Chapter 2 - The Secret Inside the Silver Box
Grant did not answer Owen’s call.
That alone was unusual.
Owen Kessler had been in Grant’s life for almost twenty years. They had met at college, built their first company together and survived the kind of financial disasters that either destroyed friendships or welded them permanently.
When Mara disappeared, Owen had been the first person at Grant’s door.
He had arranged investigators.
Lawyers.
Security.
Press management.
He had slept on the sofa outside Sophie’s nursery during the first terrible week because Grant refused to sleep.
Grant trusted him with everything.
At least, he had until thirty seconds ago.
The phone stopped ringing.
Nora stared at the camera.
“Can it record sound?”
“Yes.”
Her face tightened.
Grant immediately crossed to the wall panel and disabled the room’s security system.
“Does that shut it off?”
“It should.”
“Should?”
Grant looked at her.
Nora pointed at the camera.
“Cover it.”
He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and draped it over the lens.
Sophie watched from the bed.
“Dad, are we in trouble?”
Grant turned.
He had spent years trying to protect Sophie from the ugliness surrounding Mara’s disappearance.
Now he wondered whether that protection had simply left his daughter unprepared.
He sat beside her.
“No one is going to hurt you.”
“Is Mommy alive?”
The question nearly defeated him.
“I don’t know.”
“But Nora saw her.”
“Yes.”
“So she was alive.”
“Yes.”
Sophie considered that.
Children could be merciless with logic.
“Then why didn’t she come home?”
Nora looked away.
Grant had asked himself the same question already, and with every passing second it grew louder.
If Mara had survived, why hide?
Why let him believe she might be dead?
Why let Sophie grow up without her?
Fear could explain months.
Maybe a year.
Five years?
Grant hated himself for the thought, but it came anyway.
What if Mara had chosen not to return?
Nora seemed to read his face.
“She wanted to.”
Grant turned toward her.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“I do.”
“No, you don’t.”
“You’re wondering whether she abandoned you.”
Grant said nothing.
Nora continued.
“She didn’t.”
“How can you possibly know that?”
“Because I saw what happened every time Sophie’s birthday came.”
Grant’s anger faltered.
Nora’s voice softened.
“She would buy a cake.”
Sophie wiped her cheeks.
“What kind?”
“Chocolate.”
Sophie gave the smallest smile.
“That’s my favorite.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Your mother knew.”
Nora sat in the chair beside the bed.
“She never ate the cake. She lit one candle and sat beside it until it burned down.”
Grant looked toward the floor.
Something painful rose into his throat.
Sophie whispered, “Did she sing?”
“Yes.”
“My song?”
“Yes.”
Grant stood abruptly.
He could not sit there and imagine Mara alone with a cake.
“Where was this?”
Nora hesitated.
“You promised information.”
“I promised nothing.”
“You came into my house.”
“Because she asked me to.”
The words silenced him.
Nora reached beneath the white cuff of her uniform sleeve.
She pulled out a thin chain.
A wedding ring hung from it.
Grant recognized it instantly.
Mara’s.
Simple platinum band.
A tiny engraving inside.
G + M / Still Us
Grant had ordered it himself.
His legs nearly failed.
“Give me that.”
Nora removed the chain and placed it in his palm.
The ring was scratched.
Worn.
Real.
Grant looked inside.
The engraving was there.
Still Us.
Sophie climbed out of bed.
“That’s Mommy’s ring.”
Grant knelt and let her see it.
She touched it with one finger.
“Why did she give it away?”
Nora answered carefully.
“She didn’t. She asked me to keep it safe.”
Grant stood.
“Why?”
“Because someone had found her.”
The bedroom seemed smaller.
“Who?”
“I never saw him.”
“You said someone found her.”
“She received a photograph.”
“Of what?”
“Sophie.”
Grant’s head turned toward his daughter.
Nora continued.
“It had been taken recently. Outside a school.”
Grant’s stomach dropped.
“What school?”
“Saint Augustine Academy.”
That was Sophie’s school.
“She understood the message,” Nora said. “Whoever sent it knew where her daughter was. They were telling her what would happen if she tried to come home.”
Grant stared at Sophie.
He had hired drivers.
Security guards.
Private protection.
He had believed she was safe.
“What date?”
“Last December.”
Eight months earlier.
“That was when you last saw Mara?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She left the place where we were staying.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Why would you let her?”
“She didn’t ask permission.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I followed her.”
Grant moved closer.
“And?”
“I lost her.”
“Convenient.”
Nora’s eyes flashed.
“You think this has been convenient for me?”
“I don’t know anything about you.”
“That’s true.”
“So start talking.”
Nora folded her hands.
“My mother died when I was nineteen. My father had been gone since I was a child. My aunt Ruth ran a small recovery house outside Port Haven, Maine. Women who had been through accidents, abusive marriages, homelessness—anyone needing somewhere quiet for a while.”
