Chapter 3 - THE NAME UNDER HER DOOR|
At 2:47 a.m., Emma finally reached her apartment.
Her hands still smelled of coffee. A bruise was forming on her wrist where she'd struck the table, and the final notice from her landlord seemed to weigh more than it had that morning.
She locked the door, checked the window, and laughed at herself.
“You've watched too many crime shows,” she muttered.
Then she saw the envelope.
It had been pushed halfway beneath her door.
Her name was written across the front in black ink.
Emma froze.
She lived on the third floor of a building where the elevator hadn't worked since spring. The hallway camera was broken, and the landlord refused to replace it. Anyone could have walked upstairs.
Anyone could have left the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Her mother stood outside a brick building, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun. She looked younger than Emma remembered her, perhaps thirty-five, with dark hair falling over one shoulder and a rare, unguarded smile.
Emma sat down hard on the floor.
Her mother, Margaret Hayes, had died fourteen months earlier after a long battle with cancer. The photograph showed a healthy woman standing beside a black car Emma had never seen before.
On the back, someone had written:
ASK DOMINIC VALE WHAT HAPPENED ON OCTOBER 17.
Beneath the photograph was a second card.
YOUR MOTHER DID NOT DIE FOR THE REASON YOU WERE TOLD.
Emma read the sentence three times.
Her mother had been sick. Emma had driven her to appointments, washed her hair when she could no longer stand, and slept in a chair beside her hospital bed. She remembered the pain medication, the oxygen machine, the doctor who explained that there was nothing more they could do.
What could anyone possibly mean?
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Emma answered without thinking.
“Who is this?”
A man's voice replied, “You received something tonight.”
“Who are you?”
“Someone who knew your mother.”
“Then tell me what you want.”
A pause.
“Stay away from Dominic Vale.”
Emma looked at the photograph again.
“Why?”
“Because men like him destroy everything they touch.”
“Did he hurt my mother?”
The line went silent.
“Hello?”
“Your mother was a good woman,” the stranger said finally. “She made one mistake. She trusted the wrong man.”
“Which man?”
The call ended.
Emma immediately dialed the number on Dominic's card.
He answered after the second ring.
“Miss Hayes?”
“How do you know my mother?”
Silence.
Not the silence of a man who didn't understand the question.
The silence of a man who had been waiting for it.
“Where are you?” he asked.
“At home.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yes.”
“Lock your door. Don't open it for anyone.”
“You don't get to tell me what to do. Somebody left me a photograph of my mother and told me to ask you about October seventeenth.”
She heard him inhale.
For the first time, his voice lost its careful composure.
“Emma, listen to me. Did the person who left it give you anything else?”
“A warning.”
“What did it say?”
“That I shouldn't trust you.”
Another pause.
“Then whoever left it knows more than I hoped.”
“Tell me what happened to my mother.”
“I will.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow. Ten in the morning. I'll send a car.”
“No car. I'll take the subway.”
“Fine.”
“And if you lie to me, I'll go to the police.”
“You should,” he said quietly. “If you discover what I think you're going to discover, you'll need them.”
The call ended.
Emma sat awake until sunrise, the photograph in her lap.
For the first time since her mother's funeral, she wondered whether the story she'd been told about Margaret Hayes had been a lie.
And somewhere across the city, Dominic Vale opened a locked drawer and removed a yellowed envelope bearing the same date.
May you like
October 17.
Inside was a letter he had never dared to send.
