Chapter 9 - The Dead Brother's Photograph
Dominic read the date again because some facts were too violent to enter the mind on the first attempt.
October 14, 2011.
Daniel Vale had been buried on October 11.
The photograph showed him alive three days later.
Younger.
Thinner than Dominic remembered.
But unmistakable.
A scar crossed Daniel's right eyebrow from a childhood accident on a bicycle.
The same scar was visible in the photograph.
Arthur stood beside him with one hand on Daniel's shoulder.
Neither man looked like someone attending a secret memorial.
They looked like partners.
Dominic lifted his eyes.
"Explain it."
Arthur stared at the photograph.
"I cannot."
Vincent laughed once.
"That is getting popular tonight."
Dominic stepped closer.
"This was inside the case you took from my study."
"It was already in the case."
"Why did you want the case?"
Arthur looked toward Martin.
"Because I was told it contained the offline credentials."
"Told by whom?"
Arthur hesitated.
"An anonymous message."
Dominic almost struck him.
The only thing stopping him was the sudden realization that Arthur looked genuinely confused.
Arthur was arrogant.
Ambitious.
Manipulative.
Possibly involved in the sabotage.
But he had not expected the photograph.
Dominic had spent years reading men who lied for money, fear, and survival.
Arthur's surprise was not proof.
It was information.
Martin picked up the photograph.
"Who is the third man?"
Arthur looked at him.
"I do not know."
Dominic's voice sharpened.
"You are standing beside him."
"I know what the photograph shows."
"Then tell me what you remember."
Arthur rubbed his forehead.
For the first time that night, he looked sixty.
"Daniel asked me to meet him outside Milwaukee after the funeral."
The room went quiet.
Dominic's hand tightened around the cane.
"You knew he was alive."
Arthur nodded slowly.
"For six days."
Vincent reached for Arthur before Dominic could stop him.
He shoved the older man against the wall.
"Fifteen years."
Arthur did not resist.
"I thought he died six days later."
Dominic raised his hand.
Vincent released him.
"Start talking."
Arthur looked at Dominic.
"Daniel came to me two nights before the crash."
"The crash that supposedly killed him."
"Yes."
"He said someone inside the organization was stealing from shipping accounts and selling route information to competitors."
Dominic's expression did not change.
"Who?"
"He would not say."
"Why?"
"Because he did not trust me enough."
Vincent frowned.
"Yet he trusted you to fake his death?"
Arthur nodded.
"He needed one person outside the immediate Vale family to help."
Dominic felt something old and bitter rise in his throat.
"He did not come to me."
Arthur's voice softened.
"He was trying to protect you."
"Do not tell me what my brother was trying to do."
Arthur accepted the anger.
"He believed the thief would move openly if everyone thought Daniel was dead."
"So the burned car?"
"Staged."
"The body?"
Arthur looked away.
"Unidentified remains from another case."
Mercer, who had entered during the confrontation, went pale.
"That is impossible."
Arthur looked at him.
"Fifteen years ago, enough things were possible if you knew the right people."
Dominic's stomach turned.
He had mourned ashes that did not belong to his brother.
Their mother had died believing her oldest son was gone.
Dominic had built half his adult life on a lie Arthur helped maintain.
"Six days," Dominic said.
Arthur nodded.
"After the funeral, Daniel met me twice."
He pointed to the photograph.
"This was the first meeting."
"And the third man?"
"Daniel introduced him as Elias."
"Last name?"
"He never gave one."
"What did he do?"
"Technical work. Surveillance, access systems, identity documents."
Vincent and Dominic exchanged a look.
The fake badges.
The deleted cameras.
The disguised Vincent.
"Second meeting?" Dominic asked.
Arthur's face tightened.
"Daniel was scared."
Dominic almost laughed at the word.
Daniel had never seemed scared of anything.
"Of whom?"
"He still would not say."
"And after that?"
"He disappeared."
"You searched?"
"For two years."
"Without telling me."
Arthur's voice rose.
"Because the last thing your brother told me was that if I involved you, you would be next."
Dominic stepped toward him.
"You let my mother die with that grief."
Arthur's face hardened too.
"And I have lived with that choice every day."
"Good."
Dominic looked at the photograph again.
The third man, Elias, was around thirty-five in the picture.
Dark hair.
Lean face.
Pale eyes.
Dominic zoomed the image on his phone after photographing it.
The eyes were light.
Angela had said the fake Vincent's eyes looked lighter.
Fifteen years later, Elias would be around fifty.
Makeup and prosthetics could hide age.
Dominic handed the image to Vincent.
"Run the face."
Vincent took it.
Arthur spoke quietly.
"If Elias is involved, this is not about my council vote."
Dominic looked at him.
"You still think the vote belongs to you?"
Arthur ignored the insult.
"Daniel believed someone was preparing to dismantle the Vale organization from inside."
"Fifteen years is a long preparation."
"Unless it failed the first time."
Dominic thought of his crash eleven weeks earlier.
A truck had entered Lower Wacker against traffic during a lane closure.
The driver was never found.
Investigators called it a stolen vehicle and an accident caused by panic.
Dominic had never believed the explanation completely.
Now his body had been manipulated after the crash to make him look incapable.
Maybe the crash was not an opportunity.
Maybe it was the first stage.
Vincent's phone chimed.
He looked at the facial search result.
"Nothing on Elias."
"Expected," Dominic said.
"But the image itself has something."
Vincent enlarged the background.
Behind Daniel was a painted wall sign.
Most of the letters were hidden.
What remained read ORELINE CLIN.
Mercer stepped closer.
"Shoreline Clinic."
Dominic looked at him.
"You know it?"
"It closed years ago."
"Where?"
"Racine."
Arthur's face changed.
"That is where Daniel told me to meet him the second time."
Dominic looked at the clock.
Midnight had passed.
Clare was still missing.
"We go now."
Mercer shook his head.
"The clinic has been abandoned for over a decade."
"That has not stopped anyone tonight."
A guard entered the room carrying a padded envelope.
"This was found outside the front gate."
No delivery vehicle had approached.
No camera had recorded anyone placing it there.
Dominic opened the envelope.
Inside was the missing blue wooden gear from Ellie's toy.
A fresh spot of blood marked one edge.
Clare's blood type was written on a card beside it.
Beneath that was a key.
The key had a plastic tag.
SHORELINE - ROOM 12.
Arthur whispered, "They want you there."
Dominic closed his hand around the key.
"Yes."
Vincent looked at him.
"Which means we do not go."
Dominic looked toward the library where Ellie slept under guard, waiting for a mother who had promised Dominic would find her.
"No."
He picked up his cane.
May you like
"It means we choose how we arrive."
