Chapter 2 - The Photograph From Eighteen Years Ago
I had exactly six photographs of my father.
Six.
That was what remained of Daniel Bennett after eighteen years.
One showed him holding me as a newborn.
One showed us at Lincoln Park Zoo.
One showed him asleep on our old couch while four-year-old me had decorated his face with stickers.
My favorite had always been the photograph from my fifth birthday.
Dad was kneeling behind me, his hands covered in chocolate frosting, while I grinned at the camera with two missing front teeth.
Six photographs.
I knew every detail of every one.
The photograph waiting in Adrian Voss’s security room wasn’t among them.
I knew that before anybody handed it to me.
“Where did this come from?”
Nobody answered.
Adrian stood beside me.
Mrs. Callahan remained near the door.
Two security men watched monitors displaying different sections of the estate.
The photograph had been placed inside a clear evidence sleeve.
My father stood beside a black sedan.
He looked younger than I remembered him.
Maybe thirty.
Beside him stood another man.
I looked at Adrian.
“That’s you.”
“No.”
The resemblance was unmistakable, but the man was older.
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
Vincent Voss.
I had never heard that name.
My father and Vincent stood beside each other like men who knew each other well.
Between them was the dark-haired woman from the conference-room photograph.
My hands began trembling.
“Who is she?”
Adrian stared at the photograph.
“Evelyn Bennett.”
My breathing stopped.
“Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“Who was she?”
He looked directly at me.
“Your mother.”
I laughed.
It wasn’t amusement.
It was the strange sound people make when reality becomes ridiculous.
“My mother’s name was Laura.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry, Maya.”
“Don’t.”
My voice cracked.
I stepped away.
“My mother was Laura Bennett. She died when I was six.”
Adrian’s expression softened almost imperceptibly.
“The woman who raised you was Laura Bennett.”
I stared at him.
“She was your aunt.”
The room tilted.
“No.”
“Maya—”
“No.”
I backed away until my hip struck the desk.
“You don’t get to tell me who my mother was.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
I pointed at the photograph.
“That could be anybody.”
“It could.”
“You just said—”
“That’s why I didn’t want you involved until I had proof.”
I stopped.
“Proof of what?”
Adrian glanced toward the security men.
“Leave us.”
They disappeared immediately.
Mrs. Callahan remained.
Adrian looked at her.
“Margaret.”
She hesitated before leaving.
That scared me.
When the door closed, Adrian pulled out a chair.
I remained standing.
“Talk.”
He did.
Eighteen years earlier, Daniel Bennett had worked for Vincent Voss.
Not as a driver.
Not as an accountant.
As someone Adrian described carefully as a man responsible for protecting the legitimate businesses from people who wanted to exploit them.
I understood the sanitized language.
“My father worked for the mafia.”
Adrian didn’t correct me.
I closed my eyes.
“Fantastic.”
Daniel had become one of Vincent’s most trusted men.
Then money started disappearing.
Not thousands.
Millions.
Someone was moving funds through shipping companies and shell corporations.
Vincent suspected betrayal.
Daniel discovered the truth.
Before he could expose the person responsible, Daniel disappeared.
Three days later, police found his car.
His death was officially ruled the result of a robbery.
I remembered the funeral.
Rain.
A black umbrella.
Laura squeezing my hand so hard it hurt.
“Who killed him?”
“We don’t know.”
“You’ve had eighteen years.”
“My father died six months later.”
“How?”
“Heart attack.”
Something about Adrian’s expression made me wonder if there was more to that story.
“And my mother?”
“Evelyn disappeared the same night your father died.”
I stared at him.
“She abandoned me?”
“We don’t know.”
“You seem to say that a lot.”
His jaw tightened.
“Because I won’t lie to you just to give you an answer.”
That silenced me.
He continued.
Laura took me away from Chicago.
Changed addresses repeatedly.
Eventually she brought me back under the name Maya Bennett.
Then she died.
I spent the next twelve years believing my parents were both dead.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“She was protecting you.”
“From whom?”
“That’s what tonight’s meeting was about.”
He opened a file.
Inside were employment records.
Mine.
My application.
My references.
Even a copy of my driver’s license.
“You investigated me.”
