Chapter 6 - THE DEAD MAN WHO TEXTED ME
For three seconds, I forgot how to breathe.
Nolan Mercer was dead.
The words should have brought relief.
Instead, every instinct in me screamed that something was wrong.
Dante stepped between me and the locked door.
"Pike."
His voice carried through the steel room.
"If you want to arrest someone, unlock the door and bring a warrant."
The speaker crackled.
"Put the gun down, Moretti."
Dante did not move.
Sofia pulled out her phone.
No signal.
"They jammed the vault."
She looked at me.
"Claire, do not say anything about the ledger."
"He already knows we're here."
"That doesn't mean he knows what we found."
Pike's voice came again.
"Ms. Sullivan, we have video of you threatening Nolan Mercer."
I stared at the speaker.
"I never threatened him."
Sofia put one finger to her lips.
Too late.
Pike continued.
"We also have your fingerprints at the scene."
My stomach dropped.
"What scene?"
"Your apartment."
I looked at Dante.
I had not been inside my apartment since the gala.
But my fingerprints were everywhere.
Nolan had chosen the perfect place.
Sofia whispered.
"He wants you talking."
I forced myself silent.
Dante looked toward the small ceiling camera.
"Where's the warrant?"
Pike did not answer.
Instead, the vault door began to open.
Dante lowered his gun but did not put it away.
Six uniformed officers entered.
Pike came last.
He was in his fifties with iron-gray hair and the calm face of a man who had spent decades being obeyed.
He looked at me first.
Then at the open metal box on the table.
His eyes lingered half a second too long.
That was enough.
He knew about M-19.
"Claire Sullivan."
He held up a pair of handcuffs.
"Turn around."
Sofia stepped between us.
"Show me the warrant."
Pike smiled.
"Counselor Moretti."
"Always a pleasure."
"It won't be if you touch my client without paperwork."
"Your client is under arrest for probable cause in a homicide investigation."
"Then identify the probable cause."
Pike looked at me.
"Her boyfriend is dead."
The word boyfriend made my skin crawl.
"He wasn't my boyfriend anymore."
Sofia glanced at me.
I knew I should stop talking.
I couldn't.
"He assaulted me at the gala in front of witnesses."
"And hours later he died."
Pike's expression remained pleasantly blank.
"That sounds like motive."
Dante moved one step closer.
"She was with me all night."
Pike smiled wider.
"That's not the alibi you think it is."
The officers shifted.
I understood why.
Dante Moretti saying I had been with him only made the story more dangerous.
Pike turned to the bank manager.
"Secure everything in this room as evidence."
My heart slammed.
"No."
Sofia raised her voice.
"That box belongs to Claire Sullivan and contains privileged material being reviewed for potential federal disclosure."
Pike's pleasant expression disappeared.
"Federal?"
The word bothered him.
Dante noticed too.
"You heard her."
Pike looked from Dante to Sofia.
Then he made a mistake.
He looked directly at the black ledger.
Not the envelope.
Not the photograph.
The ledger.
As though he already knew which object mattered.
I felt my fear change shape.
This was not an arrest.
It was a retrieval.
"I want a federal attorney."
Everyone looked at me.
Pike's eyes hardened.
"You don't get to choose who investigates your boyfriend's death."
"No."
I forced my voice steady.
"But I get to choose who receives evidence my father identified as compromised inside Chicago Police."
Sofia closed her eyes for half a second.
I had said too much.
Pike's mask slipped.
Only slightly.
"Your father has been dead six years."
"Then why do you look nervous?"
Dante's mouth almost moved.
Pike stared at me.
I had lived with Nolan long enough to recognize the moment a controlling man realized fear was no longer producing obedience.
It made him dangerous.
Pike reached for my arm.
Dante stepped forward.
Every officer in the room touched a weapon.
Sofia's voice cracked through the tension.
"Nobody moves."
She lifted her phone.
"The jammer just dropped."
A tiny signal bar had appeared.
"And I have already sent the first three pages of Michael Sullivan's letter to the United States Attorney's Office."
Pike froze.
Sofia smiled without warmth.
"So if anyone in this room suddenly suffers an unfortunate misunderstanding, Washington will be very curious."
Pike's eyes turned murderous.
He stepped back.
"Arrest her."
The officers cuffed me anyway.
Dante did not stop them.
I hated him for one second.
Then he leaned close as they led me past.
"Let him think he won."
I looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because men who believe they won stop hiding their hands."
The police station was exactly what Nolan had trained me to fear.
Before Pike entered the interview room, another detective placed a paper cup of water in front of me.
He was young enough to look uncomfortable.
"You can tell us if you're afraid of Moretti."
I stared at him.
"I'm afraid of a lot of people right now."
He leaned forward.
"Did he pressure you to leave the gala with him?"
"No."
"Did he tell you what to say about Nolan?"
"No."
"Did he tell you not to go home?"
"Yes."
The detective nodded as if he had found the answer he wanted.
"So he controlled where you went."
I felt anger rise.
"He showed me Nolan waiting outside my apartment and told me why going home was dangerous."
"That's different."
The detective looked unconvinced.
I understood the trap.
If I admitted Dante frightened me, I became a victim he controlled.
