The former courier's statement arrived three days later, but it did not contain the answer Evelyn had hoped for. He remembered delivering a metal case to a building in Chicago, where a man with a scarred hand had signed for it. He could not identify the man by name, and the signature had been recorded under a company that no longer existed. The courier believed the case had been taken upstairs, but he had not seen what happened afterward.
The investigators had a location, a description, and a signature that might be compared with other records. They did not have the ledger.
Evelyn read the summary in Rachel's office, then set it down.
“Every time we get closer, there's another missing piece.”
“That's often how old cases develop,” Rachel said. “The important thing is that the new information can be checked. We don't have to decide what it means before the evidence supports it.”
“I know. I'm just tired of living inside other people's incomplete stories.”
Rachel did not tell her to be patient. She had learned that advice could sound like a request to accept the situation quietly. Instead, she asked what Evelyn needed that day, and Evelyn admitted she wanted to visit Daniel without discussing the investigation. Rachel arranged a short visit and reminded Daniel beforehand that Evelyn had asked for an ordinary conversation.
When Evelyn arrived, her father was sitting near the window with a book open on his lap. He put it aside when he saw her, but he did not rise immediately or attempt to embrace her. He had learned that sudden gestures of affection could feel like another demand, especially when she had not invited them.
“Would you like tea?” he asked.
“No. I have about forty minutes.”
“Then we can use them however you want.”
They talked about her work, the apartment she had moved into, and a neighbor who played music too loudly at night. Daniel asked questions and listened to the answers. He did not try to turn the conversation toward the case, and Evelyn found herself relaxing slightly. She had expected to feel angry throughout the visit, but the absence of pressure made it easier to remain.
Near the end, Daniel mentioned that he had found an old photograph among his personal belongings. It showed Evelyn as a little girl sitting on her mother's lap, both of them laughing at something outside the frame. He had kept it through his years of moving, wrapped inside a book.
“Would you like to see it?” he asked.
Evelyn hesitated, then nodded.
He took the photograph from a folder and handed it to her. The image was faded at the corners, but her mother's smile was unmistakable. Evelyn remembered the sound of her mother's laugh more clearly than the details of her face. For a long time, she studied the photograph without speaking.
“Why did you keep this?” she finally asked.
“Because I couldn't bear to throw it away.”
“You kept this, but you didn't come back.”
Daniel lowered his eyes. “Yes.”
She returned the photograph. It was a painful answer, but at least it was not disguised as a noble sacrifice. He had preserved a memory while abandoning the living person who needed him. Both facts could be true.
“I don't want you to give me gifts or tell me stories about how much you missed us,” Evelyn said. “I need you to be honest when I ask something, even if the answer makes you look bad.”
“I will try.”
“Don't promise what you can't control. Just do it.”
Daniel nodded. “All right.”
When Evelyn left, she felt sad rather than relieved. She had not forgiven him, and the visit had not repaired their relationship. But she had managed to speak plainly without being pulled into an argument about whether his intentions were good. That was enough for one afternoon.
The next development came from a retired records clerk who had worked at the Baltimore storage company. Investigators had found her name in a payroll archive and learned that she had left the company shortly after Daniel disappeared. At first, she claimed to remember nothing. After being shown the inventory sheet, however, she recalled a sealed case that had been held in a restricted room.
She said the case had been removed by a senior manager named Peter Halden, who had told staff that the documents were being returned to their rightful owner. The clerk had not seen the recipient, but she remembered the case because it was heavier than expected and required two people to carry it.
Peter Halden had died several years earlier. His records showed connections to companies used by both the Moretti and Vane families, but there was no direct evidence that he had known the contents of the case. The investigators traced his former business partner, a man named Arthur Bell, who was still alive and living outside Chicago.
Bell agreed to an interview.
He arrived with an attorney and insisted he had never handled stolen records. He admitted that Halden had once asked him to store a sealed case temporarily, but said he had refused because he did not want to become involved in a dispute between wealthy families. He claimed Halden later told him the case had been transferred to a private office controlled by a man named Sloane.
The statement was important, but it was not definitive. Bell had reasons to distance himself from the case, and his account could not be independently verified yet. Investigators requested financial records and correspondence that might confirm whether Halden had worked for Sloane during that period.
Evelyn heard the update from Rachel while sitting in the restaurant's break room. She had been carrying a tray of coffee cups when the call came, and she had set the tray down so quickly that one cup tipped over. Coffee spread across the table, staining a stack of order slips.
Her coworker offered to clean it up, but Evelyn waved her away and listened to the rest of Rachel's explanation. She was not surprised that another name had appeared. What surprised her was how little the new information changed her daily life. She still had tables to serve, rent to pay, and groceries to buy. The investigation continued whether she felt ready or not.
That evening, she received a call from Lorenzo. He had been informed that the former clerk's account might connect the missing case to Sloane's network, and he wanted to know whether she had heard anything further from Daniel.
“Nothing new,” Evelyn said. “He's cooperating.”
“Has he told you about Halden?”
“No. Should he have?”
Lorenzo hesitated. “My father used Halden for several private transfers. I don't know whether Daniel dealt with him directly, but I remember the name appearing in a few of the old files.”
“Then tell the investigators.”
“I have.”
“Good.”
Lorenzo seemed about to say more, then stopped. Evelyn had grown used to the pauses that followed their conversations. He was learning not to ask her for trust, and she was learning not to interpret every attempt at communication as an effort to draw her closer. They could exchange information without becoming allies in every part of their lives.
