Chapter 3 - The Toy That Wouldn't Open
Dominic slid his signet ring off and dropped it onto the treatment table.
The black stone struck the metal with a flat tick.
“Photograph it.”
Vincent did.
“Then bag it.”
Clare stared at him. “You think somebody copied your ring?”
“I think somebody wants a camera to say I was somewhere I wasn’t.”
Mason enlarged the recovered frame.
The hand was convincing.
Same ring.
Same scar along the thumb from an old kitchen accident.
Even the cuff looked like Dominic’s charcoal shirts.
Vincent breathed through his nose.
“That isn’t a costume. That’s fabrication.”
Dominic looked at him. “Say the word.”
“Synthetic image.”
“Good.”
He hated vague threats.
A named threat could be hunted.
Clare crouched beside Ellie and touched the latch toy.
“Sweetheart, where did Daddy get this black clicker?”
Ellie shrugged.
“Work.”
“I know. Did he ever use it with this toy?”
A nod.
“How?”
Ellie pressed a small brass slider near the top edge.
Nothing happened.
She pressed it again.
Still nothing.
She frowned.
“Stuck.”
Dominic watched the tiny mechanism.
“May I?”
Ellie handed him the board.
It was heavier than he expected.
The wood was maple, hand-sanded. Every mechanism had been sunk flush so there were no sharp corners.
Owen had built it like an engineer, not a hobbyist.
Dominic tried the brass slider.
It moved three millimeters and stopped.
Vincent leaned close.
“There’s resistance behind it.”
Clare shook her head. “It’s always been like that.”
Ellie corrected her.
“No.”
Clare looked down.
“No?”
“Daddy opened it.”
A muscle jumped in Clare’s cheek.
“When?”
“When I was baby.”
“You wouldn’t remember that.”
Ellie’s eyebrows pinched.
“He showed me in the red room.”
Clare closed her eyes.
Dominic asked quietly, “What red room?”
“Our old apartment kitchen.”
Clare’s voice was thinner now.
“The cabinets were red.”
Vincent took a penlight from his pocket.
He shone it along the edge of the brass slider.
A tiny triangular stamp appeared beneath years of scratches.
Dominic saw Clare react again.
“You know that mark.”
She rubbed her thumb over her palm.
“Owen hated it.”
“Why?”
“He called it the bird beak.”
Vincent photographed the mark.
Mason ran an image search through Vale procurement records.
Three seconds later a company logo filled the screen.
KESTREL PRECISION COMPONENTS.
Dominic’s pulse slowed instead of speeding up.
That happened when the problem became real.
“How much business do we do with them?”
Mason searched.
“Directly? Almost none.”
“Indirectly?”
“That’ll take longer.”
“Take less.”
Mason started pulling supplier trees.
Mercer picked up the brace and inspected the reversed plate.
He turned it toward the light.
The same triangular stamp sat near one screw hole.
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Clare’s fingers moved toward Ellie’s toy and stopped before touching it.
“My husband brought scrap pieces home from work.”
“What kind of work?” Dominic asked.
“Maintenance engineering. Pier Seventeen. Automated cargo systems.”
“He worked for us.”
“For you.”
The correction was soft.
It still landed.
Dominic met her eyes.
“I know.”
“No, you know his employee number.”
Vincent looked away.
Clare continued.
“Owen complained about parts getting replaced with cheaper versions. Safety housings. Retaining clips. Switch plates. He said the paperwork showed one thing and the crates contained another.”
Dominic’s cane tip shifted against the floor.
“What did management say?”
“That he was overreacting.”
“Who was management?”
Clare laughed once without humor.
“I was hoping you’d know.”
Mason turned his screen.
“Kestrel supplied the brace retrofit through Northline Orthotics.”
Mercer went pale.
“That’s our vendor.”
“Not anymore,” Dominic said.
Mason kept scrolling.
“Kestrel also supplied replacement limit switches to Pier Seventeen during the year Rowan died.”
Clare gripped the back of a chair.
Dominic heard the leather creak under her fingers.
Vincent asked, “Cause of Owen’s accident?”
Clare’s mouth tightened.
“A cargo carriage moved while he was inside the maintenance envelope.”
“Safety lock failed?”
“Report said human error.”
Ellie had started picking at the stuck brass slider again.
Click.
Click.
Pause.
Click.
Clare flinched every time.
Dominic turned to Mercer.
“Where was my brace manufactured?”
“Base frame is German. The retrofit hardware was local because of your custom nerve-pressure adjustment.”
“Kestrel.”
Mercer nodded.
Dominic looked at Mason.
“My car.”
Vincent’s head turned.
“Boss.”
“Pull the Lower Wacker repair investigation.”
“It was closed.”
“Open it.”
Mason accessed the secure claims archive.
The original accident report appeared.
Wet pavement.
Loss of steering response.
Impact against a concrete divider.
No other vehicle.
Dominic remembered metal folding near his left knee.
He remembered airbag powder in his mouth.
He remembered Vincent breaking the passenger window with a rescue tool because the door had jammed.
The report blamed a fractured steering linkage already weakened by impact.
Mason opened the service history.
“Your sedan had maintenance the day before.”
“I know.”
“Front steering coupler replaced.”
Dominic looked up.
“Why?”
Mason read the note.
“Preventive campaign. Supplier advisory.”
Vincent stepped closer to the screen.
“Supplier?”
Mason clicked the invoice.
The room seemed to lose air.
KESTREL PRECISION COMPONENTS.
Clare whispered, “No.”
Dominic’s injured leg throbbed inside the corrected brace.
Not imagined.
Not random.
Two years earlier, Kestrel parts had been connected to Owen Rowan’s death.
Eleven weeks earlier, a Kestrel part had been placed in Dominic’s steering system.
Three weeks earlier, Kestrel hardware had begun crushing a nerve in Dominic’s leg.
Vincent pulled out his phone.
“I’m bringing Kestrel’s owner here.”
Dominic stopped him.
“Find the owner first.”
Mason was already searching corporate records.
The company had changed hands twice.
Current owner: a Delaware holding company.
That holding company belonged to another.
Then another.
Finally a beneficial-interest declaration appeared from a private financing round.
Vincent read the name first.
“Voss Meridian Capital.”
Clare looked toward the locked conference room.
Arthur.
Dominic remained still.
Too clean.
Too convenient.
Arthur had touched the brace.
Arthur’s fund owned Kestrel.
Arthur wanted the vote.
Every arrow pointed in one direction.
That bothered Dominic more than if none had.
Ellie suddenly grunted.
The brass slider on her toy moved.
A narrow wooden panel popped open along the side.
Clare gasped.
Inside was a tiny black slot no bigger than a fingernail.
Empty.
No.
Not empty.
Vincent angled the light.
A microSD card sat buried inside.
Clare’s knees buckled against the chair.
“Owen.”
Dominic looked at the child.
Ellie smiled because she had fixed the toy.
Then Mason’s laptop chimed again.
He had opened the Kestrel part history for Dominic’s car.
The steering coupler had not merely been supplied by Kestrel.
It had been installed under an emergency work order.
Approved at 11:47 p.m.
The night before the crash.
May you like
Authorized with Dominic’s cloned master credential.
