SERIES : The Glass Between Us

The fire was smaller than the alarm suggested and more dangerous than smoke revealed.

Someone had ignited a chemical accelerant inside conference room C, directly beneath network conduits connecting the executive floors to the disaster-recovery system. Sprinklers contained the flames within eighteen minutes, but the twenty-ninth floor suffered heavy damage.

Marcus Wynn disappeared during the evacuation.

By three in the afternoon, Daniel stood on the sidewalk across from Mercer headquarters while firefighters carried equipment through revolving doors.

Reporters shouted from behind barricades.

Victoria came beside him.

“You chose the people.”

He looked at her.

“Was there another choice?”

“My father would have saved the records.”

“Your father would have made someone else go back for them.”

She almost smiled.

Then she looked at the building.

“Do we still have evidence?”

“Sophia stopped the mirror wipe at sixty-eight percent.”

“So a third survived?”

“Plus the police image from before the fire.”

Victoria exhaled.

“Marcus failed.”

“Maybe.”

“You think the fire had another purpose.”

Daniel nodded.

“To destroy conference room C itself.”

“The console used to restore Richard’s credentials.”

“Yes.”

Eli approached with Detective Ross.

“Marcus’s car is still in the garage,” Eli said. “Phone off. Apartment empty.”

Ross added, “Airport and rail alerts are active.”

Daniel looked at her.

“Did you arrest Gideon?”

“No probable cause for the poison yet. We can hold him for questioning on financial crimes if the ledger survives authentication, but I’d rather not move before we understand Wynn.”

Victoria folded her arms.

“My father will run.”

Ross shook her head.

“He won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“Men like your father do not think leaving is survival. They think leaving is surrender.”

Daniel looked toward the townhouse district in the distance.

“She’s right.”

Victoria’s phone rang.

Owen.

She answered.

“Hey.”

“Vic, I’m at the airport.”

Her face changed.

“What airport?”

“Logan. There are two guys watching me.”

Daniel took the phone.

“Owen, do not board anything.”

“I wasn’t planning to, Daniel.”

“Where exactly are you?”

“Terminal B, near security.”

Eli already had another phone out.

Owen continued. “One of them showed me a badge from Dad’s foundation and said Dad wants me in New York.”

Victoria grabbed Daniel’s arm.

“Don’t go with them.”

“I know.”

A voice sounded faintly on Owen’s end.

“Mr. Vale?”

Owen whispered, “That’s one.”

Daniel said, “Walk toward uniformed airport police. Stay on the call.”

“Doing it.”

They heard footsteps, crowd noise, then Owen speak louder.

“Officer, can you help me?”

A moment later, another voice answered.

Victoria closed her eyes with relief.

Eli’s security contact confirmed police had Owen.

Then Owen said, “Wait.”

“What?” Victoria asked.

“One of the guys is leaving.”

“Let him.”

“No, he dropped something.”

“Owen, do not pick it up.”

“An officer got it.”

“What is it?”

Silence.

Then Owen said, “A cufflink.”

Daniel looked at Ross.

“The black one?”

“Yes. Circle with a line through it.”

Ross held out her hand for the phone.

“Owen, this is Detective Ross. Put me on speaker with the officer.”

Within minutes, Boston police had detained one of the men. The other vanished into the terminal crowd.

The detained man carried a Vale Foundation contractor card under the name Peter Hales.

His real name, identified by fingerprints, was Peter Wynn.

Marcus Wynn’s younger brother.

Sophia arrived from the temporary command office.

“You’re kidding.”

Ross shook her head.

“Peter Wynn worked private security for the Vale Foundation for seven years.”

Victoria stared.

“So Marcus had a brother inside Dad’s organization.”

Daniel said, “Or Gideon had a brother inside ours.”

Eli nodded.

“Same fact. Different direction.”

Ross’s phone buzzed.

She listened, then looked at them.

“Peter had photographs on his phone.”

“Of Owen?” Victoria asked.

