Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Had Been Dead for Nineteen Years
Nora did not remember leaving Lombardi’s.
One moment she was staring at the photograph.
The next she was sitting in Roman’s car while Manhattan lights moved across the windows.
Roman sat beside her.
Tommy drove.
Nora stared at the photograph again.
Her mother.
Older, yes.
But unmistakable.
The same eyes.
The same narrow chin.
The tiny scar above the eyebrow from when Evelyn had fallen from a bicycle as a child.
“She’s alive.”
Roman said nothing.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“Swear.”
“I swear.”
Nora looked at him.
For once, she believed him.
“Where was this taken?”
“Queens.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
“Take me there.”
“No.”
She turned.
“What?”
“We don’t know who took it.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do.”
“You don’t get to decide for me anymore.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“You’re right.”
Nora blinked.
He continued.
“But I can decide whether my driver takes you directly into a trap.”
She hated that he made sense.
“Then what?”
“We find the store.”
Tommy spoke from the front.
“Already did.”
He handed Nora a tablet.
Security footage showed the woman entering at 10:13 a.m.
Leaving six minutes later.
Another camera captured her entering a blue sedan.
The license plate was visible.
Roman’s people had traced it.
The vehicle belonged to a nonprofit housing organization in Brooklyn.
Thirty minutes later, they stopped outside a modest apartment building.
Nora stared upward.
“You stay here,” Roman said.
“No.”
“Nora.”
“She’s my mother.”
Roman studied her.
Then nodded.
“Fine.”
They entered together.
Apartment 4C.
Nora stood outside the door.
Her hand shook as she knocked.
Footsteps.
A lock turned.
The door opened.
The woman standing there dropped her coffee cup.
“Nora.”
Hearing her mother say her name destroyed nineteen years of certainty.
Nora could not move.
Evelyn began crying.
“My baby.”
“Don’t.”
Evelyn stopped.
Nora’s voice shook.
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“I stood beside your coffin.”
“I know.”
“I was seventeen.”
Evelyn covered her mouth.
“I’m sorry.”
Nora laughed through sudden tears.
“Sorry?”
Roman stepped backward, giving them space.
Nora entered.
The apartment was small and clean.
Photographs covered one shelf.
Nora approached.
There were pictures of her.
Graduation.
College.
A coffee shop where she had worked.
Her first apartment.
“You watched me?”
Evelyn nodded.
“All these years?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Because Victor would have found you.”
Roman’s expression changed.
“My uncle?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“You look like your father.”
Roman went still.
“You knew my father?”
“I knew all of them.”
Evelyn sat.
“What I tell you cannot leave this room.”
Nora folded her arms.
“You lost the right to ask me for anything nineteen years ago.”
Evelyn absorbed the words.
“You’re right.”
Then she looked at Roman.
“Victor Vale wasn’t protecting your family’s empire. He was stealing it.”
Roman’s face remained controlled.
“For how long?”
“Decades.”
Evelyn explained.
She had not been a hotel cleaner.
She had been a forensic accountant.
Roman’s father had hired her to investigate missing money inside the Vale companies.
She discovered Victor was siphoning millions through shell corporations.
When Victor realized she knew, he threatened Nora.
So Evelyn disappeared.
The funeral had been staged.
Nora had been left with relatives who believed Evelyn was dead.
“Why not take me with you?”
“Because Victor would have followed.”
“You left me alone.”
“I kept you alive.”
Nora stood abruptly.
“You don’t know that.”
Evelyn began crying again.
“You’re right.”
Silence filled the room.
Roman approached the window.
“Why create a trust for Nora?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Because the money wasn’t mine.”
“Whose?”
“Your father’s.”
Roman turned.
Evelyn continued.
“He knew Victor was stealing. Before he died, he moved evidence and assets somewhere Victor couldn’t reach them.”
“To Nora?”
“Eventually.”
“Why her?”
Evelyn looked at Nora.
“Because he trusted me.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“My father died when I was twenty-four.”
“Yes.”
“Car accident.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No.”
Roman became completely still.
Nora recognized that stillness.
It meant something inside him had just broken.
“What happened?”
“Victor sabotaged the investigation. Your father discovered it. Three days later, his car went off the road.”
Roman stared at her.
“You can prove that?”
“I can prove Victor believed your father left evidence behind.”
“Where?”
Evelyn looked at Nora.
“With her.”
Nora almost laughed.
“I was seventeen.”
“Your father designed it that way.”
Roman asked, “What evidence?”
“A ledger.”
“Where?”
Evelyn looked at Nora’s neck.
Nora instinctively touched the small silver pendant she had worn since childhood.
Her mother had given it to her.
Evelyn whispered, “Inside.”
Nora removed the necklace.
Roman examined it.
A tiny seam ran around the pendant.
Tommy produced a pocket tool.
Inside was a micro-storage chip.
Nora stared.
“You hid evidence around a child’s neck?”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“I hid the only thing that could eventually protect her.”
Roman connected the chip to Tommy’s secured laptop.
Encrypted files appeared.
Financial records.
Names.
Dates.
Transactions.
Roman scrolled.
Then stopped.
His expression changed.
“What?”
He turned the screen toward Nora.
One transaction was dated only two weeks earlier.
The account receiving the money belonged to Victor Vale.
Nora frowned.
“That’s impossible.”
Victor had been dead for two years.
Roman looked at Tommy.
Tommy was already reaching for his phone.
Then the apartment lights went out.
Darkness.
Nora heard Evelyn gasp.
Roman immediately moved beside her.
“Stay behind me.”
A phone rang.
Not Roman’s.
Not Nora’s.
Evelyn’s.
The screen illuminated the dark room.
UNKNOWN CALLER.
Evelyn stared at it.
Roman answered.
No one spoke for several seconds.
Then a familiar male voice came through the speaker.
“Hello, nephew.”
Roman’s face drained of emotion.
Nora watched him.
She knew instantly.
Victor.
Alive.
His voice continued.
“You finally found the girl.”
Roman said nothing.
Victor laughed softly.
“But you still haven’t figured out why I let you.”
The call ended.
And Roman looked at Nora with an expression she had never seen before.
May you like
Fear.
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