I SPENT 120 HOURS ON A LUXURY YACHT WITH MY MISTRESS

The first thing I did after watching Anna's video was order Daniel to investigate Evelyn Hayes.

The second thing I did was realize that ordering people to investigate Anna's family was exactly the kind of behavior that had driven her away.

Unfortunately, understanding the contradiction didn't stop me.

Fourteen years of power had created habits that remorse couldn't erase overnight.

"Find out where she lives," I told Daniel.

"And then?"

I looked at the frozen image of my wife's face.

"Nothing. Tell me where she is. Do not approach her."

Daniel studied me.

That hesitation would once have insulted me.

Now I understood it.

He was trying to determine whether I actually meant what I'd said.

"I'll make it clear to the team," he replied.

After he left, Gabriel closed my office door.

"You need to tell me what Anna meant."

"I don't know."

"You know something."

I stood beside the window, watching reporters gather outside the gates.

"She said Evelyn knows something about Dad's death."

Gabriel shook his head.

"Dad died in the hospital."

"That's what we were told."

"We saw the death certificate."

"We never saw the autopsy."

Gabriel frowned.

"There wasn't one. He had a heart condition."

"Did he?"

My brother stared at me.

I remembered the night our father died.

It had been November, eleven years earlier.

Richard Walker was fifty-nine.

He'd built the family's shipping empire from a modest trucking company into one of the largest private freight operations on the Eastern Seaboard.

Most of that business was legitimate.

Some of it wasn't.

He'd controlled everything with a combination of intelligence, charm, and calculated violence.

Then, one rainy evening, he collapsed at a private property in Westchester.

His oldest friend and business partner, Victor Sloane, called an ambulance.

By the time I reached the hospital, my father was dead.

Victor told us there had been a heart attack.

Our family physician confirmed a history of cardiovascular problems.

The funeral took place three days later.

I inherited the organization.

Victor remained my father's most trusted adviser.

And until that afternoon, I'd never questioned a single detail.

"Where's Victor?" I asked.

Gabriel checked his phone.

"At the Manhattan office."

"Get him here."

My brother hesitated.

"Nicholas, Anna is missing. We're talking about an old rumor from someone who hated our father."

"Then Victor should have no difficulty explaining it."

Gabriel left.

I opened an old photograph on my phone.

Richard Walker stood beside Victor Sloane outside a waterfront warehouse.

Both men wore dark suits.

Both were smiling.

Richard was holding a cigar.

Victor had one hand resting on my father's shoulder.

In the background stood a third man.

He was younger.

Thin.

Wearing a work jacket.

I'd never noticed him before.

I enlarged the image.

There was something familiar about his face.

Then I remembered Anna's father.

Thomas Hayes.

A dockworkers' union accountant who had died when Anna was seventeen.

I'd met him only through photographs.

According to Anna, he'd been killed in a workplace accident.

The photograph had been taken three months before his death.

I felt a pressure behind my ribs.

My father.

Victor.

Thomas Hayes.

Three men standing together at a warehouse.

And years later, Anna had married the son of one of them.

I called my attorney, Rebecca Shaw.

Rebecca was forty-six, sharp-minded, and one of the few people who had never pretended to be afraid of me.

"I need everything we have on Thomas Hayes," I said.

"Anna's father?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I just discovered he knew mine."

Rebecca was quiet.

Then she asked, "Nicholas, what exactly has Anna found?"

"I wish I knew."

"Are you calling because you want to find your wife or because you're afraid of what she'll reveal?"

The question irritated me.

Mostly because I didn't know the answer.

"Both," I admitted.

Rebecca exhaled.

"Then for once, you're going to have to choose which matters more."

That evening, Victor arrived at the mansion.

He was sixty-seven, impeccably dressed, with silver hair and a manner that made strangers trust him before he'd spoken three sentences.

He'd been present at almost every significant moment of my life.

My father's funeral.

My wedding.

The birth of Gabriel's daughter.

The funerals of men who had served the Walker family for decades.

He had taught me how to negotiate with dangerous people.

How to recognize betrayal.

How to hide fear.

I'd once told Anna that Victor was the closest thing I had to a second father.

