Chapter 13 - The Man Adrian Worshipped
Adrian grabbed Mateo by the jacket.
“What do you mean she wasn’t dead yet?”
Marcus pulled him back.
“Boss.”
Adrian shoved him off.
Mateo did not defend himself.
“Eleanor overdosed fifteen years ago.”
“No.”
Adrian stared.
“What?”
“She disappeared fifteen years ago.”
“My mother had a funeral.”
“You had a closed casket.”
Adrian’s pulse hammered.
“That was because—”
“Because Victor told you her body was damaged.”
Memory hit.
The accident story.
Medication.
Bathroom.
A coffin nobody opened.
Adrian stepped back.
“No.”
Mateo said, “She was alive at least eight months after the funeral.”
“How do you know?”
“I met her.”
Silence.
Sofia held Ernesto tighter.
Daniel looked almost as shocked as Adrian.
“Where?”
“Milwaukee.”
“Why?”
“She recruited me.”
Adrian’s head spun.
“Recruited you for what?”
“To finish your father’s investigation.”
William died.
Eleanor kept going.
Then she staged her death.
Or someone did it for her.
Mateo continued.
“She believed Victor had killed William. She also believed someone inside the family helped him.”
“Who?”
“She never told me.”
“Then why did my father order you killed?”
“Because Victor forged evidence that I poisoned Eleanor.”
Adrian’s hands curled.
Pattern.
Frame the investigator.
Kill the truth.
Mateo looked at him.
“William signed the order before he knew Victor had fabricated the case.”
“He ordered your death while alive?”
“Yes.”
“But my father died eighteen years ago. My mother disappeared fifteen years ago.”
Mateo closed his eyes.
“I misspoke.”
Adrian’s chest tightened.
“No. You didn’t.”
Mateo looked at him.
“William did not die when you think he did.”
The warehouse seemed to tilt.
Adrian whispered:
“What?”
Mateo reached into the evidence bag recovered from the pumping station.
One photograph.
William Cole.
Alive.
Dated sixteen years ago.
Two years after his public funeral.
Standing beside Eleanor.
Adrian sat down hard.
His parents had both been alive.
After their funerals.
Together.
Why?
Mateo slid over a letter.
William’s handwriting.
VICTOR IS NOT ACTING ALONE.
IF ADRIAN LEARNS WE SURVIVED, HE BECOMES LEVERAGE.
Adrian read the next line.
ELEANOR THINKS THE INSIDE PARTNER IS SOMEONE ADRIAN TRUSTS.
Below it:
INITIALS: S.R.
Sofia Reyes.
Adrian slowly looked at her.
Sofia went pale.
Ernesto stepped in front of his mother.
“No.”
Adrian stared at the initials.
Then at Sofia.
She whispered:
“It does not mean me.”
“Then who?”
Sofia’s face tightened.
“Sarah Reynolds.”
Adrian’s pulse stopped.
His mother’s maiden name.
Eleanor Sarah Reynolds Cole.
S.R.
His own mother had suspected herself?
Sofia shook her head.
“No.”
“She was leaving you a warning.”
“About what?”
Sofia looked at Ernesto.
Then at Adrian.
May you like
“About your birth.”
CUT.
