Chapter 2 - The Debt Vincent Rourke Couldn’t Buy
Harper stared at the surveillance image until the edges blurred.
“No.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You know him.”
It wasn’t a question.
Harper shook her head too quickly.
“No.”
“You just went pale.”
“I’m already pale.”
“Harper.”
She hated the way he said her name now.
Not like an employee.
Like a puzzle.
“I’ve seen him before.”
Owen’s attention sharpened.
“Where?”
Harper hugged her arms around herself.
“Outside my mother’s doctor’s office. Maybe six months ago.”
“Did he speak to you?”
“No.”
“Follow you?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent’s voice hardened.
“You don’t know?”
“I work sixty-five hours a week. I spend my free time arguing with insurance companies. I don’t maintain a spreadsheet of creepy men on sidewalks.”
Owen almost smiled.
Vincent didn’t.
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“Report what? A stranger standing outside a medical building?”
Vincent handed the image back to Owen.
“Get someone to her apartment.”
Harper’s head snapped toward him.
“No.”
Vincent ignored her.
“Two cars.”
“Vincent.”
“Bring Susan Davis somewhere secure.”
“No.”
He finally looked at her.
“What part are you objecting to?”
“All of it.”
“There is a man outside your home.”
“And sending your people there will terrify my mother.”
“I prefer terrified to vulnerable.”
“She doesn’t know who you are.”
“That can be corrected.”
“That is exactly what I don’t want corrected.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re arguing with me because I’m trying to keep her safe?”
“I’m arguing because you decided you own the situation five minutes after learning it exists.”
Owen quietly looked away.
Vincent inhaled through his nose.
Then surprisingly asked, “What do you want?”
Harper hesitated.
The question felt almost unnatural coming from him.
“I want to call her.”
Vincent handed her his phone.
Harper dialed.
Three rings.
Four.
“Come on, Mom.”
Five.
Susan answered sleepily.
“Harper?”
Harper nearly collapsed with relief.
“Hey.”
“Why are you calling from a strange number?”
“Work phone.”
“At three-thirty in the morning?”
“Long story.”
Susan coughed softly.
Harper closed her eyes.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“Door locked?”
“Of course.”
“Windows?”
“Harper.”
“Please check.”
Silence.
Then the faint sound of Susan moving.
“You’re scaring me.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
After thirty seconds, Susan returned.
“Everything’s locked.”
“Do you see anyone outside?”
“From the fourth floor?”
“Mom.”
“No.”
Harper exhaled.
Vincent was watching her.
Too closely.
Susan lowered her voice.
“Are you in trouble?”
Harper looked at Vincent Rourke, the most feared man in Chicago, standing three feet away.
“Possibly.”
His eyebrow rose.
Susan became fully awake.
“What happened?”
“Nothing I can explain right now.”
“That means something happened.”
“I’ll come home.”
Vincent shook his head.
Harper glared.
“I’ll come home soon.”
“Harper?”
“Yes?”
“You sound afraid.”
Harper turned toward the window.
“I’m okay.”
It was the same lie she told every day.
And somehow tonight it sounded worse.
She ended the call.
Vincent said, “You’re not going home.”
“Watch me.”
“You have no idea who that man is.”
“Neither do you.”
“That is why you’re not going home.”
“You don’t decide that.”
“Tonight I do.”
Harper stepped toward him.
“You don’t get to turn my life into one of your operations.”
“And you don’t get to pretend danger disappears because you’re stubborn.”
“I have a mother who wakes up confused some mornings. If strangers in black suits appear at her door, she could panic.”
Vincent’s expression changed slightly.
He looked at Owen.
“Send a woman.”
Harper blinked.
“A woman?”
“A plainclothes security specialist. One person. She introduces herself as building management if necessary.”
Owen nodded.
Harper stared at Vincent.
“That’s still manipulative.”
“Yes.”
“You admit it?”
“I’m learning honesty.”
Despite herself, Harper almost laughed.
Owen left.
Vincent poured another whiskey.
Harper sat for the first time.
Her knees had begun to shake.
Vincent noticed.
“You need food.”
“I need sleep.”
“When did you last eat?”
Harper thought.
“Yesterday.”
“What time?”
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Tuesday?”
Vincent stared.
“It’s Thursday.”
“Then Tuesday.”
He pressed a button on the desk.
A kitchen employee appeared minutes later with sandwiches, soup, coffee, and fruit.
Harper looked horrified.
“You woke someone up?”
“They were already awake.”
“Because you own a nightclub.”
“Correct.”
“That doesn’t make this normal.”
Vincent sat across from her.
“Eat.”
“You’re very bossy.”
“I have been told.”
“By people still alive?”
His mouth curved.
Harper ate.
She hated how hungry she was.
Within minutes half the sandwich disappeared.
Vincent watched without comment.
Finally he said, “Tell me about the doctor’s office.”
Harper placed the sandwich down.
“My mother was referred to a specialist downtown. Dr. Alan Voss.”
Vincent’s face shifted.
Barely.
But Harper caught it.
“You know him.”
“I know the name.”
“How?”
“He treated someone I knew.”
“Who?”
Vincent ignored the question.
“What did the man outside look like six months ago?”
