Chapter 4 - The Other Side of the Port
The rain started up again by the time I left the brownstone, pelting against the windshield of the town car as Gabriel's driver navigated the slick industrial streets toward the South Chicago harbor.
Gabriel hadn't forced me to come along, but he hadn't given me a choice, either. When the man who controls half the city tells you he's going to find the father you thought was a coward—and the man who framed him is currently bleeding in an unknown basement—you don't stay home.
"We're approaching Pier 44," the driver announced, cutting the radio.
I peered through the rain-streaked window. The harbor was a bleak landscape of towering rust-colored cranes, stacked shipping containers stretching out into the gray mist like giant Lego blocks, and dilapidated brick warehouses with broken, soot-stained windows. It was a place where secrets could be buried a mile deep and nobody would ever ask questions.
The town car pulled up beside an old, corrugated steel warehouse bearing the faded logo of Vance & Sons Shipping.
My breath caught in my throat. Vance & Sons. My father had founded that company before I was even born. I had played hide-and-seek among those very crates when I was seven years old, listening to the deep, rumbling foghorns out on the lake.
"Stay in the car," the driver instructed, reaching for his door handle.
"No," I said, pushing my door open before he could stop me. "My name is on that building. I'm going with you."
The driver didn't argue. He knew better than to countermand an order that had Gabriel Costello's implicit approval stamped all over it.
We stepped out into the biting wind, our shoes crunching on gravel and broken glass. The heavy sliding metal door of the warehouse was unlatched, a narrow gap of yellow light spilling out onto the wet asphalt.
Inside, the cavernous space smelled of damp concrete, stale coffee, and old paper. Piles of empty pallets lined the walls, and a single halogen work light illuminated a makeshift office partitioned off with plywood in the center of the room.
We walked across the concrete floor in silence. As we reached the plywood door, I heard the faint, distinct sound of someone coughing—a wet, rattling cough that sounded like broken glass.
The driver drew his sidearm, keeping it low and close to his leg, and pushed the door open.
Sitting at a dented metal desk cluttered with empty styrofoam cups and yellowed paperwork was an old man. His hair was completely white, his shoulders slumped and frail beneath a stained flannel shirt. He looked twenty years older than the man who had walked out of our house five years ago.
He looked up, blinking against the harsh halogen glare, his rheumy eyes locking onto mine.
May you like
"Chloe?" he whispered, his voice cracking like dry wood. "Oh, God... Chloe, you shouldn't be here."
---
