Chapter 4 - The Envelope Her Father Hid
Bridget reached her mother’s apartment and found the front door open.
She stopped in the hallway.
Gabriel caught her shoulder.
“Wait.”
“That’s my mother.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to tell me to wait.”
“I do if walking in gets you both killed.”
Rafael moved past them with his weapon drawn.
Silence.
Then a voice from inside.
“Bridget?”
Her mother.
Bridget pushed past Gabriel.
“Mom!”
Margaret Collins stood beside the dining table wearing slippers and a faded robe.
Alive.
Confused.
And furious.
“Why are all these men in my apartment?”
Three of Gabriel’s people stood near the windows.
Rafael had called ahead.
They had arrived less than two minutes after Adrian left.
Bridget hugged her mother.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Did he touch you?”
“Who?”
“Adrian.”
Margaret frowned.
“The polite man?”
Gabriel raised an eyebrow.
Bridget stared.
“He threatened you.”
“He drank tea.”
“Mom.”
“He said your father had left something that belonged to his employer.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That your father left plenty of things.”
Bridget closed her eyes.
Margaret Collins had spent thirty-eight years working around teenagers.
Intimidation had never impressed her.
“Did he take anything?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Where’s Dad’s envelope?”
Margaret’s expression changed.
“You remember that?”
“Where is it?”
Her mother looked around at the armed men.
“Bridget, what is happening?”
Bridget took her hands.
“I think Dad was killed.”
Margaret went still.
The anger disappeared.
“What?”
“He may have been poisoned.”
“No.”
“I found records.”
Margaret sat.
Gabriel quietly told his men to leave the room.
Bridget crouched in front of her mother.
“Dad worked for the Costello family.”
Margaret looked at Gabriel.
Then back at Bridget.
“Yes.”
Bridget felt punched.
“You knew?”
“I knew enough.”
“You told me he drove a bus.”
“He did. Later.”
“Why did you lie?”
“To keep you alive.”
The answer came so quickly Bridget had nothing ready for it.
Margaret stood.
She walked to the kitchen.
Opened a cabinet.
Moved several boxes.
Then pressed the back panel.
A narrow compartment opened.
Gabriel stared.
Margaret removed a brown envelope.
Twelve years old.
Bridget recognized her father’s handwriting immediately.
FOR BRIDGET ONLY.
Her throat tightened.
“You kept it.”
“I promised him.”
“Why didn’t you give it to me?”
“He told me not to unless a Costello came looking.”
Gabriel’s face darkened.
“One came tonight.”
Margaret nodded.
“So now you get it.”
Bridget opened the envelope.
Inside was a key.
A storage receipt.
And a handwritten letter.
Baby girl,
If you are reading this, the past has found you.
Bridget stopped.
Her eyes blurred.
She forced herself onward.
I worked for Salvatore Costello because I believed numbers could keep bad men from doing worse things. That was arrogance.
I discovered money moving through businesses that did not belong to Salvatore.
Somebody inside his organization was building a second empire.
They were paying doctors, judges, police, and accountants.
I found names.
I found accounts.
I found a method they used against people who became inconvenient.
Poison.
Slow enough to resemble illness.
Bridget’s hand shook.
Margaret sat silently.
The letter continued.
I tried to warn Salvatore.
I do not know if he believed me.
If I die suddenly, do not trust the official cause.
Do not trust anyone who says the Costellos ordered it unless you have proof.
Especially do not trust the man who delivers that accusation.
The next paragraph contained only one sentence.
The ledger is in Locker 308 at Union Station.
Gabriel leaned forward.
“Union Station?”
Bridget read the final lines.
The key will open it.
If Dominique Costello is alive, show it to him.
Not his father.
Not his advisers.
Dominique.
He once did something his father never knew.
He spared a man he had been ordered to kill.
That told me what kind of man he might become.
I hope I was right.
Love always, Dad
Bridget stared at the letter.
“Dominique.”
Gabriel exhaled.
“He was twenty-six then.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Bridget turned on him.
“How do you not know?”
“Because my brother doesn’t confess every crime he refused to commit.”
Margaret touched Bridget’s arm.
“You said Dominique is sick?”
“Dying.”
Her mother looked toward the window.
“Then Thomas was right.”
“About what?”
“He said if the hidden organization survived, someday it would eat the Costellos from inside.”
Gabriel stood.
“We need that locker.”
They left Margaret under guard.
Union Station’s old storage level had been partially closed for renovation.
Locker 308 still existed behind a row of temporary walls.
The key opened it.
Inside sat a metal cashbox.
No ledger.
Gabriel swore.
Bridget searched.
Nothing.
Then she remembered her father.
He never trusted obvious hiding places.
She pulled the locker’s metal shelf upward.
Beneath it was a flat plastic sleeve.
Inside were photographs.
Bank statements.
Names.
Dozens of them.
At the top was a handwritten title.
THE VESPER GROUP.
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“You know it?”
“I’ve heard the name.”
“Where?”
“Never spoken directly. Old men used to refer to ‘Vesper’ when they meant something they didn’t want recorded.”
Bridget turned pages.
Politicians.
Judges.
Hospital administrators.
Shipping executives.
Lawyers.
Then doctors.
Marcus Vale.
She kept reading.
A page contained coded initials.
M.V.
A.M.
S.C.
G.C.
Bridget stopped.
“G.C.”
Gabriel stared.
“That could be me.”
“Or someone else.”
“Bridget.”
She turned another page.
A photograph slipped out.
She picked it up.
Her father stood beside Salvatore Costello.
And beside them stood a much younger Adrian Mercer.
On the back Thomas had written:
ADRIAN KNOWS WHO VESPER REALLY IS.
DO NOT CONFRONT HIM.
Gabriel took the photograph.
“So Adrian was involved from the beginning.”
“Maybe.”
“You still doubt it?”
“My father said Adrian knew who Vesper was. He didn’t say Adrian was Vesper.”
Gabriel looked at her with new respect.
“You think like an accountant.”
“My father would hate that compliment.”
A sound echoed from the corridor outside.
Footsteps.
Gabriel turned.
Rafael appeared at the entrance.
“We’ve got company.”
“How many?”
“Too many.”
The station lights cut off.
Gabriel grabbed the documents.
Bridget shoved the letter inside her coat.
A gunshot cracked.
Metal sparked beside them.
“Move!”
They ran through the construction barrier.
Another shot.
Then another.
Bridget ducked.
Rafael fired back.
Gabriel pushed her toward a maintenance tunnel.
“Go.”
“What about you?”
“Go!”
She ran.
The tunnel ended at an old service door.
Locked.
Bridget turned.
Footsteps were coming closer.
Gabriel tried the handle.
Nothing.
Rafael looked behind them.
“Thirty seconds.”
Bridget saw a keypad.
Four digits.
She thought of the vial.
Her father’s locker.
She entered 47308.
Too many digits.
Red light.
Gabriel cursed.
“Try something.”
She stared at the keypad.
Four digits.
Her father’s note.
A man Dominique spared.
She remembered a date written on one photograph.
04/07.
Bridget entered 0407.
Green.
The door clicked open.
They stumbled through.
On the other side waited an elderly man in a dark overcoat.
He held no weapon.
Only a cane.
Gabriel stopped dead.
“No.”
Bridget looked at him.
“You know him?”
Gabriel’s face had gone pale.
The old man smiled.
“Hello, son.”
Gabriel whispered a word Bridget had never expected to hear.
“Father.”
May you like
Salvatore Costello was supposed to have been dead for twelve years.
And he was standing directly in front of them.
