Chapter 2 - THE MAN FROM MY MOTHER’S FUNERAL
My mother had been dead for fifteen years.
I had spent most of that time believing her death was simple.
A car accident.
Rain.
A bridge.
A terrible night no one could change.
Now Grandma was telling me the man watching our apartment had stood twenty feet from her grave.
“What did he look like?” Vincent asked.
Grandma described him.
Tall.
Gray hair.
Scar near his left ear.
Luke’s face changed immediately.
“You know him,” I said.
Vincent didn’t answer.
Luke did.
“Victor Dane.”
The name meant nothing to me.
It meant something to Vincent.
His jaw tightened.
“He worked for my father.”
My pulse jumped.
“Your father knew my mother?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Grandma looked between us.
“Who was your father?”
Vincent’s expression became unreadable.
“Arthur Hayes.”
Grandma sat down.
The color left her face.
I stared at her.
“You know that name too?”
She closed her eyes.
“Your mother worked for him.”
That sentence hit harder than anything since the elevator.
My mother had been an accountant.
That was all I knew.
She worked downtown.
She hated talking about the office.
After she died, Grandma raised me and never explained much.
Vincent turned toward her.
“What was her name?”
“Elaine Mercer.”
Luke whispered something under his breath.
Vincent went completely still.
“What?”
I looked at him.
He stared at me as though I had transformed into someone else.
“Your mother was Elaine Mercer?”
“Yes.”
He walked to the window.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
Vincent didn’t answer for several seconds.
Then he faced Grandma.
“You told Claire she died in an accident.”
“She did.”
“No.”
His voice sharpened.
“Elaine Mercer disappeared three days before my father was killed.”
The room went silent.
My mother died in May.
Arthur Hayes had supposedly died in June.
Or at least that was what Chicago newspapers said.
I knew because everyone knew the Hayes name.
Grandma started trembling.
“Claire should not be involved in this.”
“I already am.”
She looked at me with tears filling her eyes.
“I tried to keep you out.”
“Out of what?”
Vincent walked toward us.
“My father wasn’t killed over territory.”
Grandma’s eyes snapped toward him.
Vincent continued.
“He was killed because someone discovered he was trying to leave the organization.”
I stared.
“That has what to do with Mom?”
Vincent’s gaze stayed on Grandma.
“Elaine Mercer handled his private books.”
My skin turned cold.
Vincent lowered his voice.
“If Victor Dane is watching Claire now, then someone believes Elaine left something behind.”
Grandma suddenly stood.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
She gripped the back of the chair.
“No one can know.”
My stomach dropped.
“Know what?”
Grandma looked at me.
Then whispered the secret she had hidden for fifteen years.
“Your mother didn’t die with empty hands.”
“What did she leave?”
May you like
Grandma began crying.
“A key.”
