Chapter 9 - ROBERT HAMILTON'S SON
Damian read the message once.
Then he handed the phone to Vincent.
Caitlyn watched his face.
"You're not going."
It was not a question.
Damian looked at her.
"Of course I'm going."
"That's exactly what Mercer wants."
"Yes."
"So walking into his trap is your plan?"
"No."
His voice remained calm.
"Walking into his trap is the part of the plan he understands."
Vincent studied the live photograph.
"Metadata is stripped."
"Clock?" Damian asked.
"Could be staged."
Caitlyn leaned closer.
The clock behind Noah showed 12:43.
The current time was 12:46.
Noah's hair was damp.
There was a strip of white adhesive on his neck where a medical sensor had recently been removed.
Caitlyn pointed.
"That's new."
Damian looked at her.
"What?"
"The tape."
She enlarged the image.
"Silver Pines uses blue adhesive for his sensors because he reacts to the standard one."
Vincent frowned.
"So another facility treated him."
"Or Mercer has someone medical with him."
Damian's phone buzzed again.
A location appeared.
The abandoned courthouse annex in Queens.
The same address Graham Bell had given Caitlyn.
Below it was a time.
2:00 P.M.
COME ALONE.
Caitlyn laughed bitterly.
"They never mean that."
Damian slipped the phone into his pocket.
"No."
"How many people are you taking?"
"Enough."
"I'm coming."
"No."
She stared at him.
"We have established that word doesn't work well on me."
"Today it will."
"Why?"
"Because Mercer asked for me."
"He took my brother."
"Which is why he knows you will make bad decisions if he puts Noah on a screen."
Caitlyn's anger flashed.
"I made one bad decision."
Vincent raised his eyebrows.
She looked at him.
"Do not count the car."
"I wasn't going to say anything."
Damian stepped closer.
"Mercer wants emotional leverage."
"So do you."
His eyes narrowed.
"What does that mean?"
"You keep telling me to stay behind because you're afraid I'll get hurt."
The room became quiet.
Vincent suddenly became very interested in his tablet.
Caitlyn continued before she could lose her nerve.
"That is emotional leverage too."
Damian stared at her.
"There is a difference between manipulation and keeping you alive."
"Not if you use the same fear to control me."
Something shifted in his face.
Not anger.
Recognition.
He looked away first.
"You are not going inside the annex."
Caitlyn opened her mouth.
"That is not negotiable."
"You said stop deciding what I want."
"I did."
He met her eyes again.
"I did not say I would stop deciding what happens on my operation."
She hated the distinction.
She also understood it.
"Fine."
Damian's eyebrows lifted slightly.
Caitlyn folded her arms.
"I will not go inside."
"You will stay here."
"That was not the deal."
"There was no deal."
Vincent interrupted before either could continue.
"We have identification on the body from Malcolm's car."
Damian turned.
"Malcolm?"
"No."
The single word changed everything.
Vincent placed a photograph on the screen.
The dead man was Malcolm's longtime chauffeur, Anthony Crane.
Malcolm Hamilton was missing.
Caitlyn looked at Damian.
"He staged it."
"Maybe."
She gave him a flat look.
"I regret teaching you that word."
Vincent scrolled through traffic footage.
"Malcolm left his townhouse fourteen minutes before the explosion through the rear service entrance."
"Alone?"
"Looks like it."
"Where did he go?"
"Camera coverage drops three blocks east."
Caitlyn leaned over the screen.
"So Malcolm knew the car was going to explode."
Damian shook his head.
"Or someone warned him."
"Who?"
No one answered.
Vincent opened a second report.
"We pulled archived emergency dispatch audio from the 2019 crash."
Caitlyn stopped breathing.
"Why?"
"Graham said four people were in your parents' car."
He played the recording.
Static filled the room.
A paramedic's voice came through.
"Vehicle one has four occupants, two critical, one unresponsive, one ambulatory male with head wound."
Caitlyn gripped the edge of the table.
"Four."
Another voice asked for names.
The paramedic answered.
"Thomas Elmore, Sarah Elmore, Noah Elmore, and..."
Static swallowed the next words.
Vincent rewound.
Again.
The name vanished beneath interference each time.
Damian looked at him.
"Can you clean it?"
"Audio team is working on it."
Caitlyn's mind raced.
"Ambulatory male."
"Yes."
"So the fourth passenger survived."
"At least initially."
"And disappeared before the police report was finalized."
Damian stared at the waveform.
"My father had the report altered."
Caitlyn looked at him.
"You sound sure."
"The audio and Graham's statement make it likely."
"Why would Robert protect the fourth passenger?"
Vincent answered.
"If the fourth passenger was connected to Hamilton, keeping the name out of the report would keep reporters from asking why a Hamilton associate was in an auditor's family car during a fatal crash involving a Hamilton truck."
