Chapter 2 - The Photograph That Shouldn't Exist
Beatrice had been eight years old when her father died.
She remembered the funeral, the closed casket, and her mother's trembling hands gripping a tissue so tightly it tore.
Now she was staring at a photograph taken only three years ago.
Her father stood outside a Chicago warehouse wearing a dark overcoat.
Beside him was Arthur Costello.
Beatrice enlarged the picture until the pixels blurred.
The man's face was older.
His hair had turned gray.
But the scar beneath his left eyebrow was unmistakable.
Daniel Gallagher.
Her father.
Alive.
She called Tommy immediately.
He answered on the fifth ring.
“Bea?”
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“Don't lie to me.”
A pause.
Then she heard traffic.
“I'm just getting groceries.”
“Tommy, did you know Dad was alive?”
The silence that followed was so complete she thought the call had disconnected.
“Who told you that?” he whispered.
Her stomach dropped.
“Oh, my God.”
“Bea, listen carefully. Don't ask Arthur anything about Dad.”
“Why?”
“Because that's how this started.”
The line went dead.
Beatrice grabbed her coat and drove to Tommy's apartment.
His door stood open.
The living room had been overturned.
A chair lay on its side.
His phone was smashed beside the kitchen counter.
But there was no blood.
On the refrigerator, someone had attached a piece of paper with a kitchen magnet.
It contained a single instruction.
COME TO THE WEDDING. ALONE.
Beatrice stood motionless.
Then she heard footsteps behind her.
She spun around.
Arthur Costello filled the doorway.
Two men stood behind him.
“What happened?” he asked.
She held up the note.
“You tell me.”
He read it.
Something cold entered his eyes.
“Leo,” he said to one of his men, “get everyone looking for Tommy.”
Beatrice stepped in front of him.
“No. We're finished with your mysterious favors and half-truths.”
“Beatrice—”
“My father is alive.”
Arthur went still.
She pulled up the photograph.
“Explain this.”
He looked at the screen.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then he closed the apartment door behind him.
“Your father didn't die in that accident.”
“I figured that out.”
“He disappeared because someone wanted him dead.”
“Who?”
Arthur hesitated.
And in that hesitation, Beatrice saw something she'd never seen in him.
Fear.
“Beatrice,” he said carefully, “the man beside me in that photograph wasn't your father.”
Her mouth went dry.
“He was using your father's name.”
“Then where is my real father?”
Arthur looked directly at her.
“That's what I've spent eleven years trying to find out.”
Before she could speak, his phone rang.
He listened without interrupting.
Then his expression hardened.
“Where?”
A pause.
“Are you certain?”
He disconnected.
Beatrice watched him.
“What happened?”
Arthur's answer changed everything.
“Your brother just walked into Richard Spatafora's private office.”
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“And?”
“He told Richard he knows who ordered your father's murder.”
