Chapter 10 - A Choice No One Could Steal
The old Nora would have believed Cameron's threat meant I had to surrender. The woman I was becoming called Agent Brooks.
We traced Tessa's last known route. Her car had been left near a commuter station, but a camera showed her getting into a second vehicle voluntarily. For six agonizing hours, nobody knew whether she was hiding or had been taken.
Dante stayed beside me through the waiting. He didn't promise things he couldn't control. When I asked if he was scared, he said yes.
"Of Cameron?"
"Of how easy it would be to become the kind of man who thinks fear gives him the right to decide for someone else."
I looked at him. "You have done terrible things, haven't you?"
"Yes."
"Are you still doing them?"
He took a long breath. "I've spent years telling myself the legitimate businesses and the criminal ones could be separated. They can't. I know that now."
I didn't reward him for admitting it. I waited.
"I've asked Elena to begin dismantling the illegal operations and cooperating with investigators," he said. "I may lose everything."
"Then you'll know what's yours when it's over."
He smiled sadly. "I hope so."
That night, Tessa called from a borrowed phone. She had seen a man following her and fled to her aunt's house. Brooks arranged protection and took her statement.
Tessa brought a ledger copied onto microfilm. Rosa had hidden it inside a donated library book, which Cameron had later confiscated. Tessa secretly photographed every page.
The records connected Hale Foundation grants to Sloane's shell companies and a private medical facility where Daniel Mercer had been held. They also contained a payment labeled MERCER TRANSFER—FINAL.
I pointed to the date. "This was three days ago."
"Your father may have been moved," Brooks said.
Amelia, who had been listening quietly, suddenly spoke. "I know that place."
She recognized the facility's code from medication boxes at Morning House. It was a clinic in northern Wisconsin, registered under a different name.
Brooks organized another search. This time, I didn't demand to go. I sat with my mother and sister at the Meridian, watching the rain slide down the windows.
"I used to think family meant people who never left," Amelia said.
Evelyn bowed her head.
"Now I think it means people who come back and tell the truth," Amelia finished.
I squeezed her hand.
Just after dawn, Brooks called. They had found Daniel Mercer alive. He was weak, disoriented, and under medical care, but he had asked for his daughters.
I dropped the phone. For a moment I couldn't move.
Then Cameron's face appeared on the television in the lobby. He was standing beside Senator Hale at a press conference.
"These accusations are fabricated," the senator declared.
Cameron leaned toward the microphone. "And I can prove who manufactured them."
He held up a photograph of Dante standing outside a warehouse.
"Dante Valenti," Cameron said, "ordered the murder of Luca Valenti himself."
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The lie was outrageous.
And I knew exactly how many people would believe it.
