Chapter 3 - The Last Meal
June closed the diner early.
For twenty-three years, illness, blizzards, power failures, and Ray's funeral had failed to make her close before three.
A corrupt detective succeeded before noon.
Cormac drove her to the storage facility himself.
“You have drivers,” June said.
“Yes.”
“Men with guns.”
“Yes.”
“And yet you're driving.”
Cormac glanced at her.
“Are you criticizing my transportation?”
“I'm wondering why Chicago's terrifying crime lord drives a ten-year-old Cadillac.”
“Nine.”
June almost smiled.
The storage facility sat beneath an elevated train line.
Cormac's men had already searched the unit.
It contained almost nothing.
A broken chair.
Three empty boxes.
Ray's old winter coat.
June picked it up.
She pressed the wool between her fingers.
“He told me he donated this.”
Cormac remained near the entrance.
He seemed to understand grief required space.
June checked the pockets.
Empty.
Then she noticed something.
The lining had been stitched badly.
Ray couldn't sew.
June ripped it open.
A brass key fell onto the concrete.
Cormac crouched.
Stamped into it were two characters.
B17.
“Bank box?” June asked.
“Possibly.”
Something else remained inside the coat.
A receipt.
June unfolded it.
Her diner.
Six weeks earlier.
The night Ray died.
One order was circled.
Chicken soup.
“Ray hated my chicken soup.”
Cormac frowned.
“Why?”
“He said soup wasn't dinner.”
“Your husband sounds increasingly difficult to defend.”
June shot him a look.
Cormac lifted both hands.
She examined the receipt.
Table seventeen.
One guest.
9:06 p.m.
June remembered.
“That man.”
“What man?”
“He came in that night.”
Her memory sharpened.
Ray had been nervous.
A stranger sat in the rear booth.
Ray personally carried him soup.
Twenty minutes later, the stranger left through the kitchen.
Then Ray collapsed.
“Did Raymond eat anything?”
“No.”
“Drink?”
June stopped.
“Coffee.”
“Who poured it?”
“I did.”
Cormac's expression shifted.
June understood.
“No.”
“I'm not accusing you.”
“You're thinking somebody put something in his coffee.”
“Yes.”
June's stomach turned.
Ray's death had been ruled cardiac arrest.
He had hypertension.
Nobody had questioned it.
Nobody except, perhaps, Ray himself.
They took the key to a private bank downtown.
Box B17 belonged to a shell corporation.
Cormac made one phone call.
Ten minutes later, they were downstairs.
June decided not to ask how.
Inside the box sat a flash drive and an envelope addressed to her.
Her hands shook opening it.
June,
If you're reading this, I ran out of time.
She stopped.
Cormac turned away.
That tiny gesture surprised her.
Privacy from a man whose world survived by knowing everyone's secrets.
June continued.
Ray confessed.
Years earlier, he'd started gambling.
Small bets became large ones.
Then Detective Mercer approached him.
Mercer needed a place where certain people could meet without attracting attention.
Ray allowed after-hours meetings at the diner.
In return, Mercer erased gambling debts.
Then Ray learned the meetings weren't merely corrupt.
Mercer was selling information.
Police raids.
Witness locations.
Business records.
Names.
Some belonged to Cormac Riley.
Ray had secretly copied Mercer's files.
The $2.4 million loan hadn't funded gambling.
Ray had borrowed it to buy back evidence Mercer was preparing to sell to a rival organization.
Ray believed he could protect June and expose Mercer.
He failed.
The final paragraph broke her.
I know you think I stopped seeing you.
I didn't.
I saw every gray hair. Every tired morning. Every time you rubbed your knee when you thought I wasn't looking. I saw you become stronger while I became weaker.
You were never too old to be wanted, June.
I was simply too ashamed to deserve you.
Her tears struck the paper.
Cormac remained silent.
June wiped her face.
“He knew.”
“Yes.”
“And he didn't tell me.”
“He was probably trying to protect you.”
“Men always call secrets protection.”
Cormac looked at her.
“Sometimes they're cowardice.”
That answer sounded personal.
June looked at the flash drive.
“What’s on this?”
“Let's find out.”
Cormac took her to an apartment above an abandoned tailor shop.
His security specialist opened the drive.
Files appeared.
Photographs.
Payments.
Police reports.
Then names.
Dozens.
Mercer had been selling confidential information for years.
One folder was labeled RILEY.
Cormac opened it.
June watched his face change.
Inside were surveillance photographs of Cormac's family.
His businesses.
His home.
Then a photograph of a young woman.
Twenty-something.
Dark hair.
Cormac closed the laptop.
Too late.
“Who was she?”
“No one relevant.”
June recognized grief when she saw it.
“I've buried a husband, Cormac. Don't insult me.”
He stared at the dark screen.
“My daughter.”
June's anger vanished.
“Was?”
“Maeve. Twenty-four.”
He walked toward the window.
“Car bomb. Seven years ago.”
June said nothing.
“Everyone assumed it was retaliation against me. Maybe it was. But the people responsible knew exactly where she'd be.”
His eyes returned to the laptop.
“Mercer had her schedule.”
The room became terribly quiet.
June suddenly understood why Cormac had offered a contract instead of taking her diner.
Why he'd researched Ray.
Why he cared about the truth.
They were two widowed people standing inside different versions of the same grave.
June touched his arm.
Cormac looked down at her hand.
She almost withdrew it.
He covered it with his.
No seduction.
No threat.
Just warmth.
Then the computer technician interrupted.
“Boss.”
Cormac released her.
“What?”
“There’s another folder.”
The technician opened it.
June saw photographs of her.
Leaving the diner.
Buying groceries.
Visiting Ray's grave.
Sleeping upstairs in her apartment.
Dozens.
Taken after Ray died.
Her blood chilled.
Then came the final photograph.
It had been taken yesterday.
June stood outside the diner.
Behind her, barely visible in the reflection of the window, was Detective Mercer.
On the photograph someone had written:
SHE HAS THREE DAYS.
Cormac stared at it.
June whispered, “Three days until what?”
His phone rang.
He answered.
No one spoke.
Instead, a recording played.
Ray's voice.
Weak.
Terrified.
“June, if you're hearing this—”
A gunshot ended the recording.
Cormac's face hardened.
Then another voice came through the speaker.
Mercer.
“Bring me the drive, Riley.”
May you like
A pause.
“Or this time, the widow dies properly.”
