Chapter 8 - VICTOR SHAW“You are absolutely not going.”
My father said it three times.
Parker said it four.
The FBI said it professionally, which somehow made it sound even more final.
I went anyway.
Not alone.
That part mattered.
Shaw was experienced enough to assume police would attempt surveillance, so the operation required something better than simply following me.
I wore no visible wire.
The files I carried were copies.
A location transmitter was sewn into my shoe.
Two tactical teams positioned themselves beyond the industrial district.
Parker hated every second.
“So does Shaw,” I told him.
“That doesn’t make me feel better.”
The address led to an abandoned printing warehouse south of downtown.
I parked outside.
The metal entrance stood open.
Inside, fluorescent lights flickered.
“Nathan?”
My voice echoed.
No answer.
Then Shaw stepped from behind an old printing press.
I recognized him immediately from Dad’s photographs.
He was older now.
Sixty-three perhaps.
Gray hair.
Ordinary face.
That was what made him frightening.
Nothing about him looked theatrical.
He wore khakis and a navy jacket.
Someone’s grandfather at the hardware store.
He held a pistol.
“Phone.”
I placed it on the floor.
“Kick it.”
I did.
He crushed it under his shoe.
“The files.”
“Where’s Nathan?”
“Alive.”
“I want to see him.”
Shaw smiled.
“You’re Evelyn’s daughter.”
“You knew my mother?”
“Better than Richard did at the end.”
“Don’t.”
He gestured with the gun.
“Walk.”
Nathan was in a back office.
His face was bruised but he was conscious.
When he saw me, he became furious.
“Claire, you idiot.”
“Nice to see you too.”
Shaw laughed.
“That sounds like Evelyn.”
I placed the file box on a desk.
“Let him go.”
“After I verify them.”
He began flipping through the documents.
I watched his hands.
Calm.
No shaking.
Shaw had done terrible things for a very long time.
“What happened to my mother?”
He didn’t look up.
“Cancer.”
“Vivian implied otherwise.”
“Vivian enjoys cruelty.”
“Did you hurt her?”
That made him look at me.
“No.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“You shouldn’t.”
At least he was honest.
“But your mother died of cancer. Vivian had nothing to do with it.”
Relief came strangely.
I hadn’t realized how deeply the suspicion had lodged inside me.
Shaw continued.
“Evelyn was inconvenient. But she became ill before we had to solve that problem.”
Nathan glared.
“You say that as though it absolves you.”
“I’m not asking for absolution.”
He finished examining the papers.
“These aren’t originals.”
“No.”
His expression changed.
I expected anger.
Instead, admiration.
“Good.”
“What?”
“I would have been disappointed.”
He closed the box.
“Where are they?”
“Federal custody.”
“Which means the notebook is too.”
“Yes.”
“So this meeting has become pointless.”
His eyes moved toward Nathan.
“That’s unfortunate for him.”
“Wait.”
Shaw paused.
“You wanted the files because of the blackmail records.”
“I wanted insurance.”
“Against Vivian?”
“Against everyone.”
“Then you have another option.”
He smiled faintly.
“I’m listening.”
“Testify.”
Nathan stared at me.
Shaw actually laughed.
“Against whom?”
“Vivian. Marcus. The board members. The people you blackmailed.”
“And spend life in prison?”
“You’re already hunted.”
“By police.”
“Not just police.”
His smile faded.
That was my gamble.
“If the notebook exposes your clients, half the people you protected will want you dead.”
“You’re guessing.”
“No.”
I had seen the names.
Some were powerful.
One federal agent had quietly explained that Shaw’s survival value might be higher as a cooperating witness than as a fugitive.
“I can connect you with prosecutors.”
“You’re offering me a deal you cannot guarantee.”
“I’m offering a doorway.”
Shaw stared at me.
Then we heard a vehicle outside.
My heart stopped.
Too early.
The tactical teams weren’t supposed to move unless I triggered the alert.
Shaw’s expression changed.
“You brought them.”
“I didn’t.”
He grabbed me.
Gun against my ribs.
Nathan shouted.
The warehouse door crashed open.
A man entered.
Marcus.
Of all people.