Now, watching him cross my office, I noticed how carefully he studied the room.

"Nicholas," he said warmly. "Any news about Anna?"

"Not yet."

"I'm terribly sorry. She's a remarkable woman."

I wondered whether he meant it.

Victor sat.

"You wanted to see me?"

"Tell me about Thomas Hayes."

His expression barely changed.

"Who?"

"Thomas Hayes. Anna's father."

Victor folded his hands.

"A tragic accident, as I recall."

"You knew him."

"I knew hundreds of people at the docks."

I placed the photograph on my desk.

Victor looked down.

For the briefest moment, his face became completely still.

Then he smiled.

"Where did you find that?"

"An old family archive."

"Your father was sentimental about photographs."

"What was Thomas doing with you?"

"He handled union accounting. We had business dealings."

"What kind of business?"

"Payroll. Insurance disputes. Shipping contracts."

"Did my father have anything to do with Thomas's death?"

Victor looked at me with something resembling disappointment.

"Nicholas, your wife has vanished, and you're interrogating me about a twenty-year-old accident?"

"Answer."

"No. Your father did not kill Thomas Hayes."

I watched him.

"That wasn't precisely my question."

Victor's smile disappeared.

"Be careful what you allow grief to make you believe."

I leaned forward.

"What happened the night my father died?"

His eyes narrowed.

"Richard had a heart attack."

"At your house?"

"At the Westchester property."

"Were you alone?"

He looked toward the door.

"Yes."

"Who called the ambulance?"

"I did."

"Who signed the paperwork?"

"The attending physician."

"Who arranged the funeral?"

"Your mother."

"Who advised us not to request an autopsy?"

Victor said nothing.

I remembered.

He had.

Victor stood.

"I understand you're distraught. But I won't sit here while you rewrite your father's history because an estranged sister-in-law whispers conspiracies."

He straightened his jacket.

"Find your wife, Nicholas. And stop listening to people who want to destroy what's left of your family."

He walked out.

I sat motionless for nearly a minute.

Then I called Daniel.

"Review every camera angle from the moment Victor arrived."

"Why?"

"Because I want to know whom he calls when he leaves."

Daniel didn't question me.

Thirty-seven minutes later, he returned.

"Victor made one call from his car."

"To whom?"

"An unregistered number."

"Location?"

"Not yet."

"What did he say?"

"We don't have the conversation."

Daniel hesitated.

"But we have something else."

He showed me footage from the driveway.

Victor stepped into his car.

He closed the door.

For a few seconds, he appeared to stare straight ahead.

Then he struck the steering wheel hard enough to shake the dashboard.

I'd known Victor for thirty years.

I'd never seen him lose control like that.

The following morning, Rebecca brought me a report.

Thomas Hayes had died twenty-one years earlier at a warehouse in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

Official cause: accidental fall from an elevated loading platform.

His employer had filed a workplace compensation claim.

His widow received a settlement.

There had been no criminal charges.

Nothing particularly suspicious appeared until Rebecca showed me the insurance documents.

"The settlement was paid through a subsidiary," she said.

"Of Walker Freight."

She nodded.

"Your father's company."

"That doesn't prove anything."

"No."

She turned another page.

"But this might matter."

The safety investigator assigned to the accident had resigned six weeks later.

His name was Michael Rourke.

He'd moved to Pennsylvania.

Three years afterward, he died in a single-car collision.

"Coincidence?" I asked.

"Possibly."

Rebecca looked at me.

"But there's one more thing."

She produced a photocopy of a bank record.

Three weeks after Thomas died, a private account received a transfer of $250,000.

"Whose account?"

She pointed at the name.

Evelyn Hayes.

I stared at the paper.

Anna's sister had received a quarter of a million dollars after their father's death.

"From whom?"

"An entity called Eastern Maritime Holdings."

"Who owned it?"

Rebecca met my eyes.

"Victor Sloane."

For a moment, I believed I'd found the answer.

Victor had paid Evelyn to remain silent.

But then I remembered the video.

Evelyn hadn't looked like a woman who had been bought.

She'd looked like someone who had waited fourteen years to speak.