Grant listened.
“Four years ago, Ruth called me. A woman had arrived after being transferred from a charity clinic.”
“Mara.”
“She wasn’t using that name.”
“What name?”
“Mae.”
Grant remembered Mara’s grandmother calling her that as a child.
Almost no one else knew.
“She had memory problems,” Nora continued. “Not total amnesia. Pieces. She remembered having a daughter. She remembered music. She remembered being married. But dates, addresses and names came slowly.”
Grant’s anger shifted into horror.
“She had a head injury?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She said there had been a car.”
Mara’s car had been discovered abandoned beside Blackwater Bridge five years earlier.
Blood had been found on the driver’s seat.
No body.
Police believed she had entered the river.
Grant never believed it.
“She remembered more over time,” Nora said. “And when she remembered you, she became determined to return.”
“Then why didn’t she?”
“The first time she tried, someone followed her back.”
Grant stared.
“She realized whoever had hurt her was watching this house.”
Sophie had gone completely quiet.
Grant looked at his daughter.
“Sweetheart, I need you to stay here.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Nora will stay with you.”
Nora shook her head.
“You shouldn’t leave us alone.”
Grant studied her.
“Why?”
“Because if whoever is watching realized you found that note—”
A knock sounded.
All three froze.
“Grant?”
Owen.
His voice came through the door.
“Everything okay?”
Grant and Nora exchanged a look.
Sophie moved closer to her father.
The doorknob turned.
Locked.
Grant had locked it without thinking.
Owen tried again.
“Grant?”
Grant slipped Mara’s ring into his pocket.
He folded the note and returned it to the hidden compartment.
Then he removed the handkerchief from the camera.
Nora quickly returned to Sophie’s bedside.
Grant opened the door.
Owen stood there wearing a charcoal suit, no tie, expression mildly concerned.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
Owen looked past him.
At Nora.
At Sophie.
At the music box.
His gaze lingered there half a second too long.
Grant noticed.
Perhaps he would never have noticed yesterday.
“Why are you here?” Grant asked.
Owen smiled.
“Dinner meeting downstairs, remember?”
Grant had forgotten.
“Your house manager said you came upstairs twenty minutes ago.”
Not the camera.
A reasonable explanation.
Grant almost relaxed.
Then Owen glanced toward the ceiling.
Toward the security camera.
Again, only for a fraction of a second.
Grant’s instincts sharpened.
“Problem?” he asked.
Owen looked back.
“No. Why?”
“You keep looking at the camera.”
A laugh.
“Do I?”
Nora remained silent.
Owen looked at her.
“You’re new.”
“Nora Ellis.”
He nodded.
“Agency placement?”
“Yes, sir.”
Owen smiled politely.
But Nora’s fingers clenched around her apron.
Grant saw it.
Owen turned to Sophie.
“Ready for your science fair Saturday, superstar?”
Sophie nodded.
Then, with the catastrophic innocence only children possessed, she said, “Nora knows Mommy.”
The room died.
Grant’s heart stopped.
Owen’s smile remained.
Almost.
His eyes shifted toward Nora.
“What did you say?”
Grant stepped between them.
“She said Nora knows Mommy’s song.”
“Ah.”
Owen smiled again.
“That makes more sense.”
Did it?
Grant watched him.
Owen nodded toward the music box.
“You used to play that all the time.”
Grant had never played it in front of Owen.
Mara had kept the music box upstairs.
Grant’s pulse slowed into something cold.
“Did I?”
Owen seemed to realize the mistake.
“Mara did, I mean.”
Grant smiled.
“Right.”
Silence stretched.
Finally Owen checked his watch.
“We should get downstairs. The Tokyo team is waiting.”
“I’m canceling.”
“Grant—”
“Family night.”
Owen studied him.
Then smiled.
“Of course.”
He turned.
At the doorway, he paused.
“Nora?”
She looked up.
“Welcome to the Mercer household.”
“Thank you.”
Owen left.
Grant waited until the footsteps disappeared.
Then he shut the door.
Nora looked pale.
“You know him.”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“I know his voice.”
Grant went still.
“From where?”
Nora stared at the closed door.
“The night Mara disappeared from Ruth’s house eight months ago, I followed her to a bus station.”
Grant waited.
“She was speaking with someone on the phone.”
Nora swallowed.
“I couldn’t hear everything.”
“What did you hear?”
“She said, ‘You already took five years from me. You are not taking my daughter too.’”
Grant felt the room closing in.
“And the man?”
“I heard him through the speaker for only a second.”
Nora looked directly at him.
“It was Owen Kessler.”
May you like
And downstairs, somewhere in the enormous Mercer mansion, a door quietly closed.
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