Chapter 5 - Dominic's Medal
Dominic pulled out a silver Saint Christopher medal.
Nora backed away.
Adrian stared at him.
"Where did you get that?"
Dominic looked offended.
"My mother gave it to me when I joined the Marines."
"Show us the back," Nora said.
He did.
D.S. - COME HOME SAFE.
The engraving was new.
Daniel's note was twelve years old.
"It's not him," Adrian said.
Nora was not convinced.
"How many people in your organization wore one?"
Adrian thought.
"One I remember."
"Who?"
"My father's attorney. Samuel Pike."
Dominic swore.
Samuel Pike had died six years ago in a boating accident.
Or so the newspapers said.
Nora searched the old photographs Dominic brought from Vale archives.
There.
Vincent Vale at a charity dinner.
Samuel Pike beside him.
Silver medal at his throat.
She enlarged the image.
A second man stood in the background.
Her father.
Daniel was looking directly at Pike.
"Why would my father warn you about an attorney?"
Adrian answered.
"Because Pike handled every payment my father wanted hidden."
Dominic's phone rang.
One of his security teams had found the hospital visitor vehicle abandoned in South Boston.
Inside: blood on the steering wheel.
Not enough to suggest someone died.
Enough to suggest someone had been hurt.
They drove there.
Nora found a folded paper beneath the passenger seat.
A hand-drawn map.
One place circled.
Pier 19.
The same pier where Daniel's car had been found twelve years earlier.
At midnight, they entered the abandoned warehouse at Pier 19.
The air smelled like salt and rust.
A light turned on above them.
An old speaker crackled.
Then Nora heard the voice she had replayed in her head since she was fourteen.
Her father's voice.
"Nora, if you're hearing this, I failed to keep you out of it."
She stopped breathing.
May you like
The recording continued.
"Do not trust Adrian Vale until he tells you what he did after he warned me."
