Chapter 12 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW EVERYTHING
No one spoke for three seconds.
Then Caitlyn asked the only useful question.
"Where are you?"
Eleanor ignored it.
"Caitlyn, listen to me carefully."
Her voice carried the same calm authority Caitlyn had heard in board meetings for years.
"Vincent authorized the emergency override."
Vincent's jaw tightened.
"That's a lie," he said quietly.
Eleanor heard him.
"He's with you?"
Panic sharpened her voice.
"Get away from him."
Caitlyn watched Vincent.
"You said Eleanor could authorize it."
He nodded once.
Eleanor spoke over the phone.
"She could, but she didn't."
The third-person slip was so small Caitlyn almost missed it.
She looked at Damian.
He had heard it too.
"Eleanor," Caitlyn said softly.
"Where are you?"
A pause.
"Somewhere safe."
"From Vincent?"
"From all of them."
"Including Damian?"
"Especially Damian."
Damian's expression did not change.
Eleanor continued.
"You do not know what that family is capable of."
Caitlyn looked at Malcolm.
He stared at the phone with something like grief.
"I know more than I did yesterday."
"Then you know enough to leave."
"Where should I go?"
Another pause.
Caitlyn could almost hear Eleanor deciding whether the bait was safe.
"I can help you."
"How?"
"Meet me alone."
Vincent closed his eyes briefly.
Malcolm muttered something under his breath.
Caitlyn stayed calm.
"Where?"
"I'll send the location."
"And Noah?"
Silence.
That was the mistake.
Caitlyn felt it immediately.
An innocent general counsel would have asked what Noah had to do with any of this.
Eleanor did not.
"Is he alive?" Caitlyn asked.
The silence stretched one second too long.
"I believe so."
Caitlyn's blood went cold.
"You believe so?"
"Mercer is dangerous."
"How do you know Mercer has him?"
Eleanor stopped breathing.
Caitlyn looked at Damian.
His eyes had become lethal.
"Eleanor?"
The line disconnected.
Vincent immediately began tracing.
"Got a tower."
"Where?" Damian asked.
"Lower Manhattan."
Malcolm stood.
"She knows we know."
"Yes."
"Then she'll run."
Damian looked at him.
"Not if Mercer has something she wants."
Caitlyn stared at the phone.
"What would she want more than her freedom?"
Malcolm answered.
"The ledger."
Vincent looked up.
"Why?"
Malcolm's face tightened.
"Because Eleanor's name is probably in it."
Caitlyn remembered the files.
"We didn't search her."
Vincent opened the encrypted ledger on the isolated laptop.
He typed PRICE.
Twenty-seven results appeared.
Eleanor Price had received payments routed through Mercer Consulting from 2017 through 2020.
The amounts totaled $4.8 million.
Caitlyn felt nauseated.
"She approved Noah's insurance exception."
Malcolm looked at her.
"Maybe guilt."
"Or surveillance," Damian said.
The word hurt worse.
For two years, Eleanor had known exactly where Noah lived because she had approved the paperwork that kept him there.
Caitlyn sat down hard.
"She gave Mercer the rehabilitation center."
Damian's voice softened by a fraction.
"Possibly."
"Stop protecting me with possibly."
He held her gaze.
"Yes."
Caitlyn looked away.
Sometimes certainty was worse.
Vincent's screen flashed.
"Price's company car just entered a parking garage on Water Street."
Damian stood.
"Move."
Malcolm rose too.
Damian pointed at him.
"You stay."
"Absolutely not."
"Your face is currently useful as a dead man's."
Malcolm stared.
"That may be the rudest thing you've ever said to me."
"Not remotely."
Caitlyn almost smiled despite herself.
Then Damian looked at her.
"You too."
Her smile vanished.
"No."
"Caitlyn."
"Eleanor called me."
"Because she wants to use you."
"Then let her think she can."
Damian's jaw tightened.
