Chapter 4 - The Man Waiting in Maine

Adrian did not go to Queens first.

Walter convinced him not to.

“If Harbor Crown still has the originals, Thomas may be watching it.”

“So we sit here?”

“No.”

Walter slid Samuel Quinn’s photograph across the desk.

“We ask the man your father’s enemies spent nine years blaming.”

By sunrise, the estate was empty of guests.

By eight, Adrian’s engagement had become gossip across New York.

By noon, he no longer cared.

We drove north.

Adrian.

Walter.

Me.

Celeste was not invited.

She did not ask to come.

Samuel Quinn lived behind a small church outside Portland.

The man in Walter’s photograph looked older in person.

Gray beard.

Broad shoulders.

Hands scarred from warehouse work.

When he saw Adrian, he stopped on the church steps.

“You look like Victor.”

Adrian did not answer.

Samuel looked at Walter.

“You told him.”

“I told him enough.”

Samuel opened the church basement.

We sat at a folding table beneath fluorescent lights.

Nothing about it felt like the place where a nine-year lie should end.

Maybe that was why it did.

Adrian placed Quinn’s sworn statement on the table.

“I want the part you left out.”

Samuel stared at him.

“There’s always a part people leave out.”

“What’s yours?”

Samuel smiled sadly.

“Your father wasn’t a saint.”

“I know.”

That answer surprised him.

Adrian continued.

“He paid people. Threatened people. Owned judges, unions, docks.”

Samuel nodded.

“Good. Then we can talk about what happened without pretending Victor was innocent.”

Walter shifted in his chair.

Samuel looked at him.

“Still loyal.”

“Still honest.”

“Those aren’t always the same thing.”

Adrian leaned forward.

“The fire.”

Samuel’s expression changed.

“I was warehouse supervisor. Your father used the building for records he didn’t trust at the estate.”

“Records about Thomas?”

“About everyone.”

Samuel rubbed his hands together.

“Two weeks before the fire, Peter Malloy asked for my master access card. Said Victor wanted a security audit.”

“You gave it to him?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because he was head of security.”

Samuel looked ashamed.

“Then Celeste found me outside a restaurant the afternoon before the fire.”

Adrian went still.

“She told you to run.”

“She told me someone was going to use my card that night.”

“Did she say who?”

“No.”

“Did she mention her father?”

Samuel looked at Walter.

Then back to Adrian.

“She said, ‘My father is cleaning up something he should have left alone.’”

Adrian’s jaw tightened.

Samuel continued.

“I went to the warehouse anyway.”

Walter swore under his breath.

“I needed to know.”

“What did you see?”

“Malloy’s car. Thomas Arden’s driver. Two men carrying fuel cans.”

Adrian’s eyes hardened.

“And my father?”

“Wasn’t there.”

For the first time, Adrian looked relieved.

Only for a second.

Samuel noticed.

“That’s why I thought it was about the records.”

“What happened?”

“I called Victor.”

Samuel looked down.

“He said he was already on his way.”

Walter closed his eyes.

Adrian did not move.

“You told him.”

“Yes.”

Samuel’s voice broke.

“I thought he could stop it.”

The room became very quiet.

“He arrived before I could reach him.”

“And Thomas?”

“Gone.”

“Malloy?”

“Gone.”

“The fire?”

“Already started.”

Samuel swallowed.

“Victor went inside.”

Adrian’s hands tightened.

“Why?”

“Because there were two night workers in the rear office.”

Walter looked up sharply.

“Nobody ever told me that.”

“They survived.”

Samuel nodded.

“Victor got one out. The other climbed through a window.”

Adrian stared at the table.

That was the first detail that made his father’s death feel real.

Not a crime report.

Not a photograph.

A choice.

Victor had gone into a burning warehouse because two workers were inside.

Samuel continued.

“The roof section collapsed before he came back out.”

Adrian looked at him.

“Did Thomas order my father killed?”

Samuel took a long breath.

“I can’t prove that.”

“Did he order the fire?”

“I saw enough to believe he arranged it.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“No.”

Samuel met his eyes.

“And you should care about that difference.”

Adrian leaned back.

He did.

That mattered to me.

A man raised in a world where suspicion often became punishment was asking for proof.

Not revenge.

Proof.

Samuel reached into an old metal cabinet.

He removed a small notebook.

“I kept this because I was a coward.”

Adrian looked at it.

“Why does cowardice make you keep evidence?”

“Because throwing it away would have made me part of them.”

Inside were license plates.

Times.

Phone numbers.

One number appeared six times.

Walter recognized it.

“Malloy.”

Samuel nodded.

The last entry was written three days after the fire.

MALLOY — NORTHLIGHT — QUEENS.

Adrian looked at me.

The same name.

The same address.

Samuel saw our reaction.

“You found it too.”

“Yes.”

“Then he’s still being paid.”

Adrian stood.

“For what?”

Samuel closed the notebook.

“That’s the question you should have asked nine years ago.”

On the drive back, Walter slept.

Adrian did not.

Two hours from Long Island, his phone rang.

Celeste.

He almost ignored it.

Then answered.

She spoke for less than ten seconds.

Adrian’s face changed.

“What?”

He turned the speaker on.

Celeste was crying.

“My father came to the estate.”

Adrian gripped the phone.

“Where are you?”

“In the library.”

“What does he want?”

A pause.

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Then Celeste said:

“The ledger Walter told me was the original.”