Chapter 6 - THE FOURTH NAME
The fourth name wasn't a student.
It was Professor Adrian Mercer.
Emma's research supervisor.
He had recommended her for the Northstar archive.
He had signed the access authorization.
And according to the university, he had been on sabbatical for three months.
According to Maya, he had never left the city.
I found him at a private club downtown.
He was sitting alone beside a window, drinking tea.
When he saw me, he smiled.
“Daniel Walker.”
I sat across from him.
“You know who I am.”
“I've known for years.”
“Then you know why I'm here.”
“Yes.”
He didn't look frightened.
That made me more suspicious.
“You knew Emma was investigating Northstar.”
“Yes.”
“You knew the records were falsified.”
“Yes.”
“You knew someone wanted her silent.”
His smile disappeared.
“Yes.”
I leaned forward.
“Why didn't you protect her?”
“I tried.”
“She was beaten nearly to death.”
“I know.”
“Then you failed.”
His eyes filled with something like shame.
“Yes.”
I waited.
Finally, he said, “Emma's mother asked me to watch over her.”
My heart stopped.
“You knew her?”
“I owed her my life.”
He explained.
Twenty-seven years earlier, Emma's mother, Clara Bennett, had uncovered financial transfers linking university research grants to several shell corporations.
She had intended to expose them.
Before she could, she disappeared.
Everyone assumed she was dead.
She wasn't.
She had gone into hiding after discovering that the people behind the scheme included members of my father's organization.
“Why didn't she contact Emma?”
“Because she believed contact would put Emma in danger.”
I thought of all the years Emma had spent believing she had been abandoned.
I felt sick.
“Who knew she was alive?”
Mercer hesitated.
“Victor.”
“Anyone else?”
“Myself.”
“And Marcus Vale.”
Mercer looked away.
There it was.
The missing piece.
“Marcus knows.”
“Yes.”
“Where is Clara?”
“I don't know.”
I stood.
Mercer caught my wrist.
“Wait.”
I looked down.
“He doesn't want the research.”
“Who?”
“Marcus.”
“What does he want?”
Mercer whispered, “He wants what your father left behind.”
My blood ran cold.
“My father left nothing.”
Mercer laughed bitterly.
“He left everything.”
Then he told me.
When I had dismantled my organization nineteen years ago, my father had hidden a master ledger.
Every payment.
Every favor.
Every politician.
Every partner.
Every secret.
The ledger could destroy dozens of powerful families.
I had believed it was destroyed.
It wasn't.
Marcus had spent nineteen years searching for it.
“Where is it?”
Mercer looked at me.
“Your father gave it to Clara.”
I couldn't breathe.
“Why?”
“Because he knew what Marcus was becoming.”
My father's final betrayal wasn't against me.
It was against the people who thought they controlled him.
He had hidden the ledger inside the one thing Marcus would never suspect.
A medical archive.
Northstar.
I returned to the hospital.
Emma was asleep.
Maya sat beside her.
I told her everything.
She stared at me.
“Then Northstar isn't the evidence.”
“No.”
“The ledger is.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
I looked at Emma.
“She may know.”
At that moment, Emma woke.
She looked at me.
I showed her the photograph of her mother.
Then the compass pendant.
Her eyes widened.
She touched the pendant.
I gently removed it.
There was a tiny seam I had never noticed.
I opened it.
Inside was a folded strip of paper.
One line.
A date.
And a room number.
I recognized the location immediately.
The university's old pathology archive.
It had been closed for fifteen years.
Maya whispered, “That's where Emma found the Northstar files.”
I looked at her.
“Then someone wanted her to find them.”
She nodded slowly.
“Why?”
I answered.
“To lead us to the ledger.”
The hospital lights flickered.
Every instinct in me sharpened.
Then the door opened.
A man entered wearing a security uniform.
He looked at Emma.
Then at me.
“Mr. Walker?”
“Yes?”
“I need to move the patient.”
“No.”
He froze.
“This is a hospital protocol.”
I looked at his badge.
Wrong department.
Wrong color.
Wrong photograph.
I stepped between him and Emma.
“Arthur.”
Arthur appeared behind him.
The man reached inside his jacket.
Arthur stopped him before he could pull anything.
A small envelope fell to the floor.
I picked it up.
Inside was a photograph of Clara Bennett.
On the back:
MIDNIGHT. PATHOLOGY ARCHIVE.
Then another line.
COME ALONE, GHOST.
I looked at Emma.
She was awake.
Terrified.
I folded the note.
“I won't.”
Maya frowned.
“What are you going to do?”
I looked at Arthur.
“We're going together.”
For nineteen years, I had feared becoming the Ghost again.
Now I understood something.
The Ghost wasn't a monster.
May you like
He was a man who knew how to find people who thought the truth belonged to them.
And tonight, I was going to find Clara Bennett.
