Chapter 10 - NORA’S SON
Daniel Bell was arrested at an airport outside Boston.
He was carrying forty thousand dollars in cash and a passport bearing the name Andrew Cole.
Ramirez questioned him for three hours.
Then she called Ethan.
“You need to hear this.”
Ethan arrived at the state investigation office after dark.
Daniel sat behind glass.
He was twenty-six now.
Thin.
Nervous.
Nothing like the dangerous criminal Ethan had imagined.
Nora sat in another room.
She had not yet been told her son was alive.
Ramirez handed Ethan a transcript.
“Daniel has worked for Victor since he was twenty-one.”
“Doing what?”
“Deliveries.”
“Cash.”
“Documents.”
“Surveillance equipment.”
Ethan looked toward him.
“Did he know about Lily?”
“Not at first.”
“When did he find out?”
“Two years ago.”
The exact time Nora brought Lily into Blackwood Manor.
Ethan’s stomach tightened.
“Was he involved?”
Ramirez shook her head.
“He says Victor threatened Nora through him.”
Ethan frowned.
“How?”
“Victor told Daniel that if Nora ever stopped cooperating, Daniel would be arrested for financial crimes Victor had arranged in his name.”
Ethan stared through the glass.
Victor had controlled mother and son by convincing each that the other’s survival depended on obedience.
Neither knew the other was trapped.
“Does Nora know he’s here?”
“Not yet.”
Ethan looked at Ramirez.
“Tell her.”
Nora entered the interview room ten minutes later.
Daniel stood.
For a moment, neither moved.
Then Nora whispered his name.
Daniel began crying.
“Mom.”
She crossed the room.
The officers allowed them to embrace.
Nora clung to him as if twenty years had vanished.
Ethan watched from behind the glass.
He did not forgive her.
Not yet.
Perhaps never.
But he understood her differently.
Victor had found every weakness people carried and turned it into a chain.
Daniel eventually provided investigators with the most valuable evidence yet.
A storage unit.
Victor had required him to move boxes there after each major operation.
“He called it insurance.”
“What kind of insurance?” Ramirez asked.
“Against everyone.”
Inside the storage unit, police found financial records.
Burner phones.
Audio recordings.
Medical files.
Photographs.
Copies of bribes.
And a metal lockbox labeled B.W. CONTINGENCY.
Marcus opened it under police supervision.
Inside was a handwritten list.
Twelve names.
Beside each name was a date.
Jonathan Blackwood.
Thomas Weller.
Claire Donovan.
Amelia Blackwood.
Lily Blackwood.
Ethan Blackwood.
And six others.
Some had the word COMPLETE beside them.
Others said CONTROLLED.
Ethan’s name said TONIGHT.
Amelia’s said AFTER VOTE.
Lily’s said DISCREDIT.
Thomas Weller’s entry said FAILED.
Ethan looked at Ramirez.
“Failed?”
She nodded.
“That means he may still be alive.”
The storage unit contained one more item.
A photograph taken six months earlier.
An elderly man entering a church in Maine.
On the back was written:
WELLER LOCATED.
WAIT FOR AUTHORIZATION.
Thomas Weller had spent seven years hiding.
And Victor had found him.
Ethan stared at the photograph.
“If Weller has been alive this entire time, he may know why Jonathan created the trust.”
Ramirez nodded.
“And who else was involved before Victor.”
The next morning, Ethan, Marcus, and two detectives flew to Maine.
They found the church.
They found the priest.
But Thomas Weller was gone.
His room had been emptied overnight.
On the bed was a single envelope addressed to Ethan.
Inside was one sentence.
IF YOU FOUND THIS, VICTOR HAS ALREADY LOST.
Beneath it was an address.
May you like
And three words.
COME WITHOUT POLICE.