"You are not bait."
The sentence landed with unexpected force.
Caitlyn looked at him.
"Noah is."
Damian's face changed.
She continued quietly.
"He has been bait since last night."
"If letting Eleanor see me gets us one step closer to him, I am going."
Damian looked furious.
Not at her.
At the truth.
Vincent spoke carefully.
"We can control the meet."
Damian turned on him.
"You have become dangerously committed to agreeing with her."
"She keeps being right."
"That is not helping."
Caitlyn crossed her arms.
"I like him."
"I am reconsidering both of your employment statuses."
For the first time in almost twenty-four hours, a real laugh escaped Caitlyn.
It lasted less than a second.
But Damian heard it.
His eyes softened before he could stop them.
Then he looked away.
The plan formed quickly.
Caitlyn would call Eleanor back.
She would claim she had escaped Damian and wanted help.
She would say she had the flash drive.
Eleanor would choose the meeting point.
Hamilton security would surround it without revealing themselves.
Caitlyn hated every part of the plan.
She volunteered anyway.
Eleanor answered after one ring.
"Caitlyn?"
Caitlyn made herself breathe unevenly.
"You were right."
Damian watched her from across the room.
"About what?"
"Vincent."
Caitlyn let her voice shake.
"I heard him talking to Damian."
"What did he say?"
"They know about the ledger."
Eleanor became very quiet.
"Do they have it?"
There.
Not where is Noah.
Not are you safe.
The ledger.
Caitlyn looked at Damian.
"I do."
"You?"
"My father left it to me."
Eleanor inhaled sharply.
"Where are you now?"
"I don't know."
"Look outside."
"I can't."
Caitlyn closed her eyes as if frightened.
"I left the car."
"I need somewhere safe."
Eleanor's voice softened.
It was the same voice she had used when Caitlyn returned to work after the funeral.
The memory made Caitlyn want to scream.
"Come to the old Fulton terminal."
"Pier seventeen."
"I'll meet you there."
"Alone?"
"Of course."
Eleanor paused.
"Bring the drive."
The call ended.
Damian stared at Caitlyn.
"You are terrifyingly good at lying when necessary."
"I have spent two years telling executives you're in another meeting when you simply don't want to see them."
Vincent nodded.
"Training."
The drive to the Fulton terminal took twenty-eight minutes.
Caitlyn spent most of it remembering Eleanor Price.
Not the woman from the ledger.
The woman who had sat beside Caitlyn at her first company holiday dinner because Caitlyn knew almost no one.
The woman who had corrected a senior vice president for speaking over her during a meeting.
The woman who sent soup to Caitlyn's apartment when she had pneumonia and then denied doing it.
Betrayal would have been easier if Eleanor had always been cruel.
Instead, Caitlyn had to accept something worse.
Kind people could still make monstrous choices.
Damian sat across from her in the armored vehicle.
He had been watching her for several minutes.
"Say it."
Caitlyn looked up.
"Say what?"
"Whatever you are arguing with in your head."
She looked toward the dark window.
"I liked her."
Damian did not answer immediately.
"I know."
"She helped me after my parents died."
"I know."
"She approved Noah's exception."
"I know."
Caitlyn laughed bitterly.
"You know everything after it becomes useless."
Damian accepted that without defense.
"Sometimes."
She looked at him.
"Did you trust her?"
"Yes."
That surprised Caitlyn.
"Completely?"
"No one completely."
"That sounds lonely."
Damian's expression shifted.
"It is efficient."
"That was not what I said."
"I know."
Caitlyn studied him.
"Is that why nobody touches you?"
The question escaped before she could stop it.
Vincent looked very carefully at the front windshield.
Damian became still.
"Partly."
Caitlyn waited.
He seemed to decide whether to continue.
"When I was twenty-eight, someone close to my father tried to kill me during what was supposed to be a private dinner."
Caitlyn's breath caught.