Before ending the call, Lorenzo mentioned that the legal proceedings against Celeste and Sloane were likely to begin within several months. The prosecution was assembling the evidence from the attack, the recovered messages, and the financial records. Some of the defendants had challenged the authenticity of the communications, while others argued that the documents did not prove who had ordered the shooting.
“Will they get away with it?” Evelyn asked.
“I don't know.”
She appreciated that he did not pretend otherwise.
The following week, Daniel asked whether Evelyn would accompany him to a meeting with the investigators. He had remembered a detail about the night he disappeared and believed it might help them identify the person who had taken him from Chicago. Evelyn agreed to attend, but she made clear that she was there as his daughter, not as his representative. Rachel would handle any questions about her own role in the case.
During the interview, Daniel explained that he had arranged to meet a contact at a parking structure after learning that someone had accessed his office. He believed the contact could help him move the records safely. Instead, a vehicle arrived with two men he did not recognize. They told him they had been sent to protect him and directed him to leave the city immediately.
Daniel said he had suspected something was wrong but had gone with them because he believed the alternative was to be arrested or killed. He was taken to a private residence, where his identification and documents were collected. He was told that the records had been secured and that he would be moved to a safer location.
“Who told you that?” one investigator asked.
“A man who called himself Peter.”
“Peter Halden?”
“I don't know. He never gave me a surname.”
Daniel said he had remained under supervision for several weeks before managing to leave. He had then moved through several locations, eventually reaching Baltimore. He did not know whether the men had intended to protect him, monitor him, or keep him away from the records. He had never seen the original case again.
The investigators asked whether he could identify the men. Daniel described one as having a scar across the back of his left hand. Evelyn remembered the photograph of the courier's recipient, whose signature had been associated with a man described as scarred. The details were similar, but not sufficient to establish identity.
After the interview, Evelyn walked with Daniel to the waiting area. He looked exhausted, and she wondered how many times he had rehearsed the memory without telling anyone. She wanted to ask why he had waited so long to report it, but she knew the answer would probably be some version of fear.
Instead, she asked, “When you left that house, did you ever think about coming back to Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“What stopped you?”
“I believed Sloane knew where you were. I thought returning would put you in danger.”
“And when you learned I was working at The Obsidian?”
Daniel's face tightened. “I didn't know until recently.”
“Someone else knew.”
“Yes.”
“Then someone was watching me while you stayed away.”
He closed his eyes briefly. “I think so.”
The admission hurt, but it also clarified something. Her father's absence had not protected her from the network that had pursued him. Someone had been able to find her, track her work, and place her near Lorenzo. Whatever Daniel had intended, the silence had left her vulnerable without giving her the information she needed to protect herself.
“I need you to understand something,” Evelyn said. “I can't be the person who makes you feel forgiven just because you finally tell the truth.”
Daniel nodded. “I understand.”
“I don't know when I'll be ready to have a normal relationship with you. Maybe I won't be.”
“I'll respect that.”
She wanted to believe him, but trust would require more than one difficult interview. She would have to see whether he continued cooperating when the questions became embarrassing, whether he admitted new facts without waiting to be confronted, and whether he accepted her boundaries when she needed distance.
The investigation took another turn when Arthur Bell's financial records revealed a payment from a company connected to Sloane shortly after the metal case had been transferred. Bell claimed the money was for unrelated consulting work. The investigators could not yet disprove that explanation, but the timing made it relevant.
They also recovered an old email in which Halden referred to “the Carter material” and warned Bell not to discuss it outside a small group. The message did not describe the contents of the case, but it confirmed that Halden had handled something connected to Daniel.
Evelyn felt the familiar frustration return. Every new document brought the investigators closer to a clearer account, yet the missing ledger remained out of reach. She asked Rachel whether they might ever find it.
“Possibly,” Rachel said. “But we have to be prepared for the possibility that it no longer exists. The case can still proceed on the evidence we have.”
Evelyn understood the legal point. Emotionally, she was not ready to abandon the hope that the ledger might explain the full chain of events. It had become more than a book of accounts. It represented the part of her father's life that he had never fully shared, the missing link between his disappearance and the people who had continued to watch her.
One rainy evening, Daniel called to ask whether they could meet for lunch the following week. He did not mention the investigation or ask if she had forgiven him. He offered two possible days and said she could choose whichever worked best.
Evelyn agreed to Thursday.
After the call, she placed her phone on the counter and looked at the photograph of her mother, now resting in a frame beside the kitchen window. She had not decided what to do with the photograph of Daniel and the building in Baltimore. That image remained with the investigators, where it belonged for now.
She was learning that some questions could be pursued through records and witnesses, while others required time and a willingness to live with incomplete answers. She could not recover the childhood she had lost, and she could not make Daniel become the father she had needed. But she could decide what kind of relationship, if any, they built from this point forward.
The next day, Rachel called with news that the investigators had identified the man whose scar matched Daniel's description. His name was Michael Voss, a former security contractor who had worked for companies connected to both Sloane and the Moretti family. Voss had disappeared from public records years earlier, but a recent financial transaction suggested he might still be alive.
The investigators had a new lead.
And for the first time, Evelyn understood that the person who had taken her father away might still be close enough to know exactly where she was.
Click here to continue reading: PART 8: The Man Who Had Driven Daniel Out of Chicago Finally Emerged from the Shadows, but His Testimony Threatened to Collapse the Story Everyone Thought They Knew
A Single Drop of Wine Put Evelyn Carter on the Wrong Side of Chicago’s Most Dangerous Man, and the Message in Her Pocket Could Make Everything Worse
Part 7 of 20
