Chapter 6 - THE WAITRESS THEY NEEDED ALIVE
Arthur read the message twice before turning off his phone.
"No."
I stared at him.
"No what?"
"You're not going anywhere near whoever sent that."
"Arthur, they have a little girl."
"And they're using her to get to you."
"Why would anyone want me?"
His silence was answer enough.
I crossed my arms.
"You know something."
"I suspect something."
"Then tell me."
He looked toward Brutus.
The dog lay near the bedroom door, his enormous body still trembling occasionally from exhaustion.
"Your father," Arthur said quietly. "What was his name?"
The question caught me off guard.
"Patrick Nolan."
"What did he do?"
"He worked at the docks. Why?"
Arthur closed his eyes.
"Of course."
My pulse quickened.
"What?"
"Your father worked for one of my family's shipping companies."
I felt a chill.
"He died when I was seventeen."
"How?"
"Warehouse fire."
Arthur looked devastated.
"Maeve..."
I stood so quickly the chair scraped across the floor.
"No."
"Listen to me."
"No. Don't tell me you're about to connect my father's death to your family."
Arthur swallowed.
"I believe Patrick Nolan was helping Luca investigate the same operation that eventually got my brother killed."
The room seemed to spin.
My father had always been a quiet man.
He loved crossword puzzles, cheap baseball tickets, and Sunday pancakes.
He wasn't involved in organized crime.
At least, that was what my mother had told us.
"Why would he help Luca?"
"Because he found discrepancies in shipping manifests."
I remembered something.
After Dad died, Mom had kept a locked metal toolbox beneath her bed.
She never let Danny or me open it.
When she became sick, she'd moved it into storage.
After her funeral, I'd forgotten about it.
Until now.
"I think my father left something."
Arthur looked up.
"What?"
"A toolbox."
His expression sharpened.
"Do you still have it?"
"At a storage facility in Bridgeport."
For the first time all morning, I saw hope enter his eyes.
Then his phone rang.
Agent Miller.
Arthur answered.
The investigator spoke quickly.
"We've confirmed that Rosie attended an elementary school under the name Rose Whitaker."
Arthur gripped the phone.
"Where is she?"
"She was withdrawn three years ago. The school records identify her guardian."
"Who?"
A long silence.
Then Miller answered.
"Margaret Nolan."
My blood turned cold.
"My mother?"
Arthur looked at me.
"Maeve..."
I shook my head.
"That's impossible."
My mother had died eighteen months earlier.
But Miller continued.
"According to the paperwork, Margaret Nolan became Rosie's legal guardian six years ago."
I stared at Arthur.
Then I whispered something I hadn't thought about in years.
"Mom told me she was taking care of a little girl for a friend."
Arthur's face changed.
"What little girl?"
I slowly sat down.
"She called her Rose."
And suddenly I remembered the little room my mother had always kept locked.
May you like
The room she told Danny and me never to enter.
Because, she'd said, it held things from a past that could destroy our family.