Marcus looked terrible.
Unshaven.
Wild-eyed.
Holding a shotgun.
Shaw laughed softly.
“Now this is interesting.”
Marcus pointed the weapon.
“You ruined everything.”
I couldn’t tell whom he meant.
Shaw moved behind me.
“Your mother ruined everything.”
“She said you would fix it.”
“I tried.”
“You tried to kill me.”
That was new.
Shaw’s expression remained blank.
Marcus continued.
“Denise wasn’t supposed to survive either, was she?”
Shaw said nothing.
So Marcus had not attacked Denise.
Shaw had.
He used Marcus’s car to frame him.
Marcus had discovered it and fled.
“I gave the police everything,” Marcus said.
“I know.”
“They promised me protection.”
“And yet here you are.”
“My mother sent me.”
That shocked everyone.
“Vivian?” I asked.
Marcus’s eyes filled with something close to hatred.
“She had a message delivered through her lawyer.”
Nathan said, “That would be witness tampering.”
“I don’t care anymore.”
Marcus focused on Shaw.
“She said you kept one copy of the account codes.”
Shaw smiled.
“Of course she did.”
“Where are they?”
“You came here with a shotgun for bank passwords?”
“I came here because those accounts contain my money.”
I almost laughed.
“Your money?”
Marcus snapped toward me.
“You think you won because your daddy came back? I spent six years building that company.”
“You spent six years stealing from it.”
“I was owed something!”
There it was.
The family religion.
Thomas Mercer was owed.
Vivian was owed.
Marcus was owed.
Everyone believed Richard Hale had stolen the life they deserved.
Shaw tightened his grip on me.
“Put the shotgun down.”
Marcus didn’t.
“You first.”
Shaw fired.
The sound exploded through the warehouse.
Marcus fell.
The shotgun discharged into the ceiling.
I drove my elbow backward.
Shaw staggered.
Nathan launched himself from the chair despite his tied hands and struck Shaw’s knees.
I ran.
More gunshots.
Then tactical officers flooded the warehouse.
“DROP THE WEAPON!”
Shaw turned.
For one terrible second, I thought he would fire.
Instead, he looked at the dozen rifles aimed at him.
And slowly placed his gun on the floor.
Marcus was alive.
The bullet had entered his shoulder.
He survived surgery.
Shaw was arrested.
Nathan needed six stitches.
I escaped with bruised ribs.
When I returned to Dad, he hugged me so tightly I couldn’t breathe.
Then he yelled at me for ten straight minutes.
I let him.
He had earned it.
Shaw began negotiating within forty-eight hours.
Once he realized the notebook was authenticated, loyalty disappeared.
He admitted sabotaging Dad’s SUV.
He admitted altering the carbon-monoxide detector at the lake house.
He admitted attacking Denise.
And most importantly, he admitted Vivian hired him.
There were recordings.
Vivian had always believed she controlled Shaw.
Shaw had always recorded his clients.
One recording captured her voice six weeks before Dad’s crash.
“I don’t want another mistake.”
Shaw asked, “Meaning?”
“I want Richard dead.”
No ambiguity.
No manipulation.
No explanation.
Attempted murder.
Conspiracy.
The prosecutors had what they needed.
But Shaw gave them one final surprise.
Vivian had a second plan.
If Dad survived and the criminal scheme collapsed, she intended to flee.
She had placed money in an offshore trust.
More than $18 million.
The beneficiary wasn’t Marcus.
It wasn’t herself.
The beneficiary was a seventeen-year-old girl named Lily Mercer.
I had never heard the name.
Neither had Dad.
Marcus had.
When Parker asked him who Lily was, Marcus refused to answer.
Eventually Denise did.
Lily was Vivian’s daughter.
Not stepdaughter.
Not niece.
Biological daughter.
Born two years before Vivian married my father.
And her father was listed as unknown.
Shaw knew the truth.
When investigators asked him who Lily’s father was, he said something that turned the case upside down one last time.
“Richard Hale.”
My father stared at Parker.
“That’s impossible.”
Parker slid a photograph across the table.
A teenage girl with dark hair.
May you like
My father went pale.
Because she looked exactly like me.
