Chapter 10 - THE NIGHT NOLAN CHOSE ME
The missing page changed the question.
Nolan had not stayed with me because he needed to find my father's evidence.
He already had the most dangerous part.
So why had he chosen me?
That question followed me back to the safehouse.
Dante's men at Lake Street survived.
Two suffered smoke inhalation.
One had a broken wrist.
The fourth had been knocked unconscious before the fire began.
Nolan had planned the attack carefully enough to make a statement without leaving bodies.
That worried Dante.
"Why?"
I asked.
"Because restraint means he wants something."
"He has the page."
"Then he wants something else."
Sofia arrived after midnight carrying a copy of my father's full letter from the bank box.
She dropped it on the table.
"We missed something."
I looked at the pages.
"What?"
"The USB contains an audio file recorded two days before Michael died."
"Federal agents decrypted it an hour ago."
My heart accelerated.
"What's on it?"
Sofia looked at Dante.
He sat down slowly.
That frightened me.
"Play it."
Sofia opened her laptop.
Static filled the room.
Then my father's voice.
Older than I remembered and instantly familiar.
"If you're recording me, Anthony, at least buy a better microphone."
A man's laugh answered.
Anthony Mercer.
Nolan's father.
"You always were dramatic, Michael."
"You always were a thief."
Papers moved.
My father continued.
"I copied the Pike page."
"I know."
"Then you know I'm going federal."
Anthony laughed again.
"No, you're not."
"Because Dante won't let you?"
"Because your daughter exists."
My entire body went cold.
The audio hissed.
My father spoke more quietly.
"Leave Claire out of this."
"I intend to."
Anthony's voice changed.
"As long as you do what you're told."
There was a pause.
Then my father said something I had to replay twice.
"Your son is nineteen years old."
"He has nothing to do with this."
Anthony answered.
"Not yet."
The recording ended.
No one moved.
"Nolan was nineteen."
My voice sounded distant.
Dante nodded.
"Yes."
"Anthony threatened me before Nolan ever met me."
"Yes."
The horror was different now.
Nolan had not simply inherited his father's plan.
He had grown up knowing my name.
"Was Nolan involved then?"
Dante looked at Sofia.
She pulled out another document.
"We found a police evidence inventory from the crash."
"It was buried in Pike's archived case files."
"One item was logged and then removed."
"What item?"
"A photograph from Michael's wallet."
Sofia turned the page toward me.
The description read FAMILY PHOTO - ADULT MALE AND YOUNG FEMALE.
Me and my father.
I remembered the picture.
We had taken it at Navy Pier when I was twenty-one.
My father kept it behind his driver's license.
"Who removed it?"
Sofia's expression was grim.
"The evidence log shows Anthony Mercer."
"He wasn't police."
"No."
"But Pike signed him in as a confidential consultant."
My hands went cold.
"Anthony took my photograph from my father's body."
No one answered.
"And gave it to Nolan."
Dante's jaw tightened.
"Probably."
I stood.
The room suddenly felt too small.
I walked to the window.
Six years of my life rearranged again.
The Cubs game where Nolan first introduced himself.
He had spilled beer near my seat and apologized.
He had known my name before I said it.
He had known what I looked like.
He had known my father was dead.
He had known exactly how lonely I had been.
I pressed my forehead against the cold glass.
"He chose the day too."
Dante moved closer but stayed several feet away.
"What day?"
"The Cubs game."
"It was October third."
"Six months after Dad died."
I closed my eyes.
"My father's birthday."
Sofia swore softly.
Nolan had asked why I looked sad that afternoon.
I had told him it was my father's birthday.
He had bought me a drink.
He had listened while I talked for an hour.
I had thought the universe sent me kindness on the worst day of the year.
It had sent me a trap.
"I told him everything."
My voice broke.
"That first day."
"I told him I missed my dad."
"I told him I hated going home to an empty apartment."
"I gave him the map."
Dante's voice came quietly behind me.
"No."
I turned.
"Don't."
"He already had the map."
"You were just being honest with someone who had built a lie around you."
I looked at him.
"Does that distinction matter?"
"It will."
"Not tonight."
"No."
That was fair.
I wiped my face angrily.
"If Nolan already had the Pike page, why stay?"
Sofia looked at the audio timeline.
"Because maybe the page wasn't the objective."
"Then what was?"
Dante's phone rang.
One of his analysts had found something in the scanned ledger.
He put the call on speaker.
"There are recurring transfers marked C.S."
I frowned.
"My initials."
"Yes."
"Dates begin six years ago."
