Chapter 5 - THE RED BOOK
Nobody spoke for several seconds.
Dr. Price began crying.
Vincent took the phone from Leo.
“Is the boy conscious?”
“Yes.”
“Get him to a hospital.”
Leo nodded.
“And the book?”
“Bring it here.”
I stared at Vincent.
“My father wrote about a red book.”
Vincent looked at me.
“I know.”
“You knew?”
“I knew your father kept records.”
“Then why did you let me believe he killed himself because of gambling debt?”
Vincent's expression hardened.
“Because that's what the people who killed him wanted everyone to believe.”
My stomach twisted.
“You said he wasn't killed.”
“I said he was paid to keep me alive.”
“Those aren't the same thing.”
“No.”
Vincent looked away.
“Because I didn't know how he died.”
That answer hurt more than I expected.
For two years, I had cleaned the floors of a house belonging to the man I believed had inherited my father's debt.
I had hated Vincent.
Feared him.
Sometimes blamed him.
And now I was standing in front of him while he admitted he had never known the truth either.
The red book arrived twenty minutes later.
It was small.
Leather-bound.
Edges worn from years of handling.
There was no lock.
Vincent opened it.
The first pages contained numbers.
Bank accounts.
Dates.
Names.
Payments.
I recognized one immediately.
Dr. Gable.
He went pale.
“I don't know what that means.”
Vincent kept reading.
Another name.
Dr. Price.
Then another.
A hospital administrator.
Then a name I didn't recognize.
Nathaniel Cross.
Leo leaned over the table.
“Cross.”
Vincent nodded.
“One of the five men who financed the first Carter operation.”
I looked at the pages.
The payments weren't recent.
They stretched back twenty years.
“This isn't about you getting sick.”
Vincent looked at me.
“No.”
I pointed to the latest entry.
The date was only six months old.
Next to it was a payment.
Then a notation.
PHASE TWO — CARTER SUCCESSION.
“What is succession?”
Vincent didn't answer.
Leo did.
“It means someone wants Vincent removed.”
“That much I understand.”
“No.”
Leo looked at me.
“It means they want someone else to inherit his organization.”
I stared at Vincent.
“Who?”
Vincent closed the book.
“We don't know.”
I noticed something.
“There's a missing page.”
Everyone looked at me.
The book had been cut.
Three pages had been removed from the middle.
“How do you know?”
“The stitching.”
I pointed.
“These pages were torn out recently.”
Vincent's eyes narrowed.
Leo asked, “What was on them?”
“I don't know.”
I touched the torn edge.
“There might be impressions.”
Vincent looked at me.
“You studied toxicology.”
“And?”
“Can you recover writing from a torn page?”
“Sometimes.”
We worked late into the night.
I used a soft pencil and carefully shaded the page beneath the missing sheets.
Letters began appearing.
Not enough to read everything.
But enough to recognize one word.
CARTER.
Then another.
DAUGHTER.
My heart stopped.
I looked at Vincent.
He looked equally stunned.
“Daughter?” Leo asked.
Vincent shook his head.
“I don't have one.”
I kept shading.
More letters emerged.
KEEP HER OUT OF BOSTON.
Then:
THE GIRL IS NOT THE TARGET.
I stared at the sentence.
“Then who is?”
The next line was almost completely erased.
I worked carefully.
Finally, three words appeared.
HER MOTHER KNOWS.
I looked up.
“I don't have a mother.”
Vincent's face changed.
“Everyone has a mother.”
“Mine died when I was born.”
“Who told you?”
“My father.”
Silence.
Vincent slowly sat down.
“Your father lied.”
I felt the room spin.
“No.”
“I think your mother was alive.”
“You don't know that.”
“I knew her.”
My throat tightened.
“You knew my mother?”
Vincent nodded.
“My father knew her too.”
Leo looked confused.
“Boss, how?”
Vincent stared at the red book.
“She worked for us.”
I stepped backward.
“What did she do?”
Vincent didn't answer.
I demanded it.
“What did my mother do?”
He finally looked at me.
“She was a chemist.”
Everything inside me went cold.
A chemist.
My mother.
My degree.
My obsession with medications.
The strange familiarity I had always felt around chemical names.
It suddenly felt less like coincidence.
Then the lights went out.
The mansion disappeared into darkness.
Someone shouted downstairs.
A gunshot cracked through the house.
Leo grabbed me and pulled me behind the table.
Vincent reached for a weapon.
Another shot.
Then a scream.
The emergency lights flickered on.
A figure stood at the end of the hallway.
Wearing Dr. Price's black coat.
He lifted one hand.
There was a photograph between his fingers.
He dropped it.
It landed at my feet.
I picked it up.
My mother was standing beside a young Vincent Carter.
And she was holding a newborn baby.
Me.
May you like
On the back, my father's handwriting said:
She was never supposed to know who her father was.
