Chapter 2 - The Man She Thought She Knew
Nora walked toward Roman’s booth carrying nothing.
No coffee.
No menu.
No pretense.
She slid into the seat opposite him.
“You have five minutes.”
Roman checked his watch.
“Generous.”
“Four minutes and fifty-five seconds.”
Something almost resembling the old Roman appeared in his eyes.
“You still do that.”
“Do what?”
“Turn fear into anger.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“That’s new.”
She leaned forward.
“Who took the photograph?”
Roman’s expression changed.
“I don’t know.”
“Then how did you get it?”
“It was left in my car this morning.”
Nora stared.
Roman’s cars were guarded.
His home was guarded.
His office was guarded.
Getting anything into Roman Vale’s vehicle without permission was not a prank.
It was a message.
“Why would someone give you a picture of me?”
“To make sure I knew they had found you.”
Her stomach tightened.
“You didn’t know where I was?”
Roman looked almost offended.
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I searched for you for eleven months.”
Her throat tightened.
“Then?”
“Then I stopped.”
“Why?”
“Because I realized something.”
“What?”
“If you wanted to disappear from me badly enough to erase your identity, finding you would only prove you had been right to run.”
That answer did not fit the Roman she remembered.
She studied him.
“What did you mean when you wrote that the man I ran from is dead?”
Roman leaned back.
“You didn’t run because of me.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No. You ran because of what you heard the night before you disappeared.”
Nora went still.
Roman continued.
“You were outside my study.”
“You knew?”
“I knew someone had been there.”
She remembered the conversation.
Roman’s uncle Victor.
A man named Daniel Price.
A payment.
Then Victor saying, Make sure Price never talks again.
The next morning Daniel disappeared.
Nora had believed Roman approved it.
“What happened to Daniel Price?”
“He died.”
Nora looked away.
Roman continued quietly.
“Of a heart attack in Arizona eighteen months later.”
Her eyes snapped back.
“What?”
“He wasn’t murdered.”
“That’s impossible.”
“He entered federal witness protection.”
Nora’s mouth went dry.
“You’re lying.”
Roman removed his phone.
He placed an old newspaper obituary on the screen.
Daniel Price.
Age fifty-seven.
Phoenix, Arizona.
Nora read it twice.
“But Victor said—”
“My uncle wanted you to believe Daniel was dead.”
“Why?”
Roman’s expression hardened.
“Because Victor knew you were listening.”
The restaurant seemed suddenly too warm.
“You said someone had been there.”
“I discovered later that Victor deliberately left the study door open.”
Nora remembered.
The door had been open three inches.
Just enough.
“He wanted me to hear?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To get rid of you.”
Her chest tightened.
Roman continued.
“You were asking questions about the company accounts.”
Nora remembered those too.
Millions moving between shell companies.
Invoices that made no sense.
She had been studying accounting then.
Roman had once joked that dating her was like living with an auditor.
“You told Victor.”
“I asked him about discrepancies.”
“And he decided I was dangerous?”
“He decided you were smart.”
Roman’s tone carried no humor.
“And smart people were dangerous to him.”
Nora stared at the tablecloth.
For three years, she had built her life around one belief.
Roman had allowed a man to be murdered.
Now he was telling her the entire scene had been staged.
“You could have told me.”
“You disappeared before sunrise.”
“You could have found me.”
“I tried.”
“Eleven months.”
“Yes.”
“And then you just gave up?”
Roman’s eyes hardened.
“I found your first apartment.”
Nora stopped breathing.
“In Milwaukee?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Ten months after you left.”
She remembered that apartment.
The broken lock.
The open kitchen window.
The feeling someone had been inside.
She had moved the same night.
“That was you.”
“No.”
A chill moved across her shoulders.
Roman leaned forward.
“When I arrived, the apartment had already been searched.”
Nora stared at him.
“By whom?”
“I didn’t know then.”
“And now?”
Roman looked toward Tommy.
Tommy approached and placed a folder on the table.
Roman opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Her Milwaukee apartment.
Her second apartment in Columbus.
Her current building.
Three different cities.
Three years.
Someone had documented all of them.
Nora felt sick.
“Who has these?”
“We recovered them yesterday.”
“From where?”
Roman hesitated.
That frightened her.
“Roman.”
“Victor’s house.”
She stared.
“Your uncle is dead.”
“Yes.”
Victor Vale had supposedly died two years earlier in a boating accident.
Nora had seen the article.
“So how—”
“The house has been empty since his death.”
Roman pushed another photograph toward her.
It showed a room.
A desk.
A wall covered with pictures.
Pictures of Nora.
Dozens.
“What is this?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Her hands shook.
Roman covered them with his.
The contact was immediate electricity.
Memory flooded back.
His penthouse kitchen at midnight.
His hand at her waist.
Laughing beneath summer rain.
The night he had asked her to marry him.
Nora pulled away.
“Don’t.”
Roman withdrew his hand.
“Sorry.”
That surprised her almost as much as everything else.
The old Roman rarely apologized.
“Why tonight?” she asked.
“I received the photograph this morning. By afternoon, we traced it to a courier. The courier gave us Victor’s old property.”
“And then?”
“We searched it.”
“And found my photographs.”
“Along with something else.”
Roman reached into the folder.
A document.
Nora stared at the header.
VALE FOUNDATION — BENEFICIARY RECORD
Her name appeared halfway down the page.
NORA ELLISON.
She looked at Roman.
“What is this?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
The amount listed beside her name was $12.4 million.
Nora almost laughed.
“I serve pasta for twenty percent tips.”
“I know.”
“You think I have twelve million dollars?”
“No.”
“Then what is this?”
“A trust account created eight years ago.”
“Eight?”
That was before she had met Roman.
Nora stared at the document.
“Who created it?”
Roman turned the page.
A signature appeared at the bottom.
Evelyn Ellison.
Nora stopped breathing.
“My mother?”
Roman nodded.
Nora’s mother had died when Nora was seventeen.
At least, that was what she had been told.
“She didn’t have money.”
“Apparently she did.”
“No.”
“Nora—”
“My mother cleaned hotel rooms.”
Roman opened another file.
“Your mother’s name wasn’t Evelyn Ellison.”
Nora looked at him.
Roman slid a birth certificate across the table.
Her own.
The mother’s name had been amended.
The original entry had been partially obscured.
But one surname remained visible.
Vale.
Nora stared at it.
“What does this mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know everything.”
“Not this.”
Tommy suddenly touched his earpiece.
His expression changed.
Roman noticed.
“What?”
Tommy leaned closer.
“We have a problem.”
Nora looked toward the restaurant entrance.
A man stood outside the glass doors.
Gray coat.
Baseball cap.
He was staring directly at her.
Then he raised his phone.
The screen displayed a photograph.
Nora couldn’t see it clearly.
Roman could.
He stood immediately.
Tommy moved toward the entrance.
The stranger disappeared into the night.
“What was on his phone?” Nora demanded.
Roman did not answer.
“Roman.”
His jaw tightened.
Finally, he turned the photograph on his own phone toward her.
It showed a woman standing outside a grocery store that morning.
Older.
Gray hair.
Thin face.
Alive.
Nora knew that face.
Even after nineteen years.
“Mom?”
Roman’s voice dropped.
“That photograph was taken six hours ago.”
Nora stared at the screen.
The mother she had buried at seventeen was alive.
May you like
And someone wanted Nora to know it.
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