Chapter 4 - ELEVEN NAMES IN RED INK
4
The next morning, Mom stopped calling my father dead.
She called him Daniel.
I noticed because children notice the things adults think they hide.
“Your father loved blueberry pancakes.”
Became:
“Daniel loved blueberry pancakes.”
“Your father used to whistle when he washed dishes.”
Became:
“Daniel used to whistle.”
It sounded small.
It wasn't.
Dead people lived in the past.
Daniel suddenly belonged to a question mark.
Federal agents interviewed Mom for three hours.
I sat in the next room with crayons.
Vincent gave me a legal pad.
I drew stars.
A woman named Agent Evelyn Brooks arrived shortly before noon.
She wore a navy suit and did not seem impressed by Vincent Kane.
I liked her immediately.
“You understand,” she told him, “that touching evidence, directing witnesses, and conducting your own investigation will make my job harder.”
Vincent sat across from her.
“I understand that David Sterling escaped while police were standing twenty feet away.”
Brooks glanced at Lieutenant Mercer.
“So does Internal Affairs.”
Mercer looked exhausted.
He had voluntarily surrendered his badge and weapon until investigators determined whether his family had been used to move stolen payroll.
His sister was still missing.
Agent Brooks placed a folder on the table.
“We found two categories of records in Sterling's secret office. Financial and operational.”
Mom asked, “What does operational mean?”
Brooks hesitated because I was in the room.
Mom noticed.
“Rory goes with me.”
Brooks looked at Vincent.
He shrugged.
“She got us here.”
The agent sighed.
“Fine.”
She opened the folder.
“There are lists of employee names. Some are marked in blue. Some black. Eleven are marked in red.”
Mom's name was red.
MIA CARTER.
Beside it:
FINAL WEEK.
I climbed into her lap.
“What does red mean?”
Nobody answered.
So I asked again.
Vincent finally said, “It means Mr. Sterling was planning something.”
“Bad?”
“Yes.”
“Like not paying her?”
“Worse.”
Mom held me tighter.
Agent Brooks continued.
“We compared the eleven red names with previous Lakefront Employment Services cases.”
Three were people who had reported wage theft.
Two had confronted Sterling over forged credit accounts.
One had threatened to contact federal investigators.
Four had no known complaints.
The eleventh was Mom.
“What happened to the others?” she asked.
Brooks turned a page.
“Two died in accidents.”
Mom's hand froze.
“One disappeared.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“Name.”
“Carlos Medina.”
He knew it.
Everyone could tell.
“Carlos worked for Anthony,” Vincent said.
“Correct.”
Agent Brooks continued.
“One woman allegedly moved to Mexico. We have no confirmed record of her crossing the border. Another man was arrested for possession of narcotics three weeks after he demanded his missing wages.”
Mercer looked up.
“Who arrested him?”
Brooks met his eyes.
“Your former partner.”
Mercer swore.
“What about the others?”
“Two entered bankruptcy. One had her children removed by social services based on an anonymous report later determined to contain false information.”
Mom whispered, “They destroyed them.”
Agent Brooks nodded.
“That's what it looks like.”
Sterling didn't simply refuse to pay workers.
He built leverage.
If someone complained, their identity could be used.
A loan appeared.
A criminal accusation surfaced.
A landlord received a false report.
Immigration received a tip.
A spouse received photographs.
And if someone became truly dangerous, their name turned red.
“Why my mother?” I asked.
Mom rubbed my back.
Brooks said, “We're trying to determine that.”
I knew the answer before they did.
“The paper.”
Everyone looked at me.
“What paper?” Vincent asked.
“Mom's hours.”
Mom shook her head.
“That can't be it.”
I pointed to her work log.
“You hide it.”
Mom's face changed.
Vincent noticed.
“Why do you hide the log?”
She hesitated.
“Because David told everyone we weren't allowed to keep personal payroll records.”
Brooks sat forward.
“When?”
“About three months ago.”
“Why?”
“He said customer privacy.”
Vincent laughed bitterly.
“Customer privacy has nothing to do with employee time sheets.”
Mom looked down.
“Daniel taught me to keep records.”
There it was again.
Daniel.
