Chapter 1 - The Girls Selling Winter
Cade Mercer had spent most of his adult life making people nervous.
At forty-three, he had the kind of reputation that crossed rooms before he did. Men lowered their voices when he entered. Lawyers returned his calls before judges returned theirs. Restaurant owners in Chicago’s Gold Coast quietly comped his tables even when he told them not to.
People called him a businessman in newspapers.
People who knew better called him something else.
Cade never corrected either group.
On the Tuesday night that changed his life, he was walking down Michigan Avenue beneath a gray December sky, his driver easing a black sedan along the curb behind him, when two little girls stepped directly into his path.
“Sir?”
Cade stopped.
The taller girl looked maybe nine.
The smaller one was seven at most.
Their coats were thin. Their shoes were soaked from old snow. The taller child held something large wrapped in newspaper and tied with kitchen string.
Cade glanced toward his security man.
“Keep walking,” Julian Knox murmured. “I’ll handle it.”
“No.”
Cade looked down at the girls.
“What is it?”
The taller girl swallowed.
“We’re selling something.”
“At nine o’clock at night?”
She nodded.
“For food.”
That answer irritated him more than it should have.
Not at the child.
At the world.
“What are you selling?”
She carefully loosened the string.
The newspaper opened.
And Cade forgot how to breathe.
The frame was old walnut.
Scratched at the corners.
The painting inside showed a summer house beside Lake Michigan.
A man.
A woman.
And two children standing in front of them.
A dark-haired boy, twelve years old.
One hand resting on his younger sister’s shoulder.
Cade stared at the boy.
At himself.
His fingers touched the edge of the canvas.
“Where did you get this?”
The taller girl’s chin lifted defensively.
“It belongs to our mom.”
“Who is your mother?”
The smaller child answered first.
“Serena Hail.”
The name cut through twenty years.
Cade looked up slowly.
“What did you say?”
“Our mom,” the girl repeated. “Serena.”
Cade’s stomach tightened.
Serena Mercer had been his little sister.
Four years younger.
Wild brown hair.
Loud laugh.
A talent for refusing every rule he had ever followed.
She had left the Mercer house at twenty-one after a war with their father.
Cade had stayed.
He had chosen the family.
The business.
The name.
And when Serena married a mechanic named Ethan Hail, Cade skipped the wedding because his father told him attendance would be considered disloyal.
Cade told himself he would make it right later.
Later became years.
Then Serena called him seven years ago.
Ethan had died after a workplace accident.
She had been crying.
Cade remembered standing in his penthouse office looking at the Chicago skyline while she said:
“I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
He had replied:
“I’ll send money.”
Silence.
Then:
“I didn’t call for money, Cade.”
He had not understood.
Not then.
Now, looking at two hungry children carrying a painting from his childhood, he understood perfectly.
“What are your names?”
The older girl answered.
“Lena.”
The younger one said, “Mara.”
“Last name?”
“Hail.”
Cade looked at their faces again.
Lena had Serena’s eyes.
Mara had their mother’s chin.
He nearly sat down on the frozen sidewalk.
Instead he said, “Come with me.”
Both girls backed away.
“No,” Lena said quickly.
Cade realized how he sounded.
“I mean somewhere warm.”
They stared.
“There’s a diner down the block.”
Lena narrowed her eyes.
“We’re not supposed to go with strangers.”
“Good.”
Cade crouched to their height.
“My name is Cade Mercer.”
Their faces changed.
Mara whispered, “Mom has a picture of you.”
That hurt.
“What kind of picture?”
“She keeps it in a box.”
Lena elbowed her.
Cade smiled faintly.
“Does your mother know you’re out here?”
Neither answered.
“Girls.”
Mara whispered, “She was sleeping.”
“Is she sick?”
“She’s tired.”
Lena quickly added, “She works a lot.”
“How long has she been sleeping?”
Silence.
Cade’s unease deepened.
He took out his phone.
Lena immediately said, “Don’t call police.”
“Why?”
“Because Mom said if anyone thinks she can’t take care of us, they might separate us.”
Cade lowered the phone.
That sentence changed the entire temperature of the night.
“Fine.”
He stood.
“No police.”
“For real?”
“For real.”
He pointed toward the diner.
“Food first.”
The girls looked at each other.
Then Lena nodded.
Inside, they ordered burgers.
Mara asked whether she could have fries.
Cade said yes.
She asked whether they cost extra.
He said he didn’t care.
She looked suspicious.