If I said he did not, I became a willing participant in whatever crimes they wanted to attach to him.
The room wanted a simple woman.
A helpless one or a guilty one.
There seemed to be no box for someone who could be frightened by one man, protected by another, angry at both, and still capable of making her own decisions.
Sofia arrived before I answered another question.
She walked in without apologizing.
"My client requested counsel."
The detective stood.
"We were only talking."
"Then you can enjoy silence now."
He left.
Sofia sat beside me.
"That was Pike's warm-up act."
"He was trying to make Dante the story."
"Of course."
She opened her legal pad.
"If Pike makes this about organized crime, nobody has to examine the boring financial evidence that proves Nolan planned the frame."
I looked at the mirrored wall.
"Is Pike behind it?"
"Probably."
I leaned closer to the glass.
"Then he should listen carefully."
Sofia caught my sleeve before I could speak.
"No speeches."
I looked at her.
"You are extremely disappointing."
"It's why I'm expensive."
The absurdity steadied me.
Then the door opened and Pike walked in.
The police station was exactly what Nolan had trained me to fear.
White walls.
Cold chairs.
Questions asked as accusations.
Pike sat across from me in an interview room with a recorder between us.
Sofia sat at my right.
"Where were you between midnight and five this morning?"
"With my attorney present, my client invokes her right to remain silent."
Pike ignored Sofia.
"Did Dante Moretti order Nolan's death?"
Silence.
"Did you ask him to?"
Silence.
"Did you tell Moretti Nolan assaulted you?"
I looked at Sofia.
She shook her head.
Pike leaned back.
"You know what juries hate?"
I said nothing.
"Women who play helpless until they need a motive."
My hands tightened under the table.
He saw it.
He smiled.
Nolan used to smile that way.
"You were afraid of Nolan until a bigger man arrived."
Pike continued.
"Then suddenly Nolan ends up dead."
I kept breathing.
In.
Out.
"Convenient."
Sofia leaned forward.
"Are you interrogating my client about a homicide or auditioning for a lawsuit?"
Pike ignored her.
"We found blood in your apartment."
My heart skipped.
"A significant amount."
"We found Nolan's watch."
"We found a bullet in the wall."
"And we found your fingerprints on the gun."
That made me look up.
Pike smiled.
I had held Nolan's gun once.
Eight months earlier.
He had placed it in my hand after an argument and told me if I was so scared of him, I should protect myself.
Then he laughed when I dropped it.
I had forgotten.
He had not.
"You remember now."
Pike saw everything in my face.
I looked at Sofia.
"He made me touch it months ago."
"Stop."
She put her hand over mine.
"No more."
Pike stood.
"We'll see what the lab says."
He left us alone.
My breathing broke.
"He planned this."
"Yes."
"Months ago."
"Probably."
"Before the gala."
Sofia's voice softened.
"Claire, look at me."
I did.
"Planning does not make him unbeatable."
"It makes him patient."
"So are we."
Two hours later, federal agents arrived.
Pike looked furious.
The agents removed the ledger and USB from police custody under a preservation order Sofia had secured through a contact.
I was not released.
The homicide allegation remained.
At four in the afternoon, they transferred me to central booking.
Dante was nowhere in sight.
I hated how much that bothered me.
By six, Sofia returned with a strange expression.
"They're releasing you pending further investigation."
"Why?"
"The blood in your apartment is Nolan's."
"That sounds worse."
"It would be."
She slid a paper across the table.
"Except the medical examiner says there isn't enough evidence to establish Nolan is dead."
I stared at her.
"Pike said his body was found."
"Pike lied."
"There was no body?"
"No body."
My pulse began to pound.
"Then where is Nolan?"
Sofia looked toward the door.
"That's the four-point-eight-million-dollar question."
When I walked out of the station, Dante was waiting beside the SUV.
He looked exactly as he had at the gala.
Still.
Controlled.
Dangerous.
I wanted to be angry that he had not come inside.
Then I saw the bruise across his knuckles.
"What happened?"
"Nothing useful."
Sofia rolled her eyes.
"He spent four hours finding the man who supplied Nolan with the blood bags used in your apartment."
I stopped.
"Blood bags?"
Dante opened the car door.
"Nolan drew his own blood over several weeks."
"He stored it."
"Then staged a murder scene."
I felt sick.
"Why?"
Dante looked at me.
"To make you radioactive."
"To police."
"To employers."
"To anyone who might believe you."
"And to make everyone search for a dead man while he moves freely."
I got into the SUV.
My phone was returned in an evidence bag.
The moment I turned it on, dozens of notifications appeared.
News alerts.
Missed calls.
Messages from people I had not heard from in years.
My photograph was already online.
FINANCIAL CONSULTANT QUESTIONED IN BOYFRIEND'S DISAPPEARANCE.
MYSTERY WOMAN LINKED TO MORETTI BOSS.
GALA KISS BEFORE POSSIBLE MURDER.
I wanted to throw the phone out the window.
Then a message arrived from an unknown number.
One photograph.
Nolan standing in front of a mirror.
Alive.
Smiling.
Holding that day's newspaper.
May you like
Beneath it were four words.
MISS ME YET, CLAIRE?
