Chapter 12 - Northbound
I did not go alone. I told Ortiz where Ruth had asked me to meet, told Simone, and asked Tessa to drive while I sat in the back with my phone recording the road.
Port Mercy was a fishing town where the houses leaned against the wind and even the coffee tasted salty. Ruth had picked a shuttered boat museum near the harbor. I went inside alone while Ortiz's local contact watched from across the street.
Ruth stepped from behind a display of painted buoys. She had the swallow tattoo from the photograph and a face that looked older than it should have.
"You look like Daniel," she said.
"Everyone keeps telling me that."
"He was the only one who wouldn't pretend the numbers added up."
Ruth carried a battered blue ledger wrapped in plastic. Each page listed fake pediatric suppliers, inflated medical invoices, and transfers to a holding company named Northstar Civic Partners.
"Elliot invented the vendors," she said. "Vanessa approved payments. Charles found out late. Your father discovered the money was being used to buy trustees' debt and force their votes."
"Why did you run?"
"Elliot showed me photographs of my daughter going to school."
Ruth's hands clenched around the ledger. "Then he put a forged invoice under my signature. If I talked, I'd lose my child before anyone believed me."
I thought of Noah asleep on Tessa's couch.
"Where is your daughter now?"
"Grown. Safe. She doesn't know what I did to keep her that way."
I called Ortiz to confirm I had found Ruth. Ruth shook her head, but she stayed. She watched me turn over the ledger to the detective instead of hiding it in my coat.
"Daniel would've liked that," she said.
A motorboat roared outside. The museum window shattered, sending glass over the floor. We crouched behind an exhibit as a flare burned across the dock, flooding the room with orange light.
May you like
Through the broken window, I saw two men pulling a small boat alongside the exit.
One wore a silver watch band engraved with three stars.
