Chapter 13 - The Man Who Didn't Die
Grace wanted to run straight to the hospital in the photograph. Vincent insisted they verify the location first. This time she listened, because she was learning that courage and recklessness weren't twins.
The building stood in northern New Jersey, a private rehabilitation center with locked entrances and guards pretending to be orderlies. Marco traced deliveries and found a maintenance entrance behind the laundry wing.
Grace and Vincent entered disguised as repair contractors. She wore a baseball cap and carried a toolbox; he looked deeply offended by a name badge reading KEVIN. In a different life, she might have laughed for a whole afternoon.
They found Leo in a bright room overlooking a winter garden. He sat in a wheelchair, thin and older than his thirty years, but unmistakably alive.
He looked up as the door opened. “Grace?”
Her legs nearly failed. “I watched you fall.”
“I know.” He reached for her with trembling fingers. “I'm so sorry.”
For four years, she'd carried his last scream in her sleep. Now she had to decide where to put it while he was sitting in front of her.
Leo told them he had been investigating the Broker for a federal task force. He had learned Daniel's secret, found the blue ledger, and planned to give Grace the proof after their last show. Somebody cut his safety line and arranged a spectacular accident to silence him and frighten her away from the circus.
“Why didn't you come for me?” she asked.
“I couldn't walk for two years. Then they told me you'd died of an overdose.” His eyes filled. “I believed them.”
Grace squeezed his hand. “We were both lied to.”
Leo's gaze moved to Vincent. “Moretti. Your father signed the first protection deal with Vale.”
Vincent didn't flinch. “Then help me end what he started.”
An alarm sounded in the corridor. Leo looked toward the ceiling. “They know you're here.”
Grace locked the door while Vincent dragged a cabinet across it. Leo pressed a folded paper into her hand: a sketch of a blue bird, its wing marked with a tiny keyhole.
“The ledger's still hidden,” he said. “And Grace—one more thing. Victor Raines isn't the Broker.”
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“Then who is?”
Leo swallowed. “The woman you call Vanessa.”
