Chapter 4 - THE DEAD WOMAN
Audrey stared at the photograph until the room seemed to tilt.
Her mother was fifty-nine now.
Older.
Silver threaded through her dark hair.
But Audrey knew those eyes.
She had spent twenty-three years remembering them.
“This is impossible.”
Julian said nothing.
That frightened her.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“But you suspected something.”
His silence lasted too long.
Audrey stepped toward him.
“What did my grandfather tell you?”
Julian finally looked at her.
“Anthony believed Catherine's accident was staged.”
Audrey's voice broke.
“And nobody told me?”
“There was never proof she survived.”
“You let me bury an empty coffin?”
“You were eleven.”
“I am thirty-four now.”
Julian accepted the anger.
“He believed telling you would put you in danger.”
Audrey laughed once, bitterly.
“My family has spent my entire life protecting me with lies.”
She thought of Graham.
I protected your pride.
Different lie.
Same arrogance.
Other people deciding what truth she could survive.
“No more,” she said.
Julian nodded.
“No more.”
Meanwhile, Graham drove toward Brooklyn.
He told no one.
That was his first mistake.
His second was believing Sloan would be alone.
At 12:03 a.m., he entered the storage warehouse.
“Sloan?”
A light switched on.
She stood twenty feet away.
No red dress now.
Jeans.
Gray sweatshirt.
Bruise across her cheek.
“You came.”
“Where's Audrey's mother?”
Sloan blinked.
“What?”
Graham showed her the photograph Audrey had texted him minutes earlier.
For the first time, Sloan looked genuinely stunned.
“I didn't send that.”
“Then who did?”
A sound came from behind Graham.
He turned.
Too late.
Something struck his skull.
He collapsed.
When Graham woke, his wrists were tied to a chair.
Victor Barrett sat opposite him.
He was seventy.
Silver-haired.
Immaculate suit.
Nothing about him resembled the monster Graham had imagined.
Sloan sat nearby with her hands bound.
“Uncle Victor,” she whispered.
Victor smiled.
“You always were sentimental, Sloan.”
Graham tasted blood.
“You used her.”
“I employ people according to their abilities.”
“You ordered Audrey poisoned.”
Victor's smile faded.
“No.”
Graham frowned.
Victor leaned closer.
“If I wanted Audrey DeLuca dead, Mr. Mercer, she would be dead.”
Sloan looked at him.
“Then who ordered it?”
Victor studied her.
“That is precisely what I would like to know.”
For twenty-three years, Victor explained, everyone had blamed him for Catherine's disappearance.
Conveniently.
He had stolen money from Anthony DeLuca.
That part was true.
He had fled.
Also true.
But Catherine discovered something worse before she disappeared.
Someone inside the DeLuca organization had been laundering money through medical transport companies.
The same structure now hidden inside Mercer Atlantic.
History repeating itself.
Graham's stomach tightened.
“Who?”
Victor stood.
“Ask Julian Cross.”
Silence.
Graham stared at him.
“No.”
“Julian was Catherine's fiancé.”
That sentence changed everything.
Before Audrey's father.
Before Audrey was born.
Julian and Catherine had planned to marry.
Then Catherine discovered Julian's father was involved in the laundering network.
She ended the engagement.
Months later she married Michael Hale.
Years later, she disappeared.
Victor tossed a file onto Graham's lap.
“Julian has spent two decades controlling DeLuca assets. And now Audrey has inherited them.”
Graham looked at Sloan.
“Is this true?”
“I don't know.”
Victor smiled.
“That is the problem with families built on secrets.”
Police sirens sounded outside.
Victor's expression changed.
Someone had betrayed him.
Gunfire erupted.
Sloan threw herself down.
Graham kicked the chair backward as a bullet shattered the light above him.
Chaos swallowed the warehouse.
Ten minutes later, NYPD officers found Graham bleeding beside an open loading door.
Victor was gone.
So was Sloan.
But the file remained.
At DeLuca House, Audrey received Graham's call at 1:14 a.m.
“You went alone?”
“I made a mistake.”
“Yes.”
“I have something you need to see.”
Julian stood across the room.
Audrey looked at him.
“Tell me now.”
Graham hesitated.
“It's about Julian.”
Audrey's expression changed.
Julian saw it.
“What?”
She put the call on speaker.
Graham told them everything.
When he finished, Julian sat down.
He suddenly looked old.
Audrey whispered, “You loved my mother?”
“Yes.”
“And your father?”
“Was a criminal.”
“Were you involved?”
“No.”
“Did my mother believe you?”
“Eventually.”
Audrey stepped closer.
“Eventually?”
Julian looked toward Catherine's portrait.
“The night she disappeared, she called me.”
Audrey stopped breathing.
“She told me she had discovered the person controlling the laundering operation.”
“Who?”
“She never said the name.”
“Why?”
“Because someone entered the room.”
Julian's voice tightened.
“The line went dead.”
Audrey felt anger rise.
“You've had twenty-three years to tell me this.”
“I made a promise.”
“To whom?”
Julian looked at the photograph of Catherine alive.
“To your mother.”
Silence.
Audrey stared at him.
“You spoke to her after the accident.”
Julian closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
The betrayal was almost unbearable.
“She survived?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“I don't know anymore.”
Audrey slapped him.
Julian accepted it without moving.
“Why?”
“Because Catherine believed someone inside the family would kill you if they discovered she survived.”
“Who?”
“She never knew.”
Audrey's phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone froze.
Audrey answered.
No voice.
Only breathing.
Then—
“Baby?”
Audrey's knees nearly buckled.
She knew that voice.
Twenty-three years could not erase it.
“Mom?”
A sob came through the phone.
“My beautiful girl.”
Audrey covered her mouth.
Julian turned away, overwhelmed.
“Where are you?”
“I can't tell you yet.”
“Why?”
“Because he's watching you.”
“Who?”
Catherine began crying.
“The man who tried to take your baby.”
Audrey gripped the phone.
“Tell me his name.”
A pause.
Then Catherine whispered:
“Thomas Mercer.”
Audrey went completely still.
Graham's father.
The man who had kissed her forehead that morning.
The man who had called her his daughter.
The man whose rehabilitation she had managed for four months.
And across town, Graham Mercer was sitting inside an ambulance when police discovered something hidden beneath the passenger seat of his father's car.
A disposable phone.
Its final outgoing message had been sent to the men who entered Audrey's apartment.
May you like
It contained only an address.
Audrey's prenatal clinic.
