Chapter 2 - The Ghost Partner and the Hollow Handle
Grace stared at the retired commissioner as if he were speaking an unknown language.
Fourteen years ago, she had been a ten-year-old schoolgirl wearing hand-me-down shoes in a cold duplex.
"Why would an internal affairs case have my name attached to it?" Grace whispered.
Walsh did not answer her question immediately.
He signaled to Roman’s guards.
"Take them down to the lower cellar holding area."
"Strip them of their weapons, their communication devices, and their shoes."
"Check the linings of their coats for trackers."
Roman nodded slightly to his head of security.
The guards dragged the two impostors down the service stairs without another word.
Grace stood alone near the cloakroom counter, her hands trembling violently.
Roman reached out, took the hanging handcuff, and twisted a small brass key into the mechanism.
He had retrieved the key from the male impostor's vest pocket.
The cuff clicked open.
Grace pulled her arm back, rubbing the red circular indentation around her wrist.
Walsh adjusted his glasses and took a step toward her.
"Grace, tell me your father's full name."
Grace frowned, confused by the sudden shift in focus.
"What does my father have to do with this?"
"Answer the question, child," Walsh urged, his tone softer now, almost fatherly.
"David Miller," she said.
"David Michael Miller?"
"Yes."
Walsh closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled a long, ragged breath.
Roman observed the old man's reaction with sharp, predatory curiosity.
"You knew him, Henry?" Roman asked.
"I knew him well," Walsh answered.
"My father was an independent contractor," Grace interrupted, her voice defensive.
"He built commercial drywall frameworks for high-rise buildings."
"He died of a coronary artery rupture when I was eleven years old."
Walsh looked at her with profound pity.
"Your father was not a contractor, Grace."
Grace shook her head.
"I have his old tax returns."
"I have his steel-toed boots in our basement closet."
"That was his cover identity after the department burned his real assignment," Walsh said.
"David Miller was a lead detective assigned directly to the Internal Affairs Special Operations Division."
Grace gripped the edge of the marble desk to keep her knees from buckling.
"You're lying."
"I personally signed his promotion papers in nineteen-ninety-nine," Walsh stated evenly.
"And I signed his field operational mandate in two-thousand-ten."
Roman crossed his arms, his posture stiff and alert.
"What was David Miller investigating, Henry?"
Walsh turned toward the young mob boss.
"He was tracking a syndicate of rogue precinct captains who were selling confiscated evidence back onto the black market."
"Guns, seized narcotics, financial ledgers, and wiretap transcripts."
Roman’s face darkened.
"Selling them to my father?"
"Some of it ended up in your family’s hands," Walsh admitted.
"But most of it was sold to a phantom faction operating under your name."
"People who wanted the Moretti family to take the blame whenever a major case collapsed in court."
Grace felt the room spinning around her.
Her father had not been an exhausted tradesman coming home with plaster dust on his denim jackets.
He had been an undercover investigator living inside a fabricated life.
"And his death?" Grace asked, her voice cracking.
"Did he die of a heart attack?"
Walsh looked at the floor tiles.
"There was no heart attack, Grace."
"There was a warehouse fire near the eastern freight rail yards."
"No body was ever recovered."
"The coroner signed a presumptive death certificate under pressure from the mayor's office."
"Why?" Grace demanded, tears stinging her eyes.
"Because finding out what really happened to David Miller would have brought down forty city officials."
Roman suddenly stepped toward the cloakroom counter.
His sharp gaze swept over the racks of heavy coats, the umbrella stand, and the empty ledger.
"They didn't come here to arrest her," Roman said abruptly.
Walsh looked up.
"What do you mean?"
"Look at the timing," Roman pointed out.
"Two fake cops walk through the front door during my private dinner."
"They don't shoot."
"They don't run."
"They create a loud, public scene right here in the main entrance."
"Why?"
Grace looked at the counter.
Her mind raced back through the minutes leading up to the arrest.
"The umbrella," she gasped.
Roman’s eyes locked onto her face.
"What umbrella?"
"Ten minutes before they arrived, an older man entered through the west courtyard door," Grace said.
"He didn't hand me a coat."
"He placed an umbrella into the brass stand behind me."
"I noticed it because the handle was solid matte black metal, unusually heavy."
Roman walked behind the counter and looked into the brass stand.
Three patterned folding umbrellas and one wooden walking cane sat inside.
The black umbrella was completely gone.
"Pull the security feed," Roman ordered his remaining guard.
The guard opened a tablet mounted beneath the security console.
He scrubbed the footage back twelve minutes.
On the high-definition monitor, the foyer was quiet.
Grace was shown tagging a woman's fur coat.
A tall, weathered man with silver-streaked hair and a long dark trench coat entered through the side corridor.
He dropped a heavy black umbrella into the stand without saying a word to Grace.
Then, the front doors opened.
The two fake police officers entered.
The moment Grace turned to face the uniform, the man in the trench coat stepped smoothly behind her.
He reached over the wooden divider.
He pulled the heavy black umbrella from the brass cylinder.
Then, he vanished back into the shadows of the west service corridor.
Roman paused the video and enlarged the man’s face.
Walsh leaned over the screen, his breathing turning shallow.
The color drained entirely from the former commissioner's face.
"Good God Almighty," Walsh whispered.
Grace looked at the frozen image of the gaunt, sharp-eyed stranger.
"Do you know him too?" she asked.
Walsh stared at the screen as if looking at a ghost.
"That is Julian Vance."
"Who is Julian Vance?" Roman demanded.
Walsh took off his glasses with shaking hands.
May you like
"He was your father’s primary investigative partner."
"And he was officially listed as killed in action twelve years ago."
