Chapter 2 - The Man My Father Warned Me About
I forgot about the job.
I forgot about health insurance.
I even forgot that Jack Whitmore was supposed to frighten me.
“Who is Vincent?”
Jack looked toward the closed door.
“My uncle.”
The answer came too quickly to be invented.
“What does he do?”
“He’s vice chairman of Northbridge.”
My stomach tightened.
“And my father thought he was dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Jack didn’t answer immediately.
That made me angrier.
“You just told me my father worked for your family and apparently died worried about your uncle. You don’t get mysterious now.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“Fair.”
He sat across from me.
Fourteen years earlier, Northbridge was still called Whitmore Consolidated.
Shipping.
Construction.
Warehouses.
Bars.
Private security.
Some legitimate businesses.
Some that lived in gray areas Jack did not try to romanticize.
“My father built the empire,” he said. “Vincent helped expand it.”
“And you?”
“I was twenty-four and stupid enough to think inheriting power was the same as knowing what to do with it.”
Robert Carter had discovered money moving through subcontractors that didn’t appear to perform real work.
Millions.
Possibly tens of millions.
He began tracing it.
Then his car went off an icy road.
“Police called it an accident,” Jack said.
“My mother said the same.”
“I believed it for six years.”
“What changed?”
“One of Robert’s old files resurfaced.”
He tapped the notebook.
“Then why didn’t you contact me?”
“Because the notebook said protect Emily, not drag Emily into Whitmore business.”
That answer irritated me because I understood it.
“What about my mother?”
“She refused every contact from us.”
I went still.
“You contacted her?”
“My father did. Then I did once after his death.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
Mom had never said a word.
Jack pushed the notebook toward me.
“You should take it.”
I did not touch it.
“Why do you have it?”
“My father kept it.”
That was worse.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
The conference-room door opened.
A silver-haired man stepped inside.
Perfect suit.
Controlled smile.
Same Whitmore eyes as Jack.
He looked at me.
Then at the notebook.
His smile disappeared.
“Jack.”
Jack stood.
“Vincent.”
So this was the man.
Vincent Whitmore looked exactly like the kind of executive magazines described as distinguished when they meant dangerous.
His gaze settled on me again.
“You must be Emily.”
My skin prickled.
I had never met him.
“How do you know my name?”
He smiled.
“You’re interviewing for my company.”
“Jack’s company,” I said.
Something flickered behind his eyes.
Jack almost smiled.
Vincent looked at the notebook.
“You’re opening old graves.”
“Maybe they shouldn’t have been buried,” Jack replied.
Vincent’s tone cooled.
“Your father would disagree.”
Then he left.
I looked at Jack.
“Did he just threaten me?”
“No.”
“How comforting.”
Jack picked up the notebook.
“He reminded me that whatever Robert found involved my father too.”
My anger paused.
“Your father knew?”
“I don’t know how much.”
Then Jack removed a yellowed envelope from the back cover.
It was addressed in my father’s handwriting.
TO EMILY — WHEN SHE IS OLD ENOUGH TO CHOOSE FOR HERSELF.
I stared at it.
Jack handed it to me.
“You should open that without me.”
I walked out of Northbridge headquarters carrying the letter and completely forgetting to ask whether I got the job.
I opened it in a coffee shop three blocks away.
My father’s first sentence destroyed another piece of the life I thought I knew.
Emily,
If you are reading this, then I failed to come home.
Near the bottom was another line.
The money I moved was never stolen from the Whitmores.
It belongs to people they stole from.
May you like
And I hid the last portion where nobody in that family can reach it.
For you to decide what happens next.
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