"Someone you trusted?"
"Enough to let him stand behind me."
Damian's eyes moved to the window.
"I stopped allowing that."
Caitlyn thought of the private jet.
Her sleeping head on his shoulder.
The way the entire cabin had reacted as if she had crossed a sacred boundary.
"And you still didn't move me."
Damian looked back at her.
"No."
"Why?"
Vincent's shoulders became suspiciously rigid.
Damian ignored him.
"Because you were exhausted."
"That is the practical answer."
"It is the answer."
Caitlyn almost smiled.
"Coward."
Vincent made a strangled sound.
Damian turned his head.
"Problem?"
"None."
"Good."
Caitlyn looked down to hide her smile.
For thirty seconds, the van felt almost normal.
Then the terminal appeared ahead and every softer thought disappeared.
They reached the Fulton terminal thirty minutes later.
The abandoned warehouse overlooked the river.
Wind pushed rain beneath the loading canopy.
Caitlyn wore a tiny transmitter beneath her collar.
Damian adjusted it once.
His fingers stopped an inch from her throat.
"May I?"
The question surprised her.
She nodded.
He clipped the wire securely.
His fingertips brushed the fabric, not her skin.
He stepped back immediately.
"If anything changes, you leave."
"Agreed."
"If you hear the word north through the earpiece, you drop to the floor."
"Why north?"
"You'll remember it."
She looked at him.
"Find north."
"Exactly."
Caitlyn walked into the warehouse alone.
Every footstep echoed.
Eleanor stood near the far windows in a beige coat.
She looked exactly as she always did.
Perfect hair.
Pearl earrings.
Calm face.
Caitlyn hated her for that.
"Thank God."
Eleanor hurried forward.
She opened her arms.
Caitlyn stepped back.
The older woman stopped.
"It's all right."
"No, it isn't."
Caitlyn forced fear into her voice.
"Where is Noah?"
Eleanor's expression flickered.
"Mercer has him."
"You knew."
"I found out this morning."
"You knew on the phone before I told you."
Eleanor went still.
Caitlyn realized she had pushed too fast.
The older woman's face changed.
The warmth disappeared.
"You were always observant."
Caitlyn's heart began pounding.
"Where is my brother?"
"Give me the drive."
"No."
"Caitlyn."
Eleanor sighed.
"You are in a situation you do not understand."
"Then explain it."
"Mercer has spent twenty years collecting leverage."
"Your father found too much."
"Robert Hamilton tried to contain the damage."
"Malcolm panicked."
"And now Damian thinks he can solve everything by being harder than his father."
Caitlyn's stomach twisted.
"You helped Mercer kill my parents."
Eleanor's face tightened.
"No."
"Your name is in the ledger."
That landed.
Eleanor's eyes sharpened.
"You opened it."
Caitlyn knew immediately she had made a mistake.
Eleanor reached inside her coat.
Damian's voice exploded through Caitlyn's earpiece.
"North."
Caitlyn dropped.
A gunshot cracked above her.
Glass shattered.
Hamilton men surged from both side doors.
Eleanor ran behind a concrete pillar.
Caitlyn crawled toward cover.
Another shot rang out.
Then a man grabbed Caitlyn from behind.
She screamed.
A hand covered her mouth.
Not Eleanor.
A second person.
A concealed door in the loading wall opened.
Caitlyn was dragged backward through it.
She kicked, twisted, bit the hand over her mouth, and heard a curse.
The transmitter tore from her collar.
The last thing she heard through the earpiece was Damian shouting her name.
Then the metal door slammed shut.
Darkness swallowed her.
A cloth pressed over her face.
Caitlyn held her breath as long as she could.
Not long enough.
The world blurred.
Before everything went black, she heard Eleanor Price's voice somewhere nearby.
"Mercer said the brother was enough."
A man answered.
"He changed his mind."
"Why?"
May you like
"Because now we have both halves of the key."