“Yes. And Daniel. Sophia. Lucas. Nora.”

Daniel’s face hardened.

“Anything else?”

“Images of Richard Mercer’s car after the bridge crash.”

Sophia went still.

“Those were police photos.”

“Some are. Some aren’t.”

Daniel understood.

“Taken before first responders arrived.”

Ross nodded.

Victoria whispered, “Then Peter or Marcus was there.”

“Possibly.”

Daniel looked toward the street.

Marcus was no longer a quiet board member.

He was a man connected to the bridge, the erased servers, the attempted abduction of Owen, and Gideon’s private security network.

“What does Peter say?”

“Nothing yet.”

Sophia held up her laptop.

“I found something he may not need to say.”

They moved into a nearby hotel conference room being used as a temporary office.

Sophia projected a recovered ledger page on the wall.

“I searched all MW entries. Most are ordinary. Three use the authorization symbol. Here.”

A line appeared.

B-11 contingency — transport loss — K approval.

Daniel stared.

“B for bridge?”

“Maybe. Eleven could be the year code.”

Ross said, “Do not overread abbreviations.”

Sophia nodded.

“Agreed. But look at the payment destination.”

A company name appeared.

Wynn Risk Advisory.

Victoria looked at Ross.

“That’s Marcus.”

“Could be.”

Sophia opened corporate records.

“Wynn Risk Advisory was owned by Marcus and dissolved ten years ago.”

Daniel’s voice became cold.

“How much?”

“Eight hundred thousand dollars, paid four days before Dad’s crash.”

Eli frowned.

“Too much for ordinary consulting.”

Ross said, “Still circumstantial.”

Sophia opened another page.

“Then there’s this.”

Payment received. Contingency closed. Vehicle unrecoverable expected.

Daniel felt the room tilt.

But Richard’s vehicle had been recovered.

He remembered standing behind police tape, seeing the crushed black sedan lifted from the ravine.

“Expected,” he said.

Ross looked at him.

“What?”

“The vehicle was supposed to disappear.”

Eli understood.

“The bridge had a river channel beneath the eastern side. Richard’s car hit the western embankment instead.”

Sophia whispered, “So whoever planned it expected the car to go into the water.”

Daniel stared at the line.

“What survived inside the car?”

Eli frowned.

“Personal effects. Briefcase. Phone damaged. Some paper files.”

“Cufflinks?”

Sophia looked at him.

Daniel remembered the estate inventory.

“Dad was wearing the black enamel set that night.”

Ross’s face sharpened.

“And one appeared beside the stolen champagne glass.”

Victoria said, “Meaning someone had access to Dad after the crash.”

Daniel looked at Eli.

“Who handled personal effects?”

“State police, medical examiner, then family representative.”

“Which representative?”

Eli’s eyes hardened.

“I’ll check.”

The answer arrived twenty minutes later.

Gideon Vale had signed the receipt.

Victoria stared at the scanned form bearing her father’s signature.

“He took Dad’s things.”

Sophia said, “Maybe for the family.”

Daniel shook his head.

“I never knew he had them.”

Ross said, “That links Gideon to the cufflinks, not necessarily the crash.”

Victoria looked angry.

“What will be enough?”

“A witness. A recording. An instruction. Something direct.”

Nora, who had been sitting quietly at the far side of the room, spoke.

“There may be a recording.”

Everyone turned.

“What recording?” Victoria asked.

Nora looked frightened again.

“Eleanor kept more than one.”

Daniel stepped closer.

“Where?”

“I don’t know. But she once told me that if Gideon ever tried to make Richard’s death look like an accident, the truth would be in the place he never listened.”

Victoria frowned.

“What does that mean?”

Nora shook her head.

“She said exactly that.”

“The place he never listened,” Sophia repeated.

Victoria stared at nothing for several seconds.

Then her eyes widened.

“The music room.”

Nora looked at her.

Victoria stood.

“Dad hated Mom’s music. He never entered that room. After she died, he locked it.”

Daniel looked at her.