"Amounts are small at first."
"Five thousand."
"Ten thousand."
"Then larger."
"The total is just over two million."
I stared at the phone.
"I never received two million dollars."
The analyst continued.
"The account is not in your name."
"It's a trust."
"Beneficiary listed only by initials."
Dante looked at me.
"Who funded it?"
A pause.
"Michael Sullivan."
My father.
I gripped the back of a chair.
"My father didn't have two million dollars."
Sofia shook her head.
"Not legally."
The analyst spoke again.
"The trust appears to have been funded with diverted Bellini money."
The room went silent.
"My father stole from them?"
Dante's eyes narrowed.
"Not for himself."
"Then why?"
The analyst answered.
"There is a note attached to the first transfer."
"Read it."
"Insurance for Claire if I fail."
My knees weakened.
My father had built an escape fund using money taken from the men threatening him.
"Where is the trust now?"
Sofia asked.
The analyst hesitated.
"That's the problem."
"The principal grew through investments."
"Current value is approximately eleven point three million dollars."
I could not process the number.
"And the trustee?"
Another pause.
"Anthony Mercer was the original trustee."
Dante stood so quickly his chair moved backward.
"That's impossible."
"The signature is authenticated."
Sofia stared at him.
"Why would Michael make Anthony trustee after Anthony threatened him?"
I looked at the ledger.
Then the answer came.
"He didn't know yet."
Dante turned toward me.
"The trust predates the recording by three weeks."
Sofia checked the date.
I was right.
My father had trusted Anthony before discovering the betrayal.
"After Anthony died, who became trustee?"
Sofia asked.
The analyst was silent too long.
My skin prickled.
"Who?"
"Successor trustee was Anthony's eldest surviving child."
I already knew.
"Nolan."
The analyst confirmed it.
"Nolan Mercer."
Everything snapped into focus.
Nolan had not chosen me only because of evidence.
He had chosen me because he controlled an eleven-million-dollar trust intended for me.
"Can he take the money?"
Sofia asked.
"Not directly."
"The trust requires beneficiary authorization for principal distributions above fifty thousand."
My stomach turned.
Signatures.
Northline.
Paperwork Nolan had put in front of me for years.
"He wasn't just using my identity for Bellini money."
I whispered.
"He was trying to get my authorization to drain my father's trust."
Dante looked murderous.
"Did he succeed?"
The analyst typed in the background.
"There were four rejected distribution attempts."
"All failed because the beneficiary signature did not match the original specimen."
I frowned.
"What original specimen?"
"The beneficiary signed once at creation."
"But I never signed a trust."
Silence.
Sofia looked at Dante.
Dante looked at me.
The analyst's voice became cautious.
"Then someone else signed as Claire Sullivan six years ago."
My father would never have forged my name.
Anthony might have.
But there was another possibility.
"Can we see the signature?"
Sofia asked.
A file arrived moments later.
She opened it.
I stared at the screen.
The signature looked almost like mine.
Almost.
The C curved differently.
The final n lifted too high.
I had seen that imitation before.
On birthday cards Nolan signed when he joked about copying my handwriting.
My stomach dropped.
"Nolan signed this."
Dante's face went still.
"Six years ago?"
Sofia whispered.
I looked at the date.
The trust had been created two months before I officially met Nolan.
Nolan had forged my signature before our first conversation.
Which meant he had not simply been told to watch me after my father died.
He had been part of the plan before my father died.
Then my phone rang.
Unknown number.
No one told me not to answer.
I put it on speaker.
Nolan's voice came through warm and familiar.
"You finally figured out why I picked you."
My hands went cold.
"Were you there when my father died?"
Silence.
Then Nolan laughed softly.
"Ask Dante where his brother was."
"I already did."
The laughter stopped.
For the first time, I had surprised him.
I kept going.
"You forged my signature before we met."
"You stole my identity."
"You staged your death."
"And you still couldn't get what my father left me."
Nolan's breathing changed.
Small.
But I heard it.
I had finally found something that hurt him.
Failure.
"You think Dante is saving you?"
His voice hardened.
"No."
I looked at Dante.
"I think I'm saving myself."
There was a long silence.
Then Nolan said one sentence.
"Then save Martin Voss."
A video appeared on my screen.
Voss sat tied to a chair in a dark room.
Behind him was a digital clock counting down from forty-seven hours and fifty-nine minutes.
Nolan returned to the call.
"Bring me the trust authorization and Michael's USB before that clock reaches zero."
"Or Voss tells no one what he knows."
The call ended.
The countdown kept moving.
47:58:41.
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