Chapter 11 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
The photograph stayed on my phone all night.
David's mother.
Eleanor Winters.
A woman I had seen only in old family pictures.
A woman everyone believed had died twenty years ago.
But there was something wrong with the photograph.
The woman standing beside the harbor looked older than the Eleanor in David's childhood photographs.
Older.
But unmistakably her.
David stared at the screen until his hands began to shake.
“No,” he whispered.
Alessandro took the phone from him.
“Where did you get this?”
“Unknown number.”
“Send it to me.”
“I already did.”
Alessandro looked at the harbor.
“Then we leave.”
David grabbed his arm.
“Wait.”
Alessandro turned.
“If she's alive, why did she disappear?”
“Because someone wanted her gone.”
David's face hardened.
“My father?”
Alessandro didn't answer.
That silence was enough.
We returned to the house before midnight.
Logan was asleep.
I checked his room twice before sitting at the kitchen table with David and Alessandro.
The three of us looked at the Captain Bear evidence again.
The ledger contained hundreds of transactions.
But there was one strange gap.
Every major operation had a payment trail.
Except the operation involving Eleanor.
There was only one handwritten notation.
E.W.
Nothing else.
David stared at it.
“That isn't my father's handwriting.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I spent my childhood watching him sign documents.”
He turned the page.
“This is my mother's.”
My stomach tightened.
“Then she wasn't a victim.”
David looked at me.
“She may have been running something.”
The phone rang.
Unknown number.
David answered.
“Hello?”
A woman's voice came through.
Older.
Calm.
“David.”
His entire body froze.
I knew immediately.
He knew that voice.
“Mom?”
Silence.
Then:
“You should never have come home.”
David stood.
“Where are you?”
“You're asking the wrong question.”
“What question should I ask?”
“Who brought you home?”
David looked at Alessandro.
The woman continued.
“Your father didn't build the organization.”
David's face went pale.
“Then who did?”
A pause.
“Your mother.”
The line went dead.
Nobody spoke.
Then Logan appeared at the kitchen doorway, rubbing his eyes.
“Daddy?”
David turned.
“Yes?”
“Who was that lady?”
David couldn't answer.
Because for the first time since returning from the dead, he looked genuinely afraid.
And then Alessandro's phone buzzed.
One message.
A photograph.
It showed our house.
Taken from across the street.
Underneath it were six words:
SHE KNOWS WHERE YOUR SON SLEEPS.
Alessandro stood immediately.
“Pack a bag.”
I grabbed Logan.
“Where are we going?”
He looked toward the window.
“Somewhere your mother can't find us.”
David whispered:
“She isn't the person we need to run from.”
I looked at him.
“Then who?”
May you like
He swallowed.
“The people she's running from.”
