Chapter 3 - A Dead Man's Version

They didn't speak until the Chicago skyline slipped behind warehouse roofs. Vale drove like every red light was optional.

The print shop smelled of old ink and damp cardboard. Nora remembered Eli working late at a tiny newspaper years before, chasing stories no editor wanted and coming home with cheap takeout and impossible optimism. He used to tell her that facts were stubborn things. Looking at the papers spread across the table, she wondered how many facts he'd kept to himself in the name of keeping her safe. She could forgive fear. She could understand danger. But every secret he'd carried alone had become another decision made without her.

"You signed his death certificate," Nora said.

"I signed a report. The medical examiner signed the certificate. Neither of us is proud of it."

"That isn't an answer."

Eli pressed a towel to his side. "Someone tried to kill me after I found a set of payments tied to Whitmore Holdings. Vale pulled me out of the river before the car went under. We staged my death so the people chasing me would stop looking."

"You could have called."

"They watched you."

"I cried over your grave for two years!" Her voice broke on grave. "Do you understand what you took from me?"

He didn't reach for her. "Yes. I just couldn't find a way to give it back."

Vale took a hard turn toward an old print shop. Inside, yellow light burned over a table covered in documents. Eli laid out photographs of offshore accounts, shell contractors, and payments from Whitmore Holdings to a private security firm called Black Harbor.

"My mother was an accountant," Nora said slowly. "She worked for Whitmore before she died."

"She copied evidence," Eli replied. "She left it where only you could find it."

Nora held up the silver key. "This opened her music box. I sold that box after the funeral."

"No," said Vale. "Your father sold a replica."

Nora stared at him. "My father said it was all we had left to pay the bills."

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A metal clang sounded from the street. Vale killed the lights. Headlights swept the frosted windows. Three SUVs stopped outside.

Tessa peered through a crack in the blinds. "Guys? The first person getting out is Nora's dad."