Chapter 4: Twelve Photographs
The Meridian was a hotel bar that opened at six-thirty for business travelers.
By seven it held a handful of men in suits nursing coffee, none of them looking at each other.
Nora was already there when Marcus arrived, a corner booth, her back to the wall.
She looked the same as he remembered.
Sharp eyes.
No wasted movement.
She had a cup of black coffee in front of her and nothing else on the table.
He sat down across from her.
"You look terrible," she said.
"Someone used my daughter last night to deliver a message."
Nora's expression didn't change, but something behind her eyes did.
"Tell me."
He told her everything.
The text.
The lights.
Lily in the corner.
The note in his pocket.
Daniel's call.
The photograph in the file.
The second message about the Hargrove account.
When he finished, Nora wrapped both hands around her coffee cup.
"The Hargrove account," she said.
"That's not a name I've heard before."
"Neither had I.
Until last night."
"So you haven't called Daniel."
"Not yet."
"Good." She looked at him steadily.
"If Daniel is involved — and I think he is — then every call you make to him right now is information he can use.
You need to know what the Hargrove account is before you confront him.
Otherwise he'll bury it before you can touch it."
"How long will that take?"
"Give me forty-eight hours."
Marcus shook his head.
"They used Lily once.
I don't know if they'll—"
"They won't," Nora said.
"Not yet.
They want something from you.
That message told you as much.
They're not trying to destroy you, Marcus.
They're trying to leverage you.
Which means Lily is safer right now than she would be if you go at Daniel blind and he panics."
Marcus looked at the table.
"There's something else," Nora said.
Her voice dropped slightly.
"The person who called me six weeks ago.
Asking about Calloway."
"What about them?"
"It was a woman.
She knew details about the wire transfers that weren't in any public record.
She knew the shell company name.
She knew the date." Nora paused.
"She said she was calling on behalf of someone who had been waiting a long time."
"Did she give a name?"
"She gave a first name.
Said it was all I needed." Nora looked at him.
"She said her name was Claire."
Marcus sat back.
The color left his face so quickly that Nora reached across the table.
"Marcus."
He didn't answer for a moment.
His hands were flat on the table.
He was looking at the wall behind her but not seeing it.
"Claire Calloway," he finally said.
"Robert Calloway's daughter."
Nora was very still.
"How old?"
"She would be—" He stopped.
Counted.
"Twenty-six now.
She was nineteen when her father went to prison."
"Her father went to prison?"
"Two years after the variance was approved.
Unrelated charges.
Tax fraud.
He took the full sentence.
Never said a word about the zoning deal." Marcus's jaw tightened.
"I always assumed Daniel had something to do with that.
Keeping him quiet.
I never asked."
Nora set her coffee down carefully.
"So Robert Calloway spent years in prison while his daughter watched.
And now she's twenty-six, and she's been building something."
"She's not working alone," Marcus said.
"She couldn't have gotten someone into that ballroom alone.
She couldn't have slipped a note into my pocket alone.
Someone with access helped her."
Nora looked at him.
They both said nothing for a moment.
Then Marcus said it.
"Daniel."
"He left the gala early," Nora said.
"Before the lights went out.
Before Lily was found."
"He called me twenty minutes after I got home.
Knew about the incident before I'd told anyone."
Nora nodded slowly.
"He's been feeding her information.
Maybe for a long time." She paused.
"Or she's been feeding him something in return."
Marcus looked at her.
"What would Daniel want from Robert Calloway's daughter?"
Nora picked up her coffee again.
"That," she said, "is what I need forty-eight hours to find out."
She stood.
Left two bills on the table for the coffee.
"Keep Lily home from school today," she said.
"And Marcus — don't call Daniel.
Not yet."
She walked out without looking back.
Marcus sat alone in the corner booth.
Around him, the business travelers finished their coffee and left for their meetings.
The bar emptied out.
A server came and refilled his cup without asking.
He thought about Robert Calloway.
A man he had paid to break the law, then watched go to prison for something else entirely, and had felt, privately, relieved.
He thought about a nineteen-year-old girl watching her father be taken away.
He thought about the seven years since.
The file in his safe.
The photograph with the timestamp.
His phone buzzed on the table.
Daniel.
A text this time.
*Breakfast?
We should talk before the Alderman meeting.*
May you like
Marcus looked at the message for a long time.
Then he put the phone in his pocket without replying.
