Chapter 2 - THE SECRET HIDDEN IN MY NAME|
I forgot about the guns.
I forgot about Julian's impossible recovery, the shattered chandelier, and the six men standing around us like statues awaiting orders.
All I could see was the photograph.
My father stood outside Saint Catherine's Hospital wearing the faded brown coat he had owned for years. His hair was shorter than I remembered, and a bandage crossed his forehead. But there was no mistaking his face.
I had watched him disappear beneath the surface of a river when I was seventeen.
The authorities had searched for three days. They found his car near the riverbank, his wallet inside it, and blood on the driver's side door. They never recovered his body.
My mother had identified his belongings.
For seven years, I had lived with the certainty that he was dead.
Now a photograph proved he had been alive at least three years after the accident.
"Where did you get this?" I demanded.
Margaret didn't answer immediately.
"Elena, please—"
"Where did you get it?"
"From a private investigator."
I snatched the photograph from the floor.
"Who is that man?"
"Your father."
"Don't tell me what I can see!"
The words burst from me before I could stop them.
Julian moved toward Margaret.
"You said she knew nothing."
"She doesn't know the whole story."
"That wasn't the agreement."
Margaret's eyes flashed.
"The agreement changed when someone put a price on your head."
Julian's voice dropped.
"Who?"
She looked at the armed men.
"Not here."
"Everyone in this room answers to me."
"Not everyone who answers to you is loyal."
The room went silent.
I stared at Julian. His deception had been cruel enough, but this was something different. Someone had apparently used my employment to place me inside his mansion for a reason I couldn't understand. My father's disappearance was somehow connected to the most dangerous family in New York.
And Julian had known my name was false before I ever entered his home.
I turned to him.
"What did you investigate about me?"
He didn't look away.
"Your employment references were fabricated. Your former employer couldn't be verified. The address you gave us belonged to a vacant building."
My heart pounded.
"You checked all that?"
"Of course."
"Then why did you hire me?"
"Because Margaret insisted you were necessary."
I turned back to his sister.
"Necessary for what?"
Margaret pressed her lips together.
"Seven years ago, your father worked as an accountant for a shipping company controlled by our family. He discovered a series of payments that didn't match the official records. Before he could report what he'd found, he disappeared."
"My father repaired marine engines," I snapped. "He wasn't an accountant."
"That was the life he showed you."
I felt as though the floor had shifted beneath my feet.
Margaret continued carefully.
"His name was David Vale. He was employed by a subsidiary of Cross Maritime. He had access to financial records that could have exposed people who believed they were untouchable."
Julian's expression darkened.
"Margaret, enough."
"No." She faced him. "You wanted to know why someone was trying to kill you. This is part of the answer."
She took a second photograph from her purse.
It showed a younger Julian standing beside a dark-haired man outside a warehouse. The man had one hand on Julian's shoulder.
I recognized the face immediately.
My father.
But there was something else.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written a date: October 14, seven years earlier.
The same date my father had supposedly drowned.
My fingers began to shake.
"He was alive that night," I whispered.
Margaret nodded.
"He was trying to get out of the city."
"Why didn't he come home?"
Her eyes filled with genuine sadness.
"Because someone threatened you and your mother."
I felt a sudden, vicious anger.
"Who?"
Margaret glanced toward Julian.
He stood motionless, his powerful hands hanging at his sides.
"That's what we've been trying to establish," she said.
I laughed once, without humor.
"You brought me into this mansion to use me as bait."
"No," Margaret said. "I brought you here because your father left something behind, and I believe the person who ordered his death is searching for it."
"What did he leave?"
"An encrypted ledger."
Julian's face went pale.
I noticed it.
So did Margaret.
"What?" I demanded.
Julian looked toward the windows.
"That ledger doesn't exist."
Margaret shook her head.
"You're wrong."
"I watched the original warehouse burn."
"And I watched the men who started the fire walk away with the wrong box."
Julian turned sharply.
"Who told you that?"
Margaret didn't answer.
Instead, she reached into her purse and placed a small brass key in my palm.
It was warm from her hand.
"Your father gave this to me shortly before he disappeared," she whispered. "He said that if anything happened to him, I should find his daughter."
I closed my fingers around it.
"What's it open?"
Margaret looked directly into my eyes.
"A safe inside this mansion."
Julian stepped between us.
"There is no safe."
Margaret's voice trembled.
"Then explain why your father had one installed behind the wall of your childhood bedroom."
Julian went completely still.
May you like
His father had been dead for fifteen years.
And suddenly, the room felt full of ghosts.
