Chapter 9 - THE WOMAN WHO RETURNED FROM THE DEAD|
Paul Hensley was found living in a small house outside Milwaukee under his middle name.
He was seventy-one, walked with a cane, and had spent the past two years refusing to answer calls from anyone connected to Chicago. When Roman arrived with Dante and Margaret Ellis, Paul nearly closed the door in their faces.
“I told your father I was finished with the Ferraras.”
Roman held up the photograph from the workshop.
“Then tell me why my father trusted you.”
Paul looked at the photograph and stepped aside.
Inside, the house smelled of old books and coffee. Family photographs covered the walls, but several frames had been turned facedown.
Paul sat heavily in an armchair.
“Your father was trying to stop a disaster he had helped create.”
Roman stiffened.
“Explain.”
“Ferrara Holdings had been cutting safety costs for years. Your father believed his managers were exaggerating expenses, so he approved a restructuring that placed maintenance under Claudia's control. He didn't know she was diverting the money.”
“Why didn't you arrest her?”
“Because I couldn't prove she knew about the missing equipment. Then Thomas Hayes brought me the invoices. Before I could subpoena the contractor, the warehouse burned.”
Paul looked at Roman.
“You were supposed to be at a meeting across town that night. Someone changed your schedule.”
“Who?”
“Anthony Rossi.”
Roman's jaw tightened.
Paul continued.
“Your father suspected a conspiracy, but he couldn't prove who had arranged it. He asked me to protect the evidence. Then he died, and someone sent me photographs of my children leaving school.”
Roman said nothing.
“I moved my family. I retired. I told myself that survival was more important than justice.”
“Was Vanessa there that night?”
Paul's expression changed.
“She arrived after the fire began. But she wasn't alone.”
He opened a drawer and removed a photograph.
It showed Vanessa standing beside a woman in a gray coat near the emergency entrance. The woman's face was partially hidden, but Roman recognized the silver pendant around her neck.
His mother had owned one just like it.
“Who is she?” Roman asked.
Paul looked at him for a long moment.
“Someone who was declared dead before you were old enough to understand what happened.”
Roman felt the room tilt.
“That's impossible.”
“Your mother survived the car crash that supposedly killed her. She was taken to a private clinic after sustaining serious injuries. Your father believed she had died because Claudia showed him a death certificate and arranged a closed-casket funeral.”
Roman stood abruptly.
“My mother was buried.”
“A body was buried. Whether it was hers, I never learned.”
“Why would Claudia do that?”
Paul's eyes filled with regret.
“Your mother discovered the financial scheme. She planned to report it. Your father tried to protect her, but someone reached her first.”
Roman stared at the photograph.
His entire childhood had been built around the belief that his mother was gone. He had visited her grave every year. He had placed flowers on the stone. He had learned to suppress his grief because Claudia insisted that weakness invited betrayal.
Now he wondered whether his mother had been alive somewhere, waiting for someone to find her.
Paul gave him a second document.
It was a patient transfer record from a private rehabilitation facility. The patient's name had been listed as Eleanor Marsh, but the date of birth matched Roman's mother.
The transfer destination was a residential care center in Wisconsin.
“She may still be alive,” Paul said. “I haven't been able to verify it.”
Roman took the record.
“If you knew this, why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I couldn't prove it. And because the last time I asked questions, someone tried to kill me.”
Dante examined the document.
“The facility still exists.”
Roman turned toward the door.
“Then we're going.”
Paul caught his sleeve.
“One warning. If your mother is alive, she may not remember you. And if Claudia learns you've found her, she won't let the truth survive.”
Roman looked down at the photograph.
For years, he had believed his father was the only person he had lost.
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Now he was beginning to understand that the Ferrara family's greatest crime might not have been murder.
It might have been convincing the survivors that nobody was left to save.