Caitlyn felt sick.
"So your father cleaned up the scene."
Damian did not defend him.
"It looks that way."
The honesty hurt less than excuses would have.
Vincent's laptop chimed.
The cleaned audio file arrived.
He played it.
The paramedic's voice became clearer.
"Thomas Elmore, Sarah Elmore, Noah Elmore, and Malcolm Hamilton."
Silence filled the room.
Caitlyn turned slowly toward Damian.
"Your uncle was in the car."
Damian's face became unreadable.
"Yes."
The entire story shifted beneath them.
Malcolm had not been driving the black sedan.
He had been sitting inside the Elmore car.
The person Noah called uncle could have been Malcolm because Malcolm had literally been there.
The edited video now made sense.
Mercer wanted them to believe Noah identified Malcolm as the man following them.
In reality, Noah may have been saying the opposite.
Not uncle.
Caitlyn felt anger twist into confusion.
"Why was Malcolm in my parents' car?"
Damian called his uncle.
The phone went directly to voicemail.
He called again.
Nothing.
Vincent began searching properties.
"He owns thirteen residences through various entities."
"Check the ones nobody knows about."
"If nobody knows about them, that's a difficult category."
Damian gave him a look.
"I'll improvise."
Caitlyn's phone buzzed.
Mercer again.
1:17 P.M.
FORTY-THREE MINUTES.
A photograph followed.
Noah's left hand was strapped gently but firmly to the bed rail.
Caitlyn's vision narrowed.
"I'm going."
Damian looked at the picture.
"No."
"He is tying him down."
"To make you react."
"It worked."
"I know."
Caitlyn's eyes burned.
"You cannot expect me to sit in your house while you go negotiate for my brother."
Damian took one step toward her.
"Then come to Queens."
She blinked.
Vincent looked up.
"Boss?"
"She stays in the command vehicle three blocks away."
Caitlyn opened her mouth.
"That is the compromise."
He held her gaze.
"Take it before I remember I hate compromises."
She nodded.
They left at 1:26.
The command vehicle looked like a delivery van from the outside.
Inside, six monitors displayed drone feeds, traffic cameras, building plans, and live audio.
Caitlyn sat beside Vincent.
Damian wore no visible weapon.
That did not reassure her.
"Vest?" Vincent asked.
"No."
"Boss."
"Mercer will check."
Caitlyn looked at Damian.
"Wear one."
"No."
"You are infuriating."
"Frequently."
The callback made something in her chest tighten.
Damian turned to leave.
Caitlyn caught his sleeve.
He stopped.
She did not know what she intended to say.
Do not die sounded too intimate.
Be careful sounded too weak.
So she chose anger.
"If you get yourself killed, I will be furious."
Damian looked at her hand on his sleeve.
Then at her face.
"Noted."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
He stepped out of the van.
Caitlyn watched him cross the street alone.
The courthouse annex had been abandoned for six years.
Its windows were boarded.
Its stone steps were stained black with rain.
Damian entered through the front door at exactly 1:58.
His microphone transmitted every sound.
Footsteps.
Water dripping.
A distant metallic clang.
Then a voice.
Elias Mercer.
"Robert's boy."
Caitlyn gripped the edge of her seat.
Damian's reply was cold.
"You asked for me."
"I did."
"You have Noah Elmore."
"I have leverage."
"You have a disabled twenty-one-year-old man you stole from a medical facility."
Mercer laughed softly.
"Your father would have admired the phrasing."
"My father is dead."
"Because I allowed him to die in a bed instead of on a highway."
Caitlyn's blood went cold.
Vincent leaned toward the monitor.
Damian did not react.
"Where is Noah?"
"Safe."
"Show me."
A monitor inside the annex flickered on.
The drone feed could not see the screen, but Damian's body camera could.
Noah appeared live.
He was breathing.
His eyes were open.
Caitlyn covered her mouth.
"Noah," she whispered.
He could not hear her.
Mercer stepped into view.
He was thin, gray-haired, and almost elegant.
Nothing about him looked theatrical.
That made him worse.
"Your father stole something from me," Mercer said.
Damian's expression remained still.
"What?"
"A ledger."
"I don't have it."
"No."
Mercer smiled.
"Thomas Elmore did."
Caitlyn looked at Vincent.
The flash drive.
Mercer continued.
"Thomas made copies."
"Then why ask for me?"
"Because the copy is encrypted."
Mercer stepped closer.
"And Robert Hamilton divided the key."
Damian's eyes narrowed.
"Between whom?"
"His son and the auditor's daughter."
Caitlyn froze.
Vincent looked at her.
"What the hell does that mean?"
Mercer smiled into Damian's camera as if he could see them watching.
"Bring me Caitlyn Elmore."
Caitlyn's stomach dropped.
May you like
"And I give you her brother."
