Chapter 15 - The Man From Emma's Past
Daniel Brooks was not related to Emma despite sharing her last name.
That coincidence had once been a joke between them.
Now nothing about his name felt funny.
Emma sat at the library table staring at the grainy image from the mailbox center.
The man wore a baseball cap low over his forehead.
His face was partially hidden.
She still knew the way he stood.
She knew the narrow shoulders.
She knew the habit of keeping one hand in his pocket when nervous.
“It is him.”
Gabriel sat across from her.
“When did you last speak?”
“About a year ago.”
“What ended the relationship?”
Emma's expression became guarded.
“My mother got sicker.”
Gabriel waited.
“That cannot be the whole answer.”
She looked at him sharply.
“It is enough of one.”
Gabriel leaned back.
“You're right.”
Emma had expected him to push.
He did not.
That made it easier to continue.
“Daniel wanted a life with fewer problems.”
Her voice remained even.
“He said every month there was another appointment, another bill, another reason we couldn't plan anything.”
Gabriel's jaw tightened.
“He left because your mother was sick?”
“He left because he decided my life was inconvenient.”
Emma shrugged, but the movement was too controlled.
“He had the right to leave.”
“He did not have the right to make you feel ashamed for staying with your mother.”
Emma looked at Gabriel.
The sentence landed somewhere she had not expected.
She looked away.
“After we broke up, I changed jobs.”
“Did he know where?”
“Not from me.”
“Could he have found out?”
“Probably.”
Dominic entered carrying a folder.
“We found him.”
Emma looked up.
“Where?”
“He rents an apartment in White Plains.”
“Job?”
“Sales representative for a medical equipment distributor.”
Gabriel's attention sharpened.
“Medical equipment?”
Dominic nodded.
“The company supplied mobility devices to Dr. Price's clinic.”
Emma closed her eyes.
Of course.
The world had suddenly become too connected.
“Did Daniel know Price?”
“We're checking.”
Gabriel looked at Emma.
“Did Daniel ever know about your work at the rehabilitation center?”
“Yes.”
“Your mother's bills?”
“Yes.”
“Your employment history?”
“Yes.”
Emma folded her arms tightly.
“He knew everything about me once.”
The words hurt more than she intended.
Gabriel heard it.
He did not comment.
Dominic placed another paper on the table.
“Daniel received a consulting payment from Bellweather four months ago.”
Emma stared.
“How much?”
“Fifteen thousand dollars.”
“For what?”
“No invoice description.”
Gabriel's face hardened.
Emma felt heat rise into her cheeks.
“Fifteen thousand.”
Dominic nodded.
She laughed once, bitterly.
“That is more than he ever offered to help with my mother's bills.”
Gabriel said quietly, “You don't have to do this in front of us.”
Emma looked at him.
“Do what?”
“Pretend that doesn't hurt.”
Her eyes burned.
She stood.
“I need air.”
Gabriel did not stop her.
Emma walked through the glass doors to the terrace.
Cold wind hit her face.
She welcomed it.
For days she had been absorbing new humiliations so quickly she had barely processed the old ones.
Food withheld.
A camera hidden behind books.
Medication planted in her bag.
Photographs of her mother.
Now Daniel.
A man who once knew where she kept spare keys and what song she played when she could not sleep had taken money from the people targeting her.
The terrace door opened behind her.
Gabriel stepped outside but remained several feet away.
“You don't have to stand guard.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
He thought before answering.
“Because I don't want you to be alone with this unless you want to be.”
Emma looked at him.
The answer was not smooth.
That made it believable.
“I don't know what I want.”
“Fair.”
They stood in silence.
After a minute, Emma said, “He used to tell me I carried everyone.”
Gabriel listened.
“He made it sound noble at first.”
She looked over the lawn.
“Then one night he said he was tired of living with someone who always had another person to save.”
Gabriel's voice stayed low.
“You were taking care of your mother.”
“I know.”
“And now Lily.”
Emma nodded.
“Maybe he was right about one thing.”
“What?”
“I do carry people.”
Gabriel looked through the glass at the house.
“Maybe people keep handing you weight because you don't drop it.”
Emma turned toward him.
That sentence almost broke her composure.
She breathed slowly until the feeling passed.
“Don't make me cry.”
“I wasn't trying to.”
“You are bad at comfort.”
“I've been told.”
Emma laughed softly.
The laugh was small but real.
Gabriel's expression softened.
For one dangerous second, the space between them changed.
Emma noticed.
So did Gabriel.
Neither moved closer.
They were standing inside an investigation, a power imbalance, grief, fear, and a household full of cameras.
Anything more would be unfair to both of them.
Emma stepped back first.
“We should go inside.”
“Yes.”
Dominic had more information when they returned.
Daniel's consulting payment came two days before Emma received the nanny position at the Moretti house.
That timing changed everything.
Gabriel looked at Emma.
“He may have helped place you here.”
Emma stared at him.
“What?”
“The payment predates your hiring.”
“That makes no sense.”
Unless someone had selected Emma deliberately.
