Chapter 4 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
I turned toward the door.
Then he spoke again.
“Tessa, there’s something else.”
I stopped.
His voice had changed.
The hesitation was gone.
In its place was the controlled, dangerous calm I’d heard whenever something serious threatened his organization.
“I need you to come back to the desk.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
“Because after I left your apartment, I started looking into the missing money.”
I turned around.
“And?”
“The transaction wasn’t what Carlo claimed.”
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“Your credentials appeared in the approval history, but the underlying records were inconsistent.”
“Then someone used my account.”
“That’s what it looks like.”
I felt a wave of anger.
“Who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Roman opened a drawer.
He removed a thick folder and placed it on the desk.
“But I found something connected to your brother.”
I went still.
“Leo?”
Roman nodded.
“Have you ever heard of Eastbridge Patient Transport?”
The name meant nothing to me.
“No.”
“According to some records, it’s a medical transportation company.
But several of its business addresses don’t appear to be legitimate.”
A cold sensation moved through my chest.
“What does that have to do with Leo?”
Roman opened the folder.
“Someone paid people connected to that company to watch you.”
I stared.
“What?”
He slid several photographs across the desk.
The first showed me leaving Caldwell Tower.
The second showed me outside a grocery store.
The third showed our apartment building.
I felt my breathing change.
Then I saw a photograph of Leo.
He was outside his former rehabilitation clinic, sitting in his wheelchair beneath a gray winter sky.
The picture had clearly been taken from a distance.
My hands went numb.
“Who took these?”
“That’s what I’m trying to establish.”
I picked up another photograph.
Leo near our apartment window.
Another.
Leo waiting outside a pharmacy.
Another.
Me helping him into a medical transportation vehicle.
Every photograph had been carefully labeled.
Our names.
Our home address.
Our regular appointments.
Even the approximate times I left for work.
I looked up at Roman.
“Someone has been following my brother?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Some of these images are several months old.”
I pressed a hand against my mouth.
The room suddenly felt too small.
Someone had watched Leo while I was working.
Someone had watched him when he was alone.
Someone had documented every place where he might be vulnerable.
Roman leaned forward.
“Tessa, I need you to think carefully.
Has anyone approached you about Leo’s accident?”
My heart gave a violent thud.
For a second, I was back in a hospital corridor seventeen months earlier.
I remembered the smell of disinfectant.
The constant beeping of medical equipment.
Leo unconscious behind a glass door.
And a man in a dark coat telling me that asking the wrong questions could make everything worse.
I had buried that memory.
I’d told myself forgetting was the only way to keep Leo safe.
Now Roman was watching my face.
“Tessa?”
I swallowed.
“No one recently.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie.
But it wasn’t the truth.
Roman noticed.
His eyes narrowed.
“What happened the night your brother was injured?”
I looked at the photographs.
“Leo was hit by a vehicle near the waterfront.”
“Police report says he lost control of his bicycle on a wet road.”
I flinched.
“That’s what they said.”
“Do you believe it?”
For seventeen months, I’d avoided that question.
Because believing something different meant accepting that Leo might not have been hurt by chance.
And if the accident hadn’t been accidental, then someone had deliberately destroyed his life.
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
Roman studied me.
Then he pulled out another photograph.
“One of my security investigators captured this image yesterday near your building.”
He placed it facedown.
“Before I show you, I need to ask something.”
My heart was hammering.
“What?”
“If you recognize the person, will you tell me the truth?”
I couldn’t answer.
Roman turned the photograph over.
A black SUV stood beside a warehouse entrance.
Next to it was a man wearing a dark overcoat.
His face was turned toward the camera.
His hair had grown longer.
He had lost weight.
But I recognized his eyes.
And the distinctive silver ring on his right hand.
My breath stopped.
Suddenly, the office disappeared.
I could hear hospital doors opening.
I could smell rain on wet concrete.
And I could hear the voice of a man who had once leaned close to my ear and told me that my brother’s life depended on my silence.
I grabbed the edge of Roman’s desk.
“Tessa?”
His voice sounded distant.
I shook my head.
“No.”
Roman stood.
“Do you know him?”
I tried to speak.
Nothing came out.
Because the man in the photograph belonged to a night I had never told Roman about.
A night involving a missing police report.
A frightened nineteen-year-old boy.
And a secret I had promised to take to my grave.
Roman stepped closer.
“Tessa.
Look at me.”
I couldn’t.
I kept staring at that face.
At the silver ring.
At the man who should never have been standing outside my apartment building.
Because seventeen months earlier, I had been told he was dead.
And if he was alive, then almost everything I believed about Leo’s accident was a lie.
Roman’s voice dropped.
“Who is he?”
My lips trembled.
I knew that answering would pull Roman into the secret I’d spent nearly two years hiding.
But remaining silent might cost Leo his life.
I looked up.
And finally began to tell Roman Caldwell what had really happened on the night my brother stopped walking.
“His name is Elias Rourke.”
The words barely made it past my lips.
Roman Caldwell stood on the opposite side of his desk, watching me with an expression I couldn’t read.
“Who is Elias Rourke?”
I looked down at the photograph.
The man beside the black SUV was wearing an expensive coat.
His dark hair was shorter than I remembered, and there were new lines around his eyes.
But the silver ring was unmistakable.
A wide band engraved with a small black eagle.
I’d stared at that ring for nearly an hour while my brother lay unconscious in a hospital operating room.
“He was a detective,” I whispered.
Roman’s expression changed.
“Police?”
I nodded.
“He handled Leo’s accident.”
Roman picked up the photograph.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you react like you’d seen a ghost?”
My throat tightened.
Because the answer sounded impossible.
“Because eight months ago, I read his obituary.”
Roman went completely still.
I forced myself to continue.
“There was a fire at a warehouse in Brooklyn.
The newspaper said he died inside.
There was a photograph of him in the article.”
Roman looked at the picture again.
Then he picked up his phone.
“Find everything you can about a former detective named Elias Rourke,” he told someone.
“Employment history.
Death records.
The warehouse fire.
And I want to know who owns that SUV.”
He ended the call.
Then he looked at me.
“Start from the beginning, Tessa.”
I closed my eyes.
For seventeen months, I’d avoided speaking about what happened the night Leo was injured.
I’d told people the same simple story.
A wet road.
A bicycle accident.
A terrible injury.
May you like
But that wasn’t the whole truth.
And Roman Caldwell was the last person I’d ever intended to tell.
