Chapter 2 - The Man Who Controlled Chicago
I went to dinner.
Not because Adrian Hargrove ordered me.
I told myself that repeatedly while a black sedan carried me toward Lake Forest.
I went because Margaret Hargrove might have been deliberately harmed.
That was the professional explanation.
The other explanation was that curiosity had always been my worst personality trait.
The Hargrove estate was less a house than a warning.
Iron gates.
Stone walls.
Acres of manicured grounds.
Security cameras disguised as decorative fixtures.
Two men in dark suits opened the front door.
I was wearing my best navy dress, which suddenly looked like something purchased at an airport gift shop.
Then Margaret appeared.
“Nora!”
She walked toward me with a cane.
Seventy-one.
Silver hair styled elegantly.
Cream blouse.
Pearls.
Still slightly pale.
But unmistakably the woman from the sidewalk.
She hugged me before I could decide whether we were hugging people.
“You look much nicer when you aren’t yelling at strangers to stop filming me.”
“You remember that?”
“Bits.”
She took my hand.
“You gave up an interview.”
“Please don’t make that romantic. I’m still unemployed from the job I wanted.”
Her expression tightened.
“We are discussing that.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Hargrove—”
“Margaret.”
A man entered behind her.
Everything in the room changed.
Adrian Hargrove looked younger than the reputation surrounding him.
Maybe thirty-nine.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Black suit.
No tie.
Dark hair pushed back carelessly.
A faint scar near his jaw.
The kind of face that would have been beautiful if the eyes were not constantly calculating exits.
“Nora.”
“Adrian.”
His eyebrow lifted.
Most people probably said Mr. Hargrove.
I was already annoyed with him.
Good.
Fear and annoyance coexist poorly.
Dinner began surprisingly normally.
Roast chicken.
Vegetables.
Wine I refused because I was still medically curious.
Margaret asked about my childhood.
Adrian asked about my ambulance service.
Then he asked:
“How badly injured is your shoulder?”
My fork stopped.
“How do you know?”
He did not even look guilty.
“I had a background check performed.”
I stared.
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Adrian.”
“What?”
“You cannot investigate every woman invited to dinner.”
“I investigate every person invited into this house.”
I looked at him.
“You know that isn’t less creepy.”
His mouth twitched.
Margaret smiled into her water.
I continued.
“What else?”
“Thirty-two. Divorced.”
“Incorrect.”
He frowned.
“I was never married.”
“The database—”
“Engaged. He left with my roommate.”
Margaret gasped.
Adrian’s expression became strangely dangerous.
“It was eight years ago.”
“Where is he?”
I pointed my fork.
“Do not finish that question.”
Margaret laughed.
For a moment, the feared Hargrove mansion felt almost normal.
Then Adrian placed a white pill bottle on the table.
My stomach tightened.
“This matches what you saw?”
I picked it up without touching the cap.
Small.
White.
No commercial label.
“Yes. Similar.”
“It was found this afternoon in the apartment of my mother’s assistant, Julia Voss.”
“The one who disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Have you called police?”
Margaret and Adrian exchanged a look.
I sighed.
“Of course not.”
Adrian leaned back.
“My family has complicated relationships with Chicago law enforcement.”
“That is the most elegant confession I’ve ever heard.”
“I’m trying.”
“You need police.”
“We will involve the appropriate investigators when we know which ones can be trusted.”
“That sentence is exactly why normal people avoid Mafia families.”
Margaret coughed lightly.
“Nora.”
“What?”
“My son isn’t technically—”
“Mother.”
She smiled.
Dinner continued.
Afterward, Margaret asked me to walk with her through the conservatory.
Adrian remained behind.
“Do you trust him?” I asked.
“My son?”
“Yes.”
“With my life.”
“Does everyone?”
“No.”
Honest.
“What happened Monday?”
Margaret looked toward the windows.
“I was supposed to meet a lawyer that morning.”
“For?”
“Changing my will.”
There it was.
Money.
The oldest motive on Earth.
“Who benefits currently?”
“Adrian receives some.”
“Some?”
“My charitable foundation receives most.”
“And after the change?”
She smiled faintly.
“Adrian would receive less.”
“That gives him motive.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t seem worried.”
“Because Adrian begged me not to leave him more.”
I stared.
“What?”
“He thinks inherited empires turn families into animals.”
Interesting.
“What were you changing?”
“The foundation structure. I wanted to remove one trustee.”
“Who?”
Margaret stopped.
“My nephew, Julian