44. Jack
JACK
T he apartment is tranquil except for the low rush of traffic that never really stops. My coffee sits beside the laptop, cooling to the exact temperature no one wants. On the screen, an email sits open like a dare: From: Catherine Shaw, Subject: Emma – Photos.
My father’s assistant. Not my father. He never sends the first message. He hires people to do it, then claims the last word. No body text. Just a single attachment labeled Emma.
I double-click. The first photo fills the screen: a little girl in a red coat in front of a park bench, winter light washing her hair almost white.
My chest tightens, sharp and involuntary, before I force it back under control.
The next: older, nine, maybe ten, caught mid-laugh over a birthday cake, candles bending in the draft.
The last: a school portrait. Straight collar, neutral backdrop, chin lifted the way a stranger told her to lift it.
The timestamp says it’s at least a year old.
Her hair is darker now; her eyes… not mine and somehow too familiar at the same time.
I’ve never seen these before. I never had the chance.
Claire and I met in Oxford when I was there on a short expansion deal.
She was working at the university library.
It was one night. When she told me about the pregnancy, she was calm and precise in the way people are when they’ve already decided.
She didn’t want marriage, a new passport, or a long-distance fight over definitions.
My father brokered an arrangement: monthly support, legal clean lines, no contact unless she requested it.
I was eighteen and drowning in work; I let him draw the borders and I lived inside them. I told myself distance was responsible.
Now, I’m seeing my daughter’s face via a file my father’s assistant pushed at 7:03 a.m. My thumb taps a flat rhythm against the trackpad, four beats, pause, four beats, until the muscle in my jaw protests.
I study the portrait again, forcing myself to stay with it.
The mouth. The tilt of the eyebrows. The part of her I recognize and the part I don’t.
It lands with a weight I can’t redistribute.
Movement in the doorway pulls me up. Ivy, hair pulled over one shoulder, leans against the frame and takes me in the way she always does, no rush, no questions until she knows which ones matter.
“Your coffee’s cold,” she says.
“I forgot about it.”
She comes to the table and sets her mug beside mine. Her palm slides to my shoulder, steady pressure, nothing performative. Her gaze flicks to the screen. “Is that her?”
I nod once. “First time seeing her older than one.”
“You’ve never…”
“No.” The word tastes like dust. “Claire wanted distance. My father kept it neat. I didn’t push.”
Her thumb traces the hinge of my neck, a small circle that says I hear the part you didn’t say. Then she straightens. “I’m going to keep working on the room.”
She leaves me with the photos and the old, tidy excuses.
The phone buzzes. Local number. “Wilson.”
“Jack.” Santiago’s voice comes low, like he’s speaking in a hallway with cameras. “We’ve got our mole. And you’re not going to like where.”
“Tell me.”
“The leak’s not in your build crew, it’s in the foundation’s admin wing. Procurement. They’ve been feeding Derek’s people copies of supplier contracts, delivery schedules, budget notes. That’s how he knew which vendors to pressure and when.”
I close the photo window and pull up the internal org chart. “Name.”
“Tom Garvey. Hired eleven months ago. Résumé looks spotless until you scratch. His last two references trace to a shell company that shows up in two of Derek’s old plays.”
The muscle in my jaw fires again. “You can pull him in quietly?”
“I already have a conference room booked and a pretext. But listen, Derek’s people not just watching paper. We’ve got possible eyes on you and Ivy. Same faces showing up near the warehouse and your building.”
“Surveillance?”
“Could be intimidation. Could be staging for something bigger. If they were pros, I’d be worried about timing.”
My gaze slips down the hall. I can hear the faint sound of Ivy’s voice, soft, quick, probably talking to Sienna about paint or patience. “No one gets near her,” I say. “And Emma stays out of this completely.”
“I’ll tighten the perimeter,” he says. A brief rustle, then: “One more thing. Your father’s been making inquiries in Oxford. Before Claire’s death hit any official channel.”
“Through who?”
“Different sources. Too many to be coincidence. He’s not just reading the brief, he’s writing it.”
“How close is he trying to get?”
“As close as you let him.”
“Then not at all.”
A small exhale I can almost hear him smile through. “Good. I’ll text you times for Garvey and a parallel meet with Patel, the external consultant. We set the bait and see who bites first.”
“Keep Ivy out of the rooms,” I say. “And keep Emma’s name out of your mouth.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Click.
I forward the email to my attorney with a single line: Acknowledge receipt. All future communications to me directly. I CC my father. No greeting. No sign-off. He’ll read the message inside the message: the conduit is cut.
Down the hall, a tape measure flicks shut.
I follow the sound. The smaller spare bedroom looks different already just because Ivy is in it.
Morning light pours across the floor in a clean rectangle.
Dust hangs like glitter and refuses to settle.
Ivy kneels by the window, the tape measure pulled tight against the sill, her phone wedged between shoulder and cheek.
She’s laughing at something Sienna says, and even the laugh has purpose, like she’s already built a landing and is testing whether it will hold.
She catches me in her peripheral and the laugh slips into a line I know well, soft, sure. She ends the call.
“How’s Santiago?” she asks.
“Setting a trap. Forty-eight hours. Maybe less.”
“And your father?” Not casual.
“Circling,” I say.
Her mouth tightens. Not surprise. Recognition. “He wants to be the first paragraph.”
“He wants to write the whole article,” I answer, and the room goes a degree cooler. “He isn’t going to.”
She nods once. “Then we make other paragraphs.”
***
We work side by side, foundation blueprints bleeding into bedroom layouts, cork-board versus magnet rail debates, small concessions that feel like practice for bigger ones.
My phone pings with Santiago’s schedule for Garvey and Patel, plus a line about my father calling Dawson’s assistant twice. No message. Of course.
Later, I open Emma’s photos again, not for leverage, but looking for a door I can knock on without slamming the others shut. “I’m going to write her a letter,” I tell Ivy.
“Analog. Bold.”
“She’s had fifteen years of me not showing up. A letter can sit on her desk and wait.”
“I think that’s the only version that has a chance.”
I stare at the blank page, knowing the right words will matter more than perfect timing. And when I step into that spare room again, the morning light feels sharper. She won’t be an asset, a headline, or a line item. She’ll be my daughter. And I’ll be here.