Elena's old background report had identified her as a promising person for Lily.
Someone later hired her.
Then someone else tried to discredit her.
Maybe those were not separate events.
Before Daniel arrived at the gate, Emma asked Dominic to show her every piece of information the investigators had collected about him.
Dominic hesitated.
“Some of it is private.”
“He used my private information to get paid.”
“That does not automatically give us the right to violate his.”
Emma stared at him.
Then she nodded.
“You're right.”
The answer surprised Dominic.
Emma continued.
“Show me only what is relevant.”
He provided the consulting payment, employment connection to Price's clinic, mailbox access still, and public corporate records.
Nothing more.
Gabriel watched from the doorway.
After Dominic left, he said, “You could have pushed.”
Emma looked at him.
“For what?”
“Everything Dominic knows.”
“I wanted to.”
“But you didn't.”
Emma folded the papers.
“I am angry because people treated my privacy like a resource they could use.”
She looked at Gabriel.
“I don't want anger to turn me into them.”
The sentence stayed with him.
When Daniel's message arrived, Emma read it aloud once and put the phone down.
I KNOW WHY THEY HIRED YOU.
AND I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT LUCA DIED.
Gabriel's first reaction was suspicion.
Emma's was grief.
He noticed the difference.
Daniel was a potential source to Gabriel.
To Emma, he was a person who had once chosen rings with her and discussed whether they wanted children.
Betrayal had a history before it became evidence.
“Do you want me in the room?” Gabriel asked.
Emma looked at him.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“But not because I need you to speak for me.”
“I know.”
“I need you there because this now affects your family too.”
“I know.”
“And if Daniel says something about our old relationship, you do not threaten him.”
Gabriel's eyebrows rose.
“I had not planned to.”
Emma gave him a look.
“You have a face that plans things.”
“That is not evidence.”
“It would survive cross-examination.”
Gabriel almost laughed.
The joke helped Emma breathe.
Then she looked toward the security office visible through the window.
“Let's hear what he sold.”
Emma also called Nora Bennett before meeting Daniel.
She needed to know whether the mobility center had ever shared her employment history with anyone connected to Price.
Nora checked archived records.
“A background verification request came eight months ago.”
“From whom?”
“A staffing agency.”
Emma's stomach tightened.
“The agency that placed me with the Morettis?”
“Yes.”
“Did they ask anything unusual?”
Nora read the old notes.
“They asked whether you worked directly with mobility exercises.”
“That sounds normal.”
“They also asked why you had not completed a therapist licensing program.”
Emma frowned.
“I never enrolled in one.”
“I know.”
Nora's voice hardened.
“I wrote that the question was based on a false assumption.”
Emma looked at Gabriel.
Someone had been testing how easily her experience could be framed as incomplete qualification.
Nora continued.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“The agency representative asked whether financial pressure might make you likely to accept live-in work quickly.”
Emma closed her eyes.
There it was again.
Not simply a search for a caregiver.
A search for someone skilled enough to be useful and vulnerable enough to control.
“Do you still have the request?”
“Yes.”
“Please send it to Miriam.”
Nora paused.
“Emma, are you safe?”
Emma looked through the window at Dominic's team near the gate.
“I am safer than I was.”
It was not the same as safe.
For now, it was enough.
Miriam examined the dates.
“What if Celeste knew Elena had researched Emma?”
Gabriel frowned.
“Why hire someone she later wanted removed?”
“Because Emma was useful at first.”
“For what?”
Miriam looked toward the stairs.
“To create a controllable failure.”
Emma's face hardened.
“Explain.”
“Suppose they needed evidence that Gabriel's household care was poor.”
Miriam spoke carefully.
“They hire a nanny with past rehabilitation experience but no current license.”
Gabriel understood before she finished.
“If Lily does not improve, they say I chose an unqualified caregiver.”
“And if Emma crosses boundaries trying to help...”
“They say she interfered with treatment.”
Emma stared at the table.
“They expected me to fail.”
Miriam nodded.
“Possibly.”
Gabriel looked toward the ceiling where Lily was sleeping.
Instead, Emma had succeeded.
That was when the pressure began.
The meal restrictions.
The bathroom lock.
The warning from Bianca.
The planted pills.
The false email.
The hidden camera.
Emma's success had turned her from useful evidence into a threat.
Dominic's phone rang.
He stepped aside to answer.
When he returned, his expression was grim.
“Daniel is outside.”
Emma stood so fast her chair scraped the floor.
“What?”
“At the front gate.”
Gabriel's face became unreadable.
“Why?”
“He says he needs to speak to Emma.”
“No.”
Emma's answer came instantly.
Gabriel looked at her.
“You don't have to.”
Dominic added, “He brought something.”
“What?” Gabriel asked.
“A sealed envelope.”
“For whom?”
Dominic looked at Emma.
“For her.”
Emma's phone vibrated at that exact moment.
A message from Daniel appeared.
I KNOW WHY THEY HIRED YOU.
May you like
A second message followed.
AND I KNOW WHAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT LUCA DIED.