“He used to say if somebody tells you not to write something down, that's when you write it twice.”
Vincent's face softened briefly.
“That sounds like him.”
Mom looked at him.
“You really knew him.”
“I did.”
“Then tell me something nobody else would know.”
Vincent looked toward me.
“He hated mustard.”
Mom blinked.
“He told everyone he liked it.”
“He didn't. He thought admitting he hated mustard made him sound childish.”
Mom laughed.
Then she started crying.
Vincent looked away.
Agent Brooks allowed the moment to pass.
Then she said, “There may be another reason you were marked.”
She placed a photograph on the table.
It showed the secret basement office.
The wall map.
Near Mom's apartment was a handwritten code.
DC-17.
Vincent stared.
“Daniel Carter.”
Brooks nodded.
“We believe DC refers to him.”
“What does seventeen mean?”
“We don't know.”
Mercer spoke quietly.
“I might.”
Everyone turned.
He had spent the night reviewing his mother's estate documents.
Elaine Mercer had died twelve years earlier.
Before her death, she had been bookkeeper for a company called Great Lakes Hospitality.
One of its subsidiaries later became Lakefront Employment Services.
Mercer found a safety deposit receipt.
Box 17.
Mom went pale.
“Where?”
“First Chicago Municipal Bank.”
Agent Brooks was already standing.
“We'll get a warrant.”
Vincent stood too.
“You'll get one in three hours.”
“Sit down.”
“Three hours is a lifetime if Sterling knows about it.”
Brooks stared at him.
“You are not going to the bank.”
“No.”
Vincent picked up his coat.
“My lawyer is.”
Brooks looked ready to argue.
Then her phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
Everyone watched.
She ended the call.
“Box seventeen was accessed this morning.”
Mercer stood so quickly his chair fell.
“By whom?”
Brooks looked at him.
“Rebecca Sterling.”
His missing sister.
Mom whispered, “She's alive.”
“Security footage shows her entering the bank at 8:12 a.m.”
“Where is she now?”
“Nobody knows.”
Vincent called Salvatore.
“Get cameras around the bank.”
Agent Brooks snapped, “Kane.”
But he was already moving.
Twenty minutes later, a traffic camera captured Rebecca's black SUV entering Lower Wacker Drive.
It never came out.
Police searched parking structures.
Nothing.
Then, at 1:47 p.m., a city maintenance worker reported an abandoned SUV beneath Wabash.
The driver's door was open.
Rebecca's purse sat on the passenger seat.
There was blood on the steering wheel.
And the safety deposit box was empty.
Mom read the update on Agent Brooks's face.
“What was in Box 17?”
“We don't know.”
I tugged Vincent's sleeve.
“Maybe Daddy knew.”
Vincent looked at me.
Then his phone vibrated.
A text.
Unknown number.
One photograph.
Rebecca Sterling, sitting in a chair somewhere dark.
Alive.
Holding today's newspaper.
Under the photograph were six words:
YOU HAVE WHAT WE WANT.
Vincent looked at Mom.
“What do they think we have?”
Mom shook her head.
“I have nothing.”
I remembered something.
Something from our apartment.
Something I had seen dozens of times.
“Mom.”
She looked down.
“Daddy's blue box.”
Her face went completely still.
Vincent asked, “What blue box?”
Mom whispered, “Daniel's toolbox.”
She had kept it in the hall closet for five years.
Locked.
She had never found the key.
Agent Brooks grabbed her phone.
“Where is it now?”
Mom stared at me.
“In our apartment.”
The apartment marked with a pin on Sterling's map.
Vincent was already reaching for his coat.
Then Mom's phone rang.
Unknown caller.
She answered.
Nobody spoke.
After five seconds, a man's voice whispered:
“You should have thrown Daniel's box away.”
Then there was a sharp noise.
Metal scraping.
The caller hung up.
Our apartment security camera came online.
Someone stood inside our hallway.
Wearing black gloves.
Holding my father's toolbox.
And before the camera went dark, the man turned his face toward it.
Lieutenant Mercer whispered:
May you like
“Oh, God.”
Because the man stealing my dead father's box was a Chicago police captain.
