Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WHO DIED IN MY MOTHER'S PLACE
The footsteps below us were slow.
Deliberate.
Not the hurried movements of someone trying to escape.
Someone was coming upstairs.
Nico pulled me behind the sewing-room door.
Gabriel positioned himself beside the landing.
“Three people,” he whispered, listening through his earpiece. “Maybe four.”
Nico's voice remained steady.
“Get Nora out through the servants' stairs.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Now isn't the time.”
“My father knows those stairs. He'll have them covered.”
Gabriel glanced toward Nico.
“She's right. Thermal sensors show movement near the rear exit.”
A floorboard creaked outside.
Then a woman's voice called softly.
“Nora?”
I stopped breathing.
That voice.
I hadn't heard it in fourteen years.
But I knew it.
“Nora, sweetheart?”
My knees weakened.
Nico caught my elbow.
“Who is that?”
I couldn't answer.
The woman stepped into view.
She was in her late fifties, with gray streaks in her dark hair and a scar running beneath her left eye.
Her face was thinner than I remembered.
But her eyes were the same.
“Mrs. Bennett?”
She covered her mouth.
“Oh, honey.”
Evelyn Bennett had been our housekeeper when I was a child.
She used to braid my hair before school.
She used to leave cookies outside my bedroom whenever my father punished me.
Then one day she disappeared.
My father told me she'd stolen jewelry and fled.
I hadn't seen her since.
“Evelyn?”
She nodded.
“I'm sorry it took so long.”
Nico didn't lower his guard.
“Who sent you?”
“No one. I heard Edmund's announcement over the house system. I came through the old laundry entrance.”
“How did you know we'd be here?”
“Because this was the only room Caroline trusted.”
My mother's name.
I stepped forward.
“Where have you been?”
Evelyn's face crumpled.
“Trying to stay alive.”
Gabriel checked the hallway.
“We have maybe ninety seconds before they reach this floor.”
Evelyn pointed toward the antique sewing machine.
“There's a passage behind the wall.”
Nico looked skeptical.
“An actual passage?”
“Caroline had it built during the renovation. Edmund never knew.”
She pulled the sewing machine away from the wall.
Behind it was a narrow wooden panel.
Evelyn pressed a hidden latch.
The panel opened.
Cool air drifted from the darkness.
“Move,” Nico ordered.
We entered single file.
The passage descended between the walls.
I remembered hearing strange noises there as a child.
My mother had told me they were pipes.
Now I understood.
She had been preparing an escape route.
At the bottom, Evelyn opened another panel.
We emerged into an old storage room beside the garage.
Gabriel radioed Anthony.
“South garage. Thirty seconds.”
We hurried toward the exit.
A black SUV rolled into position as the garage door opened.
Nico helped me inside.
Then gunfire erupted behind us.
Gabriel returned fire from behind a concrete pillar.
Anthony accelerated.
The SUV struck the partially lowered gate hard enough to tear it from its tracks.
Metal screamed.
Glass shattered.
And suddenly we were racing through the dark streets of Westchester.
I sat between Nico and Evelyn, gripping the blue key.
Nobody spoke for several minutes.
Then I turned toward the woman who had once tucked me into bed.
“Tell me what happened to my mother.”
Evelyn stared at her hands.
“Your mother discovered Edmund was moving money through charitable foundations.”
“I know he was stealing.”
“It was worse than stealing.”
Nico leaned forward.
“How much worse?”
“Those foundations were used to pay people. Judges. Police officers. Private contractors. People who made problems disappear.”
Nico's expression darkened.
“Who was funding him?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“Caroline never told me the name. She called him the Benefactor.”
I felt a chill.
“And the woman who died?”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“Her name was Rebecca Lane. She worked for your mother.”
“What happened to her?”
“She found the original financial records. Edmund discovered she had copied them.”
My throat tightened.
“He killed her?”
“I saw him strike her. She fell against the fireplace. By the time I reached her, she wasn't breathing.”
I stared at Evelyn.
“And my mother?”
“She tried to help Rebecca. Then Edmund's men arrived.”
“Where did they take her?”
“I don't know.”
The words hurt more than I expected.
For fourteen years, I had believed my mother was dead.
Now I didn't even know whether she had survived the night.
Evelyn touched my hand.
“Caroline made me promise something.”
“What?”
“That if you ever found the key, I would tell you where to use it.”
Nico looked down.
“Where?”
Evelyn took a breath.
“Grand Central Terminal. Lower-level storage corridor. Locker 214.”
I looked at the tiny blue key.
My mother had hidden evidence in the busiest transportation hub in Manhattan.
“What's inside?” Nico asked.
Evelyn shook her head.
“I never opened it.”
Then she looked directly at me.
“But Caroline told me something else.”
My heart began pounding.
“She said if Edmund ever came looking for you after letting you go, it meant the Benefactor had learned you were still alive.”
Nico went rigid.
“Still alive?”
May you like
Evelyn's eyes filled with tears.
“Because, Nora, your father was supposed to kill you the same night he made your mother disappear.”
