Chapter 8 - NERO FOUND JARED FIRST
For ninety seconds, I believed Jared had been taken.
Then my phone rang.
His voice.
“Parking level three.”
I ran.
Miles followed.
We found Jared leaning against a concrete pillar.
His tuxedo jacket was torn.
Blood ran from a cut above his eyebrow.
He looked furious.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’m fine.”
“That is blood.”
“I’ve had blood before.”
“That may be the most irritating sentence I’ve heard tonight.”
Miles interrupted.
“Dominic?”
“Gone.”
“Brendan?”
“Also gone.”
Jared held up something.
A key.
“Brendan slipped this into my pocket during the blackout.”
Attached was a motel-style tag.
K-17.
Before we could determine what it meant, security radioed.
Nero had escaped the penthouse.
That should have been impossible.
Three guards.
Locked elevator.
Veterinary staff.
Yet a camera showed Nero forcing through a service corridor after hearing something outside the apartment.
A whistle.
One specific pattern.
Miles replayed it.
Jared went still.
“My father used that whistle.”
“Who else knew it?”
“Family.”
Dominic.
Evelyn.
Maybe Brendan if he had studied them.
Nero’s tracking collar placed him moving south through Manhattan.
Weak.
Slow.
But determined.
We followed.
He stopped near an old Kensington storage building on West Twenty-Seventh Street.
Locker K-17.
The key fit.
Inside was not money.
Not weapons.
Not anything remotely dramatic.
Just an old desk.
A filing cabinet.
And a wooden box.
The same box from the photograph of my father.
My hands trembled.
Inside were ledgers covered in Daniel Thornton’s handwriting.
Payment records.
Politicians.
Police officers.
Judges.
Corporate executives.
Some names were crossed out.
Others were marked ACTIVE.
Jared’s expression hardened with each page.
“This could dismantle half the organization Dominic built.”
I looked at him.
“And yours?”
His eyes met mine.
“Yes.”
I appreciated the answer.
No excuse.
No pretending.
Then I found a separate envelope.
WILLA.
My father’s handwriting.
I opened it.
Sweetheart,
If you ever read this, then I failed to keep my work from touching your life.
I’m sorry.
Dominic Kensington is dangerous, but he is not the only danger.
Arthur Kensington knows what his brother is doing.
Jared stiffened.
Arthur.
His father.
The man Evelyn believed Dominic had murdered.
My father continued:
Arthur says he is collecting evidence. I want to believe him.
But if anything happens to me, find the ledger and trust the dog.
I stared at the final three words.
Trust the dog.
Nero hadn’t even been born twenty-two years ago.
Unless my father meant another dog.
Jared opened the bottom drawer.
Inside was an old photograph.
Arthur Kensington standing beside Daniel Thornton.
At their feet sat a huge black Mastiff.
Behind the photograph was written one name.
CAESAR.
Jared whispered:
“Nero’s grandfather.”
Then Miles found a cassette recorder.
We pressed play.
My father’s voice came first.
“Arthur, if Dominic realizes Evelyn knows—”
Arthur interrupted.
“She’s a child.”
“She won’t always be.”
Then Dominic’s voice entered the room.
Not recorded secretly.
He was there.
“You two really should lock doors.”
A struggle.
The tape ended.
Except for one final sentence.
Arthur Kensington, Jared’s father, whispered:
“Daniel, if you run, take my daughter with you.”
Jared looked at me.
“My sister?”
I looked back at the date.
Twenty-two years ago.
Evelyn would have been six.
May you like
Which meant my father had not died trying to protect a ledger.
He had died trying to protect Evelyn Kensington.
