathan’s fists tightened.
“Did he hurt you?”
Grace glanced toward Lily again.
Nathan understood the answer.
Grace whispered.
“He made sure there were no marks anyone would notice.”
Nathan looked away because she did not need to see his anger.
Grace continued.
“Victoria came in once.”
“She gave me water.”
Nathan looked at her.
“She helped you?”
“No.”
Grace shook her head.
“She asked me to give them what they wanted.”
“She said if I loved you, I would disappear.”
Nathan’s face became cold again.
Grace stared at the transcript.
“If Victoria is at that warehouse, Charles may be trying to find out whether she told you about the ledger.”
Nathan nodded.
“The police are getting a warrant.”
Grace suddenly looked at him.
“What if there’s another way inside?”
Nathan frowned.
“My father told me something when I was there.”
“He said warehouses built before 1980 often had storm access tunnels.”
Nathan stared at her.
“You remember where?”
“I remember the smell.”
“The sound of trains.”
“A red steel door.”
Nathan reached for his coat.
Grace stepped in front of him.
“No.”
Nathan looked at her.
“You just told me there may be a second entrance.”
“I told you so you could tell the police.”
“I am.”
“Good.”
“And I’m going with them.”
Grace shook her head.
“You have a daughter upstairs who learned who you are less than twelve hours ago.”
Nathan froze.
Grace’s voice softened.
“She has already spent four years without you.”
“Do not make your first decision as her father one that could leave her without you forever.”
Nathan stared at her.
The words reached somewhere anger could not.
He slowly lowered his coat.
“Fine.”
Grace exhaled.
Nathan called the detective leading the investigation.
He gave him everything Grace remembered.
Then he waited.
It was the hardest thing he had done all day.
Two hours later, the detective called back.
They had entered Warehouse Fourteen.
They found no Charles.
No Martin.
No Leonard Voss.
But they found Victoria.
Alive.
Barely conscious.
And beside her was a wall covered with photographs of Nathan, Grace, and Lily.
On a table lay a typed document.
It was dated three days in the future.
The title read.
May you like
LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF NATHAN ALEXANDER COLE.
*