“Yes.”
“Before hiring me?”
“Yes.”
I stared at him.
“You knew exactly who I was.”
“I suspected.”
“So the interview was fake?”
“No.”
“Was Mrs. Callahan told to hire me?”
“No.”
That surprised me.
“She brought your application to me because of your surname.”
“And you let me into your house.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His eyes held mine.
“Because if someone was looking for Daniel Bennett’s daughter, I preferred having her somewhere I could protect her.”
My anger faltered.
“Protect me?”
“Eleven days ago, nobody knew whether you mattered.”
“And now?”
“Someone disabled my camera, redirected you into a private meeting, and delivered a photograph that should not exist.”
I looked down at the picture.
My father.
Vincent.
Evelyn.
Three people connected by a history nobody had told me.
Then I noticed something.
“Wait.”
I picked up the photograph.
There was a reflection in the car window.
A fourth person.
Barely visible.
I angled the photograph toward the light.
A man stood behind whoever had taken the picture.
Older.
Tall.
Wearing glasses.
“Who is that?”
Adrian looked.
His entire body went still.
“What?”
He took the photograph from me.
For the first time since I had met him, Adrian Voss looked genuinely shocked.
“You recognize him.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
He didn’t answer immediately.
“Adrian.”
His eyes lifted to mine.
“His name is Richard Hale.”
“Should that mean something?”
“He was my father’s attorney.”
“Was?”
“He disappeared after my father died.”
My skin prickled.
“So he’s dead?”
“That’s what everyone believed.”
A knock sounded.
One of the security men entered.
“Sir.”
Adrian turned.
“What?”
“We checked the gate footage.”
“And?”
“Nobody delivered the envelope.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It was already inside the security box when the shift changed.”
Adrian frowned.
“Who had access?”
The guard hesitated.
“Household staff and senior security.”
My stomach tightened.
“So whoever sent this is inside the mansion?”
Adrian’s gaze found mine.
“Possibly.”
Suddenly the enormous estate didn’t feel luxurious.
It felt like a locked room.
I wrapped my arms around myself.
“What happens now?”
“You don’t leave the estate alone.”
I immediately shook my head.
“You don’t control where I go.”
“No.”
“Good.”
“But until we know who sent that photograph, leaving alone would be reckless.”
Annoyingly reasonable.
I hated it.
“Fine.”
Adrian nodded.
“And you move into the east guest wing.”
“I have an apartment.”
“You also have someone inside this house manipulating where you walk.”
I stared at him.
“You’re really bad at making things sound reassuring.”
“I wasn’t trying to reassure you.”
“I noticed.”
A faint smile almost appeared.
Then the security guard’s radio crackled.
His expression changed.
“Sir?”
“What?”
“There’s someone at the north gate.”
“At this hour?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
The guard listened.
Then looked directly at me.
“A woman.”
My heart accelerated.
“What woman?”
“She says she needs to speak to Maya Bennett.”
Adrian stepped toward the monitors.
“Name?”
The guard listened again.
His face lost color.
“She says her name is Evelyn.”
The room went silent.
I couldn’t breathe.
Adrian slowly turned toward me.
I whispered, “You said Evelyn Bennett disappeared eighteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
On the monitor, rain streaked across the security camera.
A woman stood beyond the iron gates beneath a dark umbrella.
Her face was partly hidden.
Then she looked directly into the camera.
And even through grainy footage, I recognized my own eyes.
My knees weakened.
Adrian caught my elbow.
The woman at the gate lifted one hand.
In it was a silver necklace.
I touched my throat instinctively.
Because I had worn its matching half since childhood.
The only thing Laura ever told me belonged to my mother.
Then the woman spoke into the gate intercom.
The speaker beside us crackled.
“Maya.”
My entire childhood collapsed inside one word.
“I know you were told I abandoned you.”
Her voice shook.
“But I didn’t.”
She looked over her shoulder into the darkness.
Then back at the camera.
“I’ve been hiding because the man who killed your father is still alive.”
Adrian stepped closer to the speaker.
“Who?”
Evelyn’s face tightened.
May you like
Before she answered, the security feed suddenly went black.
And every light in Adrian Voss’s mansion went out.
