Chapter 16 - The Lighthouse Bargain
The lighthouse stood on a lonely strip of Long Island coast, its white paint stripped by salt. Grace recognized the black band Clara had described. Waves hammered the rocks. The ferry horn sounded far away, almost like a warning.
Agent Chen refused to authorize an unsupervised meeting. She positioned a team along the road and gave Grace a small transmitter. “If anything feels wrong, say the words blue sky. We'll move.”
Grace touched the transmitter beneath her collar. “Everything already feels wrong.”
Vincent insisted on going in unarmed. Grace didn't argue. He was offering himself as bait because his signature had helped imprison her mother. She couldn't decide whether that was brave or stupid. Maybe both.
Inside the lighthouse, Harold Whitmore waited with a silver-topped cane. The scar under his eye twisted when he smiled.
“Grace Vale,” he said. “I knew your mother. You have her habit of walking into trouble.”
“Where is she?”
“Close. First, the music box.”
“We don't have it.”
Harold's smile disappeared. “Then you don't understand the bargain.”
Vincent stepped between them. “You wanted me. I'm here. Let Clara go.”
A door opened. Richard Vale appeared, impeccably dressed, holding Clara by the arm. She looked thin and pale, but her eyes fixed on Grace with immediate recognition.
“My baby,” Clara whispered.
Grace took a step forward, then stopped when Richard pressed a gun to Clara's side. “Nobody moves.”
Richard studied Vincent. “Your father was a businessman. You inherited his weakness for dramatic gestures.”
“You stole children,” Vincent said.
Richard shrugged. “I supplied a market. Families wanted heirs. Officials wanted money. Everyone got something.”
“Except the children,” Grace said.
Richard looked at her as if she were an inconvenience. “And yet here you are, grown up and ungrateful.”
Grace had imagined meeting her biological father. She hadn't imagined feeling this little grief for him.
Harold's phone buzzed. He looked down. His expression emptied.
“What?” Richard demanded.
“Vanessa moved the funds. All of them.”
A sharp voice came from the lighthouse speaker. “Of course I did, Uncle. You taught me not to leave loose ends.”
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Outside, a distant explosion shook the windows. Agent Chen's radio crackled, then went silent.
Vanessa laughed through the speaker. “Nobody leaves this tower.”