“Same coat. Same posture.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Did your mother notice him?”
“No.”
“Anything unusual happen during that appointment?”
Harper thought back.
The sterile hallways.
The fluorescent lighting.
Susan trembling while attempting to sign forms.
Dr. Voss asking strangely detailed questions about Susan’s childhood.
“Actually…”
Vincent leaned forward.
“What?”
“He asked about my father.”
“Your father?”
“I never knew him.”
“What did Voss ask?”
“His name. Where he was from. Whether my mother had contact with him.”
“What did Susan say?”
“She told him it had nothing to do with her neurological symptoms.”
Vincent’s expression darkened.
“And?”
“He apologized.”
“Anything else?”
Harper hesitated.
“There was some blood work.”
“What kind?”
“I assumed routine.”
Vincent stood abruptly.
Harper followed him with her eyes.
“What?”
He walked to the window.
“Dr. Voss doesn’t specialize in Parkinsonian syndromes.”
Harper frowned.
“Yes, he does.”
“No.”
“How would you know?”
“Because I paid for his brother’s clinic ten years ago.”
Harper went still.
Vincent turned.
“Alan Voss is a genetic neurologist.”
Cold traveled through her stomach.
“So?”
“So he studies inherited neurological disorders.”
Harper stared.
“My mother’s illness isn’t supposed to be inherited.”
“Who told you that?”
“Her doctors.”
“Which doctors?”
“All of them.”
Vincent picked up the desk phone.
“Owen. Find everything on Alan Voss. Quietly.”
He hung up.
Harper stood.
“This is insane.”
“Possibly.”
“You’re making connections because some stranger stood outside a building.”
“No.”
Vincent faced her.
“I’m making connections because someone searched your employment file at three in the morning, another man appeared outside your apartment, and a genetic specialist asked questions about the father you’ve never met.”
Harper’s mouth became dry.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t like coincidences.”
She wrapped her arms around herself.
For the first time since the lounge, Harper wished she had simply kept her mouth shut.
At 4:22, Owen returned.
His expression told Vincent the news wasn’t good.
“What?”
“Voss is gone.”
Harper frowned.
“Gone where?”
“His clinic says he resigned yesterday.”
“Where is he?”
“No one knows.”
Vincent cursed softly.
Owen continued.
“And the man outside Harper’s building disappeared when our person approached.”
Harper’s heart began pounding.
“My mother?”
“Safe. Still inside.”
Vincent nodded.
“Good.”
Owen hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
Harper wanted to scream.
“Of course there is.”
Owen placed a folder on the desk.
“Alan Voss accessed Susan Davis’s medical records six months ago.”
Harper shook her head.
“He was treating her.”
“He continued accessing them after she stopped seeing him.”
The room fell silent.
Vincent opened the folder.
“How recently?”
“Three days ago.”
Harper gripped the back of a chair.
“Why?”
Owen looked uncomfortable.
“We found a private lab invoice linked to Voss.”
Vincent scanned the page.
His expression changed.
“DNA?”
Harper’s eyes widened.
“What?”
Owen nodded.
“Genetic paternity panel.”
Harper stopped breathing.
Vincent looked up.
“Whose?”
Owen placed another page in front of him.
Harper moved around the desk.
The invoice listed two coded samples.
One belonged to Susan Davis.
The other was unidentified.
Harper stared.
“My mother took a DNA test?”
“No,” Owen said.
“Not according to her medical records.”
Vincent’s gaze hardened.
“Then someone used her blood without telling her.”
Harper’s knees weakened.
“Why?”
Nobody answered.
At 5:10, Vincent ordered his car brought around.
Harper protested until Owen gave her a choice between voluntarily entering the vehicle or having Vincent sit in the Black Orchid until she fell asleep from exhaustion.
She chose the car.
They traveled through a wet, gray Chicago morning toward Albany Park.
Harper sat beside Vincent in the back.
“This does not mean I trust you.”
“I assumed.”
“And you’re not entering the apartment unless my mother agrees.”
“Fine.”
“You’ll introduce yourself as my employer.”
Vincent looked at her.
“I am your employer.”
“Technically.”
“And not mention organized crime.”
“You think I introduce myself that way?”
“With you, I’m establishing boundaries.”
They reached her building shortly before six.
A security specialist waited across the street.
No sign of the mysterious man.
Harper climbed the stairs first.
Susan opened the apartment door before Harper could use her key.
She was thin, with Harper’s eyes and graying blonde hair.
Her right hand trembled.
She immediately looked past her daughter.
At Vincent.
Something happened.
Susan’s face drained of color.
Her trembling stopped.
Not improved.
Stopped.
As if shock had overridden everything else.
Vincent noticed.
“Mom?”
Susan gripped the doorframe.
“No.”
Harper rushed forward.
“What’s wrong?”
Susan stared at Vincent as though she were seeing a ghost.
Vincent’s expression became wary.
“Mrs. Davis?”
Susan whispered one sentence.
A sentence that changed everything.
“You have his eyes.”
Harper looked between them.
“Whose eyes?”
Susan began to cry.
Vincent became completely still.
And then Harper’s mother said the name she had refused to speak for twenty-five years.
“Patrick Rourke.”
May you like
Vincent’s dead father.
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