Chapter 3 - The Secret Her Father Died Protecting
They escaped through a fire stairwell and crossed three blocks before stopping in an abandoned townhouse owned by one of Gabriel's legitimate companies.
Claire sat at a kitchen table, wrapped in an oversized coat.
She still held the notebook.
Her hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Gabriel placed a glass of water in front of her.
She ignored it.
“Tell me everything.”
Gabriel leaned against the counter.
“I knew your father when he was thirty-eight.”
“You were twenty-two.”
“Yes.”
“You were already involved with the Kurohana Circle.”
“My father was.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“My father was grooming me to inherit his organization.”
Claire studied him.
“And your father?”
“Dead.”
“How?”
Gabriel looked down.
“Murdered.”
“By Pike?”
“Pike helped arrange it.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Everything was becoming connected.
“My father knew.”
“Yes.”
“That's why he kept secrets.”
“Yes.”
“Why did he die?”
Gabriel didn't answer immediately.
“Your father had evidence that would have destroyed several powerful people.”
“Which people?”
“Some are still alive.”
“Names.”
“Not yet.”
Claire slammed the notebook onto the table.
“You keep saying not yet.”
“Because someone is listening.”
She stared at him.
“Here?”
“Everywhere.”
Elias entered the room.
“We found the men who attacked the apartment.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“Who sent them?”
“Pike.”
“And the federal agents?”
“Gone.”
“Gone where?”
Elias hesitated.
“To the scene.”
Gabriel nodded.
Claire looked up.
“Why didn't they arrest Pike?”
Elias gave her a grim smile.
“Because Warren Pike has friends in places the public doesn't know about.”
Claire opened the notebook.
The first twenty pages were written in Japanese.
She read silently.
Gabriel watched her.
“What?”
“There's something wrong.”
“What?”
“The handwriting changes.”
He came closer.
“How?”
“This is my father's handwriting.”
She pointed to a page.
“But here it's different.”
“Could be copied.”
“No.”
She turned another page.
“This sentence uses an old regional form.”
Gabriel looked impressed.
“From Okinawa?”
“No. Northern Kyushu.”
She looked at him.
“My father didn't teach me this phrase until I was nineteen.”
Gabriel's expression changed.
“Who did?”
“My father's colleague.”
“Name?”
“Professor Sato.”
Gabriel's eyes hardened.
“Sato is dead.”
Claire's heart sank.
“No.”
“He died in a hospital in Kobe two years ago.”
She flipped through the notebook.
A folded photograph dropped from between the pages.
Three men stood outside a warehouse.
Thomas Bennett.
Gabriel's father, Richard Mercer.
And Professor Sato.
On the back, one sentence was written.
When the three of us disappear, the fourth man becomes visible.
Claire whispered, “Who is the fourth man?”
Gabriel looked at the photograph.
“We thought it was Pike.”
Claire studied the image.
“It's not.”
Gabriel turned.
“What?”
She pointed at the background.
A reflection in a window.
A man standing several yards away.
His face was partially hidden.
But Claire recognized his coat.
“I've seen him.”
“Where?”
“At the Monarch Room.”
Elias stepped closer.
“Who?”
“The man who asked the hostess for a private table.”
Gabriel's eyes narrowed.
“What was he wearing?”
“Charcoal coat. Gold watch. Silver serpent pin.”
Elias swore.
“Senator Hollis.”
Claire stared.
“A senator?”
Gabriel nodded.
“Senator Daniel Hollis.”
Claire understood the scale of the danger.
Pike wasn't working alone.
And Gabriel wasn't simply a crime boss protecting a business.
He had been fighting a war that reached into government.
Claire touched the page.
“What does this code mean?”
Gabriel looked at the numbers.
“Shipment dates.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Not shipment dates.”
“Then what?”
“Death dates.”
Silence.
Claire pointed.
“These are the dates your father, my father and Sato died—or disappeared.”
Gabriel's face went pale.
She turned the page.
There were four more dates.
One was next week.
Another was tomorrow.
Gabriel's phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
His jaw tightened.
“What?”
Elias asked.
Gabriel handed him the phone.
Elias read the message.
Then he looked at Claire.
“Someone has taken her father's grave stone.”
Claire stood abruptly.
“What?”
Gabriel stepped forward.
“Claire, you need to understand something.”
“What?”
“The attack tonight wasn't about the notebook.”
He looked at the page.
“It was a warning.”
“To whom?”
Gabriel's expression was grim.
“To anyone who still knows the truth.”
Claire stared at the final date.
Tomorrow.
The location beneath it was written in Japanese.
She translated it aloud.
“The old railway station.”
Gabriel's eyes met hers.
“That place was demolished fifteen years ago.”
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
She pointed to one tiny symbol.
“It says the underground platform.”
Gabriel went still.
“There is an underground platform.”
“Where?”
“Under the city.”
Claire folded the notebook.
“Then we're going.”
“No.”
She stared at him.
“You just said—”
“I said you need to stay alive.”
“And I said I'm done being kept in the dark.”
Gabriel moved closer.
“You don't understand what happens to people who enter my world.”
Claire looked into his eyes.
“I already entered it.”
She lifted the notebook.
May you like
“The moment somebody shot a bullet through my father's picture.”
For the first time, Gabriel had no answer.
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