Chapter 5 - The Dollhouse
Vivian’s childhood home stood dark behind iron gates.
Adrian’s men searched the grounds.
Nothing.
No Richard.
No Marcus.
Vivian entered the house with Adrian and Tommy.
The old dollhouse remained in her childhood bedroom.
Pink shutters.
White wooden doors.
A ridiculous little mansion her mother had built by hand.
Vivian knelt beside it.
“My mother used to say every house has secrets.”
Adrian crouched beside her.
“Did she say where?”
“She said the smartest secrets hide beneath ordinary things.”
Vivian removed the miniature kitchen table.
Nothing.
The roof.
Nothing.
Then she remembered.
“Ordinary things.”
She turned the dollhouse over.
A thin wooden panel covered the base.
Adrian removed it.
Inside was a sealed plastic package.
Three ledgers.
Two photographs.
A microcassette.
And twenty-eight years of secrets.
Tommy exhaled.
“We have him.”
“No,” Adrian said.
“We have evidence.”
Tommy looked at him.
“What’s the difference?”
“Evidence doesn’t matter if Marcus owns the people receiving it.”
Vivian opened the first ledger.
Names.
Payments.
Dates.
Judges.
Police officials.
Union leaders.
Corporate executives.
Then she found a familiar name.
Thomas Bennett.
Vivian stopped.
Adrian noticed.
“What?”
She turned the book.
Tommy stared at his own name.
“That isn’t me.”
The entry was dated twenty-six years earlier.
Adrian frowned.
“Your father.”
Tommy’s expression changed.
His father had worked for Anthony Cole.
He had also died the same week.
Tommy read the payment entry.
“Marcus paid him fifty thousand dollars.”
Vivian looked closer.
“No.”
“What?”
She pointed at a notation.
“It isn’t a payment.”
Tommy frowned.
“How do you know?”
“Look at the other entries. Payments are marked P. This one says R.”
“R?”
“Returned.”
Adrian understood.
“Your father refused Marcus’s money.”
Tommy stared at the ledger.
For years he had believed his father died because he had chosen the wrong side.
Now he knew the truth.
His father had chosen the right one.
A phone rang.
Vivian’s.
Unknown number.
She answered.
“Hello?”
Her father’s voice came through.
“Vivian.”
“Dad?”
“Listen carefully.”
A second voice interrupted.
Marcus Dane.
“Good evening, Mrs. Cole.”
Adrian took the phone, but Vivian stopped him.
“What do you want?”
Marcus chuckled.
“Your mother’s ledgers.”
“And my father?”
“Still alive.”
Richard shouted something in the background.
A blow was heard, followed by silence.
Vivian’s expression hardened.
“Where?”
Marcus gave an address.
An abandoned freight terminal beside the river.
“Bring the ledgers. You and Adrian. No army.”
Adrian leaned toward the phone.
“If Richard is harmed—”
Marcus laughed.
“There’s Anthony’s son.”
The call ended.
Tommy said, “It’s a trap.”
“Obviously,” Vivian replied.
Adrian looked at her.
“You’re not going.”
“My father is there.”
“And Marcus wants the evidence.”
“He also wants me.”
“That’s exactly why you’re staying here.”
Vivian stepped toward him.
“Did you learn nothing tonight?”
“I learned you nearly got yourself killed saving me.”
“And I learned you confuse protecting people with deciding for them.”
His jaw tightened.
“Vivian.”
“No.”
She placed the ledgers on the table.
“You married me without asking. My father used me without asking. Marcus has spent twenty-eight years deciding what everyone else is allowed to know.”
She looked Adrian directly in the eyes.
“You want this marriage to become something different?”
Adrian was silent.
“Then start now.”
A long moment passed.
Finally he asked, “What do you want?”
“I want to go.”
“No.”
“You just failed the test.”
“I asked what you wanted. I didn’t promise to like it.”
Despite everything, Vivian almost laughed.
Then Adrian added, “You can come under one condition.”
“What?”
“You follow the plan.”
“What plan?”
He looked toward the ledgers.
“We don’t bring them.”
Tommy smiled faintly.
“Now that sounds like Adrian.”
Vivian shook her head.
“Marcus will know.”
“Eventually.”
“What do we bring?”
Adrian looked at her.
“Something more dangerous than evidence.”
Vivian waited.
“The truth,” he said.
An hour later, they arrived at the freight terminal.
Marcus stood beneath the warehouse lights.
Richard sat nearby, frightened but alive.
Marcus smiled.
“Newlyweds.”
Vivian stepped forward.
“Let my father go.”
“Ledgers first.”
Adrian held up a leather case.
Marcus’s eyes followed it.
Vivian noticed.
His hands.
Always the hands.
Marcus kept one inside his coat.
The other tapped twice against his thigh.
Vivian looked toward the upper walkway.
Someone moved.
“Adrian.”
“I know.”
Marcus smiled.
“Know what?”
Vivian answered.
“That you’re about to make the same mistake you made at the wedding.”
Marcus’s smile disappeared.
“And what mistake was that?”
“You’re watching Adrian.”
She raised her phone.
“You should have been watching me.”
The screen showed an active call.
Not to the police.
To every journalist whose number Vivian had collected during years of cleaning up her father’s scandals.
Marcus stared at it.
Vivian smiled.
May you like
“Say hello to Chicago.”
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