Chapter 9
Samuel Frost came first.
Seventy-three.
Retired.
Still sharp.
He did not deny the old council.
That surprised me.
“We believed your father concentrated too much.”
I sat across from him.
“And Evelyn?”
He looked disgusted.
“That was Matteo’s stupidity.”
“You knew?”
“After.”
“When?”
“Months.”
“And you said nothing.”
Samuel looked away.
There.
Again.
Fear.
“What stopped you?”
“By then Damian said she was alive and being moved.”
“Not an answer.”
He exhaled.
“I had sons.”
There.
Leverage.
Matteo threatened them.
Not dramatically.
Business access.
Protection.
Routes.
Enough.
Samuel chose his family.
Evelyn paid.
I hated the choice.
I understood it.
Those two things can coexist.
Henry Vale was different.
He refused to come.
So I went to him.
He lived in an old estate two hours away.
No security worth naming.
He looked tired before I spoke.
“Thomas is dead,” he said.
I froze.
His son.
The man who guarded Evelyn.
“How?”
“Six months ago.”
“Where?”
“Mexico.”
“Who killed him?”
Henry stared.
“No one.”
Illness.
Unexpected.
That mattered.
Thomas died carrying secrets no one asked for.
Henry sat down.
“He regretted it.”
“Did he help her?”
“Sometimes.”
Evelyn had mentioned food.
Medicine.
A blanket.
Thomas was jailer and occasional protector.
Again.
Messy.
People rarely fit clean categories.
“Did he ever try to free her?”
Henry closed his eyes.
“Once.”
“What happened?”
“Bianca caught him.”
Interesting.
I leaned forward.
“And?”
“She told Damian.”
The next week Thomas was removed from estate security.
Not retirement.
Exile disguised as retirement.
He had tried once.
Too late.
Still something.
Henry gave me one final piece.
Thomas kept a notebook.
Not evidence.
Memory.
Names.
Dates.
Movements.
If it still existed, it would tell us when Evelyn was moved and who had access.
May you like
The notebook was with Thomas’s widow.
In Queens.
