Chapter 5 - THE DETECTIVE WHO NEVER RETIRED
Detective Harold Mercer had received a medal for his investigation into the Addison Street fire.
He had also been the last person to see Lily Miller alive.
Roman discovered both facts before sunrise.
Mercer had supposedly retired to Florida six years earlier.
Instead, he had been living in Chicago under a false identity, drawing money from a security company connected to Vincent Caruso.
Roman spread the records across his desk.
“Mercer controlled the original investigation,” he told Norah. “He declared Lily dead without recovering a body.”
Norah studied an old police photograph.
Mercer's face hadn't changed much.
She remembered his hands gripping her shoulders outside the burning building.
His voice warning her not to mention the child.
“I tried to tell the hospital staff about Lily,” she said. “He told them I was confused because of smoke inhalation.”
Roman's expression darkened.
“Did anyone believe you?”
“A nurse did. She wrote everything down.”
“What happened to her?”
“She lost her job two weeks later.”
Roman made a note.
“Name?”
“Rebecca Ellis.”
He sent the information to Marco.
Then he turned to Norah.
“You can walk away from this. I'll protect you regardless.”
She looked at the ruined sleeve folded beside her.
“For thirteen years, I blamed myself for leaving that little girl behind.”
“You were nineteen. You were badly injured.”
“I heard her crying.”
Roman crouched beside her chair.
“And someone deliberately trapped you both.”
Norah finally looked into his eyes.
There was no pity there.
Only conviction.
For the first time, she wondered what it would feel like to stop being afraid.
A phone rang.
Marco answered, listened, and went still.
“Boss. We found Rebecca Ellis.”
“Where?”
“She runs a small clinic outside Milwaukee.”
“Bring her here.”
Marco hesitated.
“She says she'll speak only to Norah.”
“Why?”
“Because she has something that belongs to her.”
Hours later, Rebecca arrived carrying a sealed medical envelope.
She looked at Norah and began to cry.
“I've waited thirteen years to give you this.”
Norah opened the envelope.
Inside was a hospital photograph.
A badly burned young woman lay unconscious in a hospital bed.
Beside her sat a little girl with dark curls.
Alive.
The photograph had been taken four days after the fire.
Norah's hands shook.
“Lily survived.”
Rebecca nodded.
Then she pointed toward a second person standing in the hospital doorway.
A woman wearing expensive pearls.
Vanessa Caruso's mother.
May you like
“She didn't come to visit,” Rebecca whispered.
“She came to collect the child.”
