Chapter 6 - The Secret His Family Buried
Desmond’s mother had supposedly been dead for nineteen years.
That was the problem.
Eleanor Gallagher had disappeared when Desmond was sixteen.
A car was found near Cape Cod.
Her purse remained inside.
Blood stained the passenger seat.
No body was ever recovered.
Eventually, she was legally declared dead.
Desmond had buried an empty coffin.
Now Patrick claimed she was alive.
Desmond refused to believe him.
Until Frankie opened the Gallagher archives.
Inside a file marked E.G. were photographs taken over nearly two decades.
Eleanor in Montreal.
Eleanor in London.
Eleanor entering a private clinic in Switzerland.
The latest photograph was eight months old.
Sadi watched Desmond stare at his mother’s face.
“You knew?” he asked Frankie.
“No.”
“Who maintained these files?”
“Your father. Then Patrick.”
Desmond touched the photograph.
“She’s alive.”
The words sounded almost childlike.
For the first time, Sadi saw not a mafia boss, but the sixteen-year-old boy who had waited for a mother who never came home.
Patrick finally talked.
Eleanor had discovered that Michael Gallagher’s legitimate businesses were being used to wash money for Patrick’s private trafficking operation.
She threatened to expose him.
Patrick tried to kill her.
Michael secretly helped her disappear to protect her.
But before Michael could dismantle Patrick’s network, he died of a heart attack.
Patrick spent years hunting Eleanor.
The car bomb targeting Desmond had been intended to weaken the Gallagher organization enough for Patrick to seize control before Eleanor could return with evidence.
“Where is she?” Desmond demanded.
Patrick smiled.
“I don’t know.”
Sadi stepped forward.
“But Brennan does.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Brennan worked for your father before Patrick recruited him. If your mother needed medical treatment while hiding, he may have been the connection.”
Brennan broke after four hours of questioning by federal investigators.
Eleanor Gallagher was living under another name in Vermont.
Desmond refused to call first.
They drove there the next morning.
Sadi sat beside him.
“You don’t have to come inside with me,” he said.
“I know.”
“You’re coming anyway.”
“Obviously.”
The house was small.
White siding.
Blue shutters.
Nothing like the Gallagher estate.
An older woman opened the door.
Her hair was silver.
Her eyes were Desmond’s.
She looked at him.
Her hand flew to her mouth.
“Desmond?”
He could not speak.
Eleanor stepped onto the porch.
She saw the wheelchair.
Her face crumpled.
“Oh, my God.”
Desmond’s expression hardened instantly.
Sadi recognized the defense.
“Don’t.”
Eleanor stopped.
“Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m broken.”
His mother began crying.
“I’m looking at my son.”
That dismantled him.
She knelt.
Desmond stared at her for nineteen years’ worth of silence.
“Why didn’t you come back?”
“I tried.”
“No.”
“I did.”
“Then where were you?”
Eleanor explained.
Patrick had threatened Desmond.
Every time she attempted contact, someone followed her.
Michael had promised to bring her home once Patrick was removed.
Then Michael died.
Afterward, Eleanor believed returning would get her son killed.
“So you let me think you were dead.”
“I chose the version where you stayed alive.”
Desmond looked away.
Sadi quietly walked toward the car.
This moment belonged to them.
An hour later, Desmond emerged.
His eyes were red.
Sadi pretended not to notice.
“Everything okay?”
“No.”
She nodded.
“Want coffee?”
“Yes.”
They drove to a diner.
Desmond ordered black coffee.
Sadi ordered pancakes at four in the afternoon.
Halfway through the meal, he said, “I kissed you.”
“You participated.”
“You started it.”
“I saved time.”
A smile appeared.
Then vanished.
“Sadi, I don’t know what I can offer you.”
She put down her fork.
“Why does everyone in your world talk about relationships like merger agreements?”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
His gaze dropped briefly toward his legs.
There it was.
Sadi leaned forward.
“If this is about the wheelchair, I swear I’m throwing maple syrup at you.”
“It changes things.”
“Of course it does.”
He looked surprised.
“I’m not going to pretend it doesn’t. There are things we’ll have to figure out. There are things you may never be able to do. There are things you might someday do differently.”
She reached across the table.
“But I didn’t kiss your legs.”
His eyes met hers.
“I kissed you.”
Desmond’s fingers closed around hers.
That evening, they returned to the estate.
Frankie waited at the entrance.
His face told them something was wrong.
“What?”
Frankie handed Desmond a medical file.
Brennan’s private records.
Sadi read the first page.
Her pulse accelerated.
The original hospital report stated that Desmond’s spinal cord injury had been classified as incomplete during his first forty-eight hours after the bombing.
Later records called it complete.
Those records had been signed by Brennan.
Sadi looked up.
“Desmond.”
He had gone completely still.
She read the next line.
Repeated high-dose sedatives.
Suppressed rehabilitation.
Delayed nerve testing.
A potentially unnecessary procedure.
Brennan had not merely treated Desmond.
He had sabotaged his recovery.
Desmond looked at his motionless legs.
For six months he had been told there was no possibility.
Now, for the first time, a different possibility existed.
Not a promise.
Not a miracle.
May you like
But a question.
And sometimes a question was enough to change everything.