Children should not look suspicious when offered fries.
They ate too fast.
Cade pretended not to notice.
“What does your mother do?”
“She cleans apartments,” Lena said.
“And a hotel sometimes.”
“Which one?”
“The Arlington.”
Cade owned the Arlington.
Or, more precisely, a Mercer investment company controlled the property.
The irony made him nauseous.
“Where do you live?”
Lena hesitated.
Cade placed both hands on the table.
“I’m not going to hurt her.”
“How do we know?”
“You don’t.”
The honesty surprised them.
“But I knew your mom when she was younger than you.”
Mara’s eyes widened.
“Were you friends?”
Cade looked down at the painting.
“No.”
He swallowed.
“We were family.”
Lena stopped eating.
“What?”
Cade met her eyes.
“I’m Serena’s brother.”
Neither girl moved.
Mara whispered, “Uncle Cade?”
The word landed somewhere Cade had kept locked for decades.
He nodded once.
Lena looked angry.
“If you’re her brother, where were you?”
Cade had faced federal prosecutors with less difficulty.
“I wasn’t where I should have been.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
“What is?”
He looked at the child.
“I failed her.”
Lena stared.
Then went back to eating.
No forgiveness.
Good.
He had not earned it.
Twenty minutes later, Cade stood outside a six-story apartment building on the South Side.
The girls led him upstairs.
Third floor.
The hallway smelled like radiator heat and bleach.
Lena unlocked the door.
“Mom?”
No answer.
Cade entered.
The apartment was clean.
Too clean.
As though Serena had been fighting poverty through organization.
A saucepan sat empty on the stove.
One cabinet held two cans of soup.
The refrigerator contained milk, mustard, and half a loaf of bread.
Then Cade saw Serena.
She was asleep on the couch beneath two blankets.
Except she wasn’t sleeping normally.
Her breathing was shallow.
Her skin looked gray.
“Serena.”
No response.
Cade crossed the room.
He touched her shoulder.
Hot.
Burning hot.
“Serena.”
Her eyes opened slightly.
They found him.
For one second, shock entered them.
Then anger.
“Cade?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Your daughters found me.”
Her eyes closed again.
“Oh God.”
“You need a hospital.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No hospitals.”
“Serena.”
“I can’t afford it.”
Cade laughed once, but there was no humor.
“You think I care?”
“I do.”
She tried sitting up.
Failed.
Lena began crying.
“Mom.”
That was enough.
Cade picked up his sister.
She was frighteningly light.
“Put me down.”
“No.”
“You don’t get to walk in here after twenty years and—”
“I know.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know.”
“You left me.”
His arms tightened.
“I know.”
She started crying.
So did he.
But he carried her anyway.
Down three flights of stairs.
Past neighbors staring through cracked doors.
Into the black sedan.
At the hospital, doctors diagnosed severe pneumonia and exhaustion.
Another forty-eight hours without treatment might have been dangerous.
Cade sat beside her bed all night.
At four in the morning, Serena woke.
“You still here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He looked at his sister.
Because the question was not really about the hospital.
It was about twenty years.
“I’m done leaving.”
Her eyes filled.
She turned toward the window.
“You always say things when it’s too late.”
“I know.”
“Ethan died waiting for you to call back.”
Cade stopped breathing.
“What?”
She looked at him.
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
Serena’s expression changed.
“He called you the day before the accident.”
Cade’s pulse accelerated.
“I never got a call.”
“He told me he did.”
“What did he want?”
She stared at him.
“He found something in Mercer family accounts.”
Cade felt cold.
“What kind of something?”
“He said your father was stealing through the Arlington Hotel.”
His jaw tightened.
“My father had been dead three years.”
Serena shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“Ethan said somebody was still using Dad’s accounts.”
Cade leaned forward.
“What exactly did Ethan find?”
Serena’s voice dropped.
“He said the Mercer money wasn’t clean.”
A pause.
“And he said if anything happened to him, I should never trust you.”
Cade stared at her.
“Why me?”
“I don’t know.”
Then Serena looked toward the door.
Lena and Mara were sleeping in chairs outside.
She whispered:
“But someone knew we still had that painting.”
Cade’s eyes narrowed.
“What does the painting have to do with this?”
Serena swallowed.
“Everything.”
May you like
And for the first time since the girls stopped him on Michigan Avenue, Cade realized they had not merely been selling a family heirloom.
They had unknowingly carried evidence someone had been searching for almost twenty years.
