Chapter 3 - The Dead Man in My Basement
The dead man's name was Thomas Duca.
My uncle.
My father's younger brother.
And eleven years earlier, I had watched six men lower his coffin into the ground.
By 2:31 a.m., that same man was being carried through my kitchen on a stretcher.
Mia stood at the top of the stairs clutching the railing.
"Is he the knocking man?"
I looked up.
"Yes."
"Is he okay?"
"I don't know."
She nodded solemnly.
Then she said something that nearly broke me.
"I'm glad somebody heard him."
The paramedics transported Thomas to a private hospital under security.
Marco went with him.
I went to Grace.
Her apartment was seven minutes away in a building I wouldn't have allowed one of my employees to store a motorcycle in.
Cracked steps.
Broken exterior light.
Heat barely functioning.
Grace Harper had worked for me for eight years, and this was where she brought her children home.
That realization sat badly in my chest.
My men had already secured the apartment.
"No intruder," one reported. "Back window open. No sign of forced entry."
Grace lay on the sofa.
Alive.
A doctor examined her.
"Sedative," he said. "Likely administered in something she drank."
"Will she recover?"
"Yes."
I looked around.
Baby formula.
Past-due notices.
A space heater.
Children's drawings taped to a wall.
One depicted three stick figures.
MOMMY.
MIA.
LILY.
There was no father.
Another drawing showed a large black house.
My house.
Beside it stood a tall stick figure labeled MR DUCA.
I stared longer than necessary.
Grace woke forty minutes later.
The first word out of her mouth was "Mia."
"Safe."
She tried to sit up.
"Lily?"
"Safe too."
Her eyes focused on me.
Then panic replaced confusion.
"Mr. Duca."
"Who drugged you?"
"What?"
"Someone put a sedative in your system."
Her face emptied.
I knew that expression.
Recognition followed by fear.
"Grace."
"I don't know."
"You do."
"No."
"Someone has been living inside my walls. Your daughter heard him. I found surveillance photographs of you."
Her lips parted.
Then closed.
"Tell me."
She began crying.
Quietly.
Not dramatically.
That was worse.
"I thought it was over."
"What was?"
She looked toward the doctor.
"Everyone out."
The room cleared.
Grace stared at her hands.
"Eight years ago, when I started working for you, it wasn't an accident."
I remained still.
"What does that mean?"
"I was sent."
"By whom?"
"I don't know his real name."
"Try."
"He called himself Mercer."
I knew a Mercer.
Elias Mercer.
Financier.
Political donor.
Philanthropist.
And a man who had been trying to buy influence inside my organization for years.
"What did he want?"
"Information."
"What information?"
"Your schedule. Visitors. Documents."
"And you gave it to him?"
"At first."
The betrayal should have angered me.
Instead I remembered Mia's red hands.
"Why?"
Grace's eyes filled.
"Because I was twenty-three, pregnant, alone, and sleeping in a shelter. He offered me money."
"Then?"
"I stopped."
"When?"
"After three months."
"Why?"
"Because I realized what they were planning."
My jaw tightened.
"What?"
"To kill you."
Silence.
"I warned your father."
My head snapped up.
"My father was already dead eight years ago."
She stared at me.
"No."
One word.
One impossible word.
"No?"
"Your father died seven years ago."
She was right.
I had miscalculated.
Thomas's reappearance had scrambled my timeline.
Grace continued.
"I anonymously sent him everything I'd learned. He found me two days later. He knew it was me."
"My father?"
She nodded.
"He didn't fire me. He paid my rent for six months and told me to stay close because whoever recruited me might return."
That sounded exactly like my father.
"Why didn't he tell me?"
"He said the fewer people who knew, the safer I was."
"And Mercer?"
"Disappeared."
"Until now."
Grace looked terrified.
"Three weeks ago, I received an envelope."
"Where is it?"
She pointed toward the kitchen.
I found it taped beneath a drawer.
Inside was a photograph.
Mia leaving school.
On the back:
YOU STILL WORK FOR US.
My vision narrowed.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because the last time I trusted someone powerful, I became trapped between two dangerous families."
"I'm not Mercer."
"Powerful men always say they're different."
That one landed.
My phone rang.
Marco.
"Thomas is conscious."
"And?"
"He says he'll speak only to you."
"About what?"
A pause.
"Your father."
I looked at Grace.
Then at the photograph of Mia.
"I'm coming."
Before I left, Grace called my name.
"Mr. Duca?"
I turned.
"Mia wasn't cleaning tonight because I told her to."
"I know."
"She heard me crying yesterday. The landlord gave me an eviction notice. She thought if she did my work, you'd still pay me."
I looked down.
Something hot and unfamiliar moved behind my ribs.
"You're not being evicted."
Grace stiffened.
"I don't want charity."
"Good. I'm terrible at charity."
"Then what are you saying?"
"I'm saying someone targeted your children because of me. Until I know who, you're staying somewhere protected."
"Where?"
"My house."
Her expression said absolutely not.
Mine said the conversation was over.
She folded her arms.
For the first time, I understood exactly where Mia got her stubbornness.
"I work for you," Grace said. "I don't belong to you."
"No. You don't."
That surprised her.
"But if someone is photographing your six-year-old daughter because they want leverage against me, I'm not pretending this is only your problem."
Her anger faded.
Not completely.
Enough.
At the hospital, Thomas looked twenty years older than his fifty-nine years.
He stared at me for a long time.
"You look like Antonio."
"My father?"
"Unfortunately."
I pulled up a chair.
"Who imprisoned you?"
"Elias Mercer."
"Why?"
"Because I knew what he was building."
"What?"
Thomas swallowed.
"An organization that doesn't need to own politicians, judges, businessmen, or criminals."
He looked toward the door.
"It owns their secrets."
"Why my house?"
"Your father built the hidden rooms."
I stared at him.
"For what?"
"To expose Mercer."
"Then why didn't he?"
Thomas's expression changed.
"Because Mercer found out."
A cold pressure formed behind my sternum.
"My father died of a heart attack."
Thomas looked almost sorry.
"No, Nico."
He leaned closer.
"Your father was murdered."
My phone vibrated.
A message from an unknown number.
There was a photograph attached.
Mia sleeping in my guest room.
Taken less than one minute earlier.
Under it were five words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE WALL CLOSED.
I was already moving when the second photograph arrived.
This one showed Grace entering my house.
May you like
The message beneath it was shorter.
CHOOSE WHICH GIRL YOU SAVE.
