Chapter 1 - THE MAN MY MOTHER NEVER MENTIONED
Malcolm Avery looked at me as though my face had reached across thirty-eight years and touched a wound he had spent a lifetime pretending was closed.
“Margaret Reed,” he repeated.
My throat tightened.
“My mother died five years ago.”
His eyes lowered.
“I’m sorry.”
Nathan Coyle stepped forward.
“Sir, perhaps we should move this conversation somewhere private.”
Malcolm didn’t look at him.
“Hannah, how old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
His face changed again.
Then he looked toward the watch.
“My father disappeared thirty-eight years ago. Everyone believed he was killed.”
I swallowed.
“What does that have to do with my mother?”
Malcolm opened the back of the watch.
The engraving caught the light.
“For Malcolm. Time is the only fortune you can never earn twice. Dad.”
He turned it over.
Inside the inner casing was something I hadn’t noticed.
A second engraving.
Tiny.
Almost invisible.
M.R. KNOWS.
My stomach dropped.
“Those are my mother’s initials.”
“Yes.”
The room became painfully silent.
Malcolm continued.
“My father gave this watch to me when I was thirty-one. He vanished three weeks later.”
I stared at him.
“And my mother?”
“She worked for him.”
“What kind of work?”
Malcolm hesitated.
“Bookkeeping.”
That sounded too simple.
I knew it.
He knew I knew it.
Finally, he said:
“My father controlled businesses that weren’t all legal.”
My stomach tightened.
Of course.
The Avery family.
Chicago.
Money.
Fear.
Nothing in this room was simple.
“Did my mother know what happened to him?”
Malcolm looked toward the security cameras.
“I believe she knew something.”
I shook my head.
“Then why wouldn’t she tell me?”
“Because people were killed for less.”
The words landed hard.
Then Nathan entered with a tablet.
“Mr. Avery, we checked the dining room footage.”
Malcolm looked up.
“And?”
“The watch wasn’t dropped today.”
I frowned.
“What?”
Nathan turned the screen.
A timestamp from three nights earlier appeared.
A man wearing a dark suit entered the private dining suite.
He crouched beside chair twelve.
Placed the watch beneath it.
Then looked directly into the security camera.
My blood ran cold.
Malcolm’s face hardened.
“Who is he?”
Nathan zoomed in.
Malcolm stopped breathing.
May you like
Then whispered:
“That man is my brother—who died twenty-two years ago.”
