Chapter 3 - Daniel Carter’s Ghost
The apartment above the bookstore smelled of dust, coffee, and old paper. It belonged to a retired journalist who had once worked for Adam’s father and now lived in Montreal. The furniture was plain, the windows reinforced, and the only decoration was a framed map of Noor with a red line running from the western coast to the northern mountains.
Maria sat at the kitchen table with Daniel’s photograph between her hands. Adam stood by the window, speaking quietly with Samira in Arabic. Maria understood only a few words, but she heard Rashad’s name twice.
“You can speak English,” she said.
Samira turned. “I was telling him you need to sleep.”
“I need to know why my father left me a key and a warning.”
Adam returned to the table. “Because Daniel believed the Blue Gate project had been infiltrated by people close to my father.”
“How close?”
“Close enough to attend family dinners.”
The answer opened a door Maria did not want to enter. She took out her phone and called her mother’s older brother, Victor Carter. Victor had raised her after Daniel’s death, handled the insurance paperwork, and reminded her every year not to romanticize a man who had died chasing impossible projects.
He answered on the fourth ring. “Maria? It’s nearly midnight.”
“Did Dad ever work for the Noor royal family?”
Silence.
It lasted only two seconds, but Maria heard it clearly.
“Where are you?” Victor asked.
“Answer me.”
“Your father worked for an international engineering consortium. That is all.”
“Did he have a brass key?”
Victor exhaled. “Come home, Maria.”
“Why?”
“Because people are going to use your grief to make you believe a story.”
Adam watched her carefully. She put the call on speaker.
“A man tried to kill a sheikh tonight,” Maria said. “He said he was hired by Minister Rashad Nadir and that Dad left a daughter alive.”
Another silence, longer this time.
Then Victor said, “You have to leave Chicago.”
The call ended.
Maria stared at the dark screen. “He knew.”
“He knew something,” Adam said.
“He told me my father was killed by a pressure station failure.”
“Perhaps he believed that.”
“You sound determined to protect everyone except me.”
Adam’s jaw tightened. “I am trying to protect you from a man who controls ministers, judges, contractors, and possibly the people assigned to keep you alive.”
“And who protects me from you?”
“No one,” he said. “You should.”
The bluntness surprised her. It was the first answer he had given that did not sound prepared.
Samira entered carrying a folder. “We found Leon’s financial records. His last payment came through a company called Meridian Civic Solutions.”
Maria recognized the name. “That is one of the companies Dad consulted for.”
“The company no longer exists,” Samira said. “But its American subsidiary is still active. The chief executive is Grant Bell.”
“Bellwether House?”
“His family owns the restaurant.”
Adam looked at the photograph again. “Grant Bell was present tonight.”
Maria remembered the silver-haired man who had toasted the treaty from the far end of the table. He had smiled when she tackled Leon.
“Why would a restaurant owner hire an assassin?” she asked.
“Grant Bell is not only a restaurant owner,” Adam replied. “He is the contractor who built the Blue Gate pressure stations.”
Maria rose so quickly that the chair scraped the floor. “Then we go back.”
“The restaurant is under police control,” Samira said.
“There may be something there.”
“There may be a second assassin.”
Adam moved beside her. “You are not going back alone.”
“I did not ask to go alone.”
His gaze held hers for one quiet moment. Something passed between them that was not trust yet, but the possibility of it.
Before they could leave, the lights went out.
Samira drew her weapon. A window shattered across the room, and a bullet buried itself in the map of Noor.
May you like
From the darkness came a woman’s voice, calm and close to the glass.
“Maria Carter, your father did not die in Blue Gate. He died because he trusted the wrong brother.”
