Chapter 6 - Preston Wade Inherited a Secret His Father Died Protecting

Peter Wade had died in a boating accident eleven years earlier.

That was what the public record said.

Rocco found the death certificate before sunrise. Damon found the insurance file. Ivy found the thing that did not fit.

Peter had no boat.

They were still in Marseille, using Faucher's apartment as a temporary command post. Damon's injured arm was strapped close to his body, which did nothing to improve his mood.

“Accident report says he fell from a fourteen-foot fishing boat off Lake Michigan,” Rocco said.

“Registration?” Ivy asked.

“None in his name.”

“Rental?”

“None.”

Damon looked at her. “You're assuming the report is false.”

“I am assuming somebody chose a story nobody bothered to check.”

Rocco slid over another page.

Peter's widow had received a private settlement from an insurance company owned through three subsidiaries by Gideon Vale.

That was not proof of murder.

It was proof that Gideon had been close enough to control the aftermath.

Preston's betrayal now had a different shape.

Ivy remembered his face during the dinner with Faucher. Not arrogance. Terror.

He had known the translation was wrong.

The question was why.

Damon called Chicago.

By noon, his people had located Preston's younger sister, Hannah Wade, a pediatric nurse in Milwaukee. Her apartment was empty. Her hospital said she had requested emergency leave four days earlier.

The request had come from an email address that was not hers.

“Gideon has her,” Ivy said.

Rocco shook his head. “Or Preston moved her himself.”

“Either way, she is leverage.”

Damon was silent.

He had built his power on the belief that fear was useful only when controlled. Gideon had turned that principle inward.

Ivy asked Faucher for access to old dock-union archives.

They spent the afternoon beneath a municipal records building that smelled of paper dust and damp concrete. Gabriel's name appeared in arbitration notes, wage disputes, and two police statements. Peter Wade's name appeared beside his five times.

The last record showed both men attending a mediation after three dockworkers vanished from a night shift.

No bodies were recovered.

No charges were filed.

But attached to the statement was a handwritten translation comparison.

The original French sentence read: temporary removal from hazardous assignment.

The official English version read: permanent removal from operational access.

A legal phrase.

A small change.

A sentence that could justify firing men, isolating witnesses, or worse.

Peter had written beside it: NOT ERROR. PATTERN.

Ivy photographed the page.

Her father's handwriting appeared underneath.

SECOND VOICE CONFIRMED.

Damon stood behind her.

“So Peter knew.”

“Yes.”

“And Preston grew up with this.”

“Maybe not all of it.”

Rocco received a message.

He read it once, then again.

“Chicago found a safe-deposit box in Peter Wade's name. Annual fees paid automatically since his death.”

“By whom?” Damon asked.

“Unknown trust.”

Damon ordered it opened through the estate attorney.

Two hours later, photographs arrived.

The box contained no money.

Only a cassette recorder, three microcassettes, and a sealed envelope addressed to PRESTON.

Ivy stared at the image.

“Can we play them?”

“Not remotely,” Rocco said. “Old format.”

Damon looked at the time.

Their return flight was scheduled for the next morning.

“Move it up.”

Faucher objected.

“You were shot yesterday.”

“I noticed.”

“You are leaving before I find the shooter.”

Damon's mouth turned cold. “The shooter came from Chicago. I don't need Marseille to tell me that.”

Ivy was less certain.

At the records desk, she had noticed a man in a navy raincoat twice. Once near the entrance. Once reflected in the glass of a locked archive cabinet.

She had said nothing because she was tired of seeing threats in every reflection.

Now, as they stepped onto the street, the man was across the road.

He looked directly at her.

Then walked away.

Ivy stopped.

“Rocco.”

The man broke into a run.

Rocco's team pursued him through the market streets, but he disappeared between delivery trucks near the port.

He left behind only one thing.

A folded paper tucked beneath the windshield wiper of their car.

On it was a line written in English.

THE SECOND VOICE DOES NOT BELONG TO COLE.

Below it, in Gabriel Marlowe's old shorthand, was a symbol Ivy had not seen since childhood.

Home.

Her knees weakened.

Damon caught her elbow with his uninjured hand.

“What does it mean?”

She showed him.

“That mark is my father's.”

“You're sure?”

“He used it on notes he left for me after school.”

Rocco scanned the street.

“So Gabriel is here?”

“No.”

Ivy studied the ink.

Fresh.

But the handwriting was too careful, as if copied.

“Someone wants me to think he is.”

Damon looked toward the port.

“Gideon?”

“Maybe.”

Ivy folded the paper.

“Or Preston.”

That night, before they left Marseille, an encrypted message arrived on Damon's private phone from an unknown number.

It contained only six words.

I HAVE HANNAH. I NEED IVY.

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Signed:

P.W.