Chapter 6 - Reunion and Resolution
Police raided the textile warehouse before midnight.
They found records sufficient to dismantle Northstar completely.
And in a locked office upstairs, they found a man chained to a radiator.
Alive.
Claire reached the hospital before anyone else.
Emily arrived holding her coin jar.
Daniel Mercer had imagined that reunion for eleven years.
But when his daughter entered the room, he couldn’t speak.
Emily stared at him.
“So you’re my dad?”
Daniel began crying.
“Yes.”
She studied him seriously.
“Where were you?”
“Trying to get home.”
“For eleven years?”
“I’m very bad with directions.”
Emily’s mouth twitched.
Then she climbed onto the bed and hugged him.
Claire turned away, sobbing.
Vincent quietly headed toward the door.
“Mr.
Romano?”
He stopped.
Emily held up her jar.
“You forgot your money.”
Vincent looked at it.
“That isn’t my money.”
“But you bought us a house.”
Claire frowned.
“He what?”
Vincent cleared his throat.
He had purchased their apartment building that afternoon through one of his legitimate companies, paying off its debts and transferring majority ownership to the tenants’ cooperative.
Claire stared at him.
“You bought the entire building?”
“No.”
Vincent looked at Emily.
“She did.”
Emily blinked.
“With forty-seven dollars?”
“Forty-seven dollars and eighty-three cents.”
Daniel laughed weakly from the bed.
Vincent placed the jar beside Emily.
“I supplied the rest.”
“How much?”
“Business information.”
Emily considered this.
May you like
“Do I get change?”
For the first time in years, Vincent Romano laughed so hard he had to sit down.
