Chapter 3 - THE MAN IN THE BLACK COAT
-3-
The heavy rubber soles of the man’s boots squeaked rhythmically against the linoleum floor as he closed the distance between the entrance and our corner booth. The two truck drivers at the counter didn't even turn around; they kept their eyes fixed on their fried eggs and coffee cups, oblivious to the predator sliding through the room.
My heart thrummed against my ribs like a trapped bird. I slid my hand slowly down toward the floor, my fingers brushing against the strap of our overnight bag resting by my feet, searching blindly for the heavy steel-handled flashlight I had packed just in case we had car trouble in the blizzard.
“Stay behind me,” I murmured to Emily, my voice taut as a stretched wire.
She didn't move away. Instead, she pulled Lily closer into her chest, her hazel eyes hardening into a fierce, protective glare that reminded me why I had fallen in love with her in the first place. She wasn't the fragile girl from the wrong side of the tracks my mother always accused her of being; she was iron.
The man stopped at the edge of our booth. He was in his late forties, with close-cropped graying hair, a sharp jawline carved from granite, and cold, pale blue eyes that seemed entirely devoid of human warmth. He didn't smile. He didn't pull out a badge. He simply rested his knuckles on the cracked vinyl table and leaned down slightly.
“Daniel Vance?” His voice was low, clipped, and possessed an accent that was difficult to place—somewhere between mid-Atlantic corporate and professional detachment.
“Who’s asking?” I replied, my voice dropping an octave as my hand finally closed around the heavy metal casing of the flashlight inside my bag.
The man gave a dry, humorless twitch of his mouth that didn't reach his eyes. “Name doesn't matter, Mr. Vance. What matters is that you and your family are currently sitting in a very exposed position five miles away from where you ought to be.” He glanced briefly down at Lily, who buried her face in Emily’s sweater. “Especially considering the kind of weather rolling in from the pass.”
“We’re fine where we are,” I said, my grip tightening on the flashlight handle. “If you’ve got something to say, say it from across the table.”
The man didn't flinch. Instead, he reached slowly into the inside pocket of his heavy wool coat. For one agonizing second, my muscles coiled to lunge across the table, ready to shatter his jaw before he could draw whatever weapon was hidden inside.
Instead of a gun, he pulled out a small, heavy manila envelope secured with a thick red rubber band and dropped it squarely onto the center of our sticky table, right on top of the grease-stained menus.
“Your mother sends her regards,” the man said smoothly. “She also asked me to remind you that the safe combination hasn't changed since your father’s fiftieth birthday. July fourteenth, nineteen sixty-two.”
My breath hitched. My mother hadn't called me from a landline to give me a cryptic warning; she had known someone was already listening, or worse, she had been under surveillance the moment she picked up the receiver.
“Who do you work for?” I demanded, ignoring the envelope. “Are you with my brother? Are you with my mother’s firm?”
The man straightened up to his full height, his pale blue eyes locking onto mine with an unsettling intensity. “I work for people who clean up messes, Mr. Vance. And right now, your family is the biggest mess in three counties. Your father spent thirty years keeping a very delicate machine running. When he died, the gears jammed. Last night, at that little family dinner of yours, your sister-in-law said something she shouldn't have said in front of the wrong ears.”
Emily’s head snapped up. “Vanessa? What does Vanessa have to do with any of this?”
The man didn't answer her directly. He simply looked down at his wristwatch—a heavy, matte-black chronograph that looked like military issue.
“You have about forty-five minutes before the local sheriff’s department gets an anonymous tip about a stolen vehicle matching your car parked outside this diner,” the man said calmly. “If you want to keep your wife and your little girl breathing past sundown, you’re going to open that envelope, read what’s inside, and go back to that house in Incline Village. Because if you try to run any further, you won’t just be hiding from your mother. You’ll be hiding from people who don't leave witnesses.”
Without waiting for another word, he turned on his heel, his heavy wool coat swirling around his calves, and walked out of the diner with the exact same military precision he had entered with.
The bell above the door jingled once, twice, and then he was gone into the swirling gray snow outside.
For nearly a minute, no one at our table breathed. The two truck drivers at the counter didn't even look up as the door closed.
Emily reached out with a trembling hand, her fingers hovering an inch above the manila envelope as if it were a venomous snake coiled on the table.
May you like
“Daniel,” she whispered, her voice shaking for the first time since yesterday’s slap. “Don't touch it. Let’s leave right now. We can take the back roads, we can go to California—anywhere.”
“We can’t run from this, Em,” I said quietly. My hand finally let go of the flashlight in my bag. I reached across the table, hooked my finger under the red rubber band, and slid it off the envelope. “My father is dead, but whatever he left behind is still controlling every move we make. It’s time to find out what’s at the bottom of the grave.”