I asked Rebecca to investigate the transfer.

She returned that afternoon with unexpected information.

The money hadn't been deposited into Evelyn's personal checking account.

It had entered an account established in her name when she was twenty-six.

She'd never withdrawn it.

The funds had been frozen following a disputed identity verification.

Years later, they were transferred into a court-supervised account during an investigation involving Eastern Maritime Holdings.

Evelyn hadn't received a cent.

"Why would Victor transfer money into an account she couldn't access?" I asked.

"That's the interesting part," Rebecca said.

"The account was opened using forged identification."

I looked up.

"Someone wanted it to appear she'd been paid."

"Exactly."

And suddenly I understood what Victor had done.

He'd created evidence that Anna's sister had accepted hush money.

Evidence that could destroy her credibility.

Evidence I would have used against her if she'd made accusations fourteen years earlier.

Had I been manipulated into cutting Evelyn out of Anna's life?

Or had I simply welcomed an excuse because her questions made me uncomfortable?

I remembered our wedding reception.

Evelyn shouting near the front entrance.

Anna crying.

My father looking unusually pale.

Victor standing beside him.

And me, grabbing Evelyn's arm and ordering security to remove her.

I had told myself I was protecting my bride from a bitter relative.

What if I'd been protecting the men who had ruined her family?

At 6:40 that evening, an unknown number called.

I answered immediately.

No one spoke.

Then I heard a familiar voice.

"Nicholas."

Anna.

My entire body went rigid.

"Where are you?"

"Somewhere safe."

"Anna, please."

"Don't trace this call."

"I won't."

"You've already tried."

I closed my eyes.

She was right.

Daniel's team had begun attempting to identify the incoming number.

I raised my hand and ordered them to stop.

"Okay," I said softly. "They're stopping."

A long silence followed.

Then Anna asked, "Did you watch the video?"

"Yes."

"Did you understand it?"

"I understood that I hurt you."

"That's only part of it."

"I know about Thomas."

Her breathing changed.

"You found his name?"

"I found a photograph of him with my father and Victor."

She said nothing.

"Anna, I need to know what happened."

"Do you?"

"Yes."

"Even if it means the Walker family isn't what you believe?"

I looked at the photograph on my desk.

"Even then."

She paused.

"Fourteen years ago, Evelyn tried to tell me that our father's death wasn't an accident."

"I remember."

"You told me she was unstable."

I swallowed.

"Yes."

"You told me she wanted money."

"Yes."

"You told me that if I kept seeing her, I'd never be safe."

I couldn't speak.

"And I believed you."

Her voice trembled.

"I let you make me afraid of the only person who had loved me before you."

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

The words gave me no comfort.

Anna continued.

"Before Dad died, he was auditing shipping accounts for your father's company. He discovered payments that didn't match any legitimate cargo."

"What kind of payments?"

"Payments to people inside law enforcement. Payments connected to missing freight. Payments connected to men who disappeared."

I stared at the wall.

"Why didn't he go to the police?"

"He tried."

"What happened?"

"Three days later, he died."

My mouth went dry.

"Anna—"

"That's not the worst part."

I heard her take a breath.

"Evelyn found his original audit notebook."

"Where?"

"Somewhere Victor couldn't find it."

"Does it implicate my father?"

"It implicates Victor."

I gripped the phone.

"And someone else."

"Who?"

Anna's voice became very quiet.

"I don't know yet. That's why I'm not coming home."

A door closed somewhere near her.

She spoke faster.

"Listen to me carefully. Do not trust the old records in your house. Do not trust any evidence Victor brings you. And do not tell him we've spoken."

"I won't."

"Nicholas, you have to understand something."

"What?"

"My disappearance wasn't supposed to become a national story. I planned to leave quietly. The reward, the reporters, the investigators—everything you've done has made it harder for me to stay safe."

Guilt settled over me.

"I thought someone had taken you."

"You thought I couldn't possibly choose to leave."

I had no answer.

She continued.

"I don't need you to rescue me."

"Then what do you need?"

"For you to stop deciding what happens to me."

I closed my eyes.

"Okay."

Another pause.

"I don't know whether I can believe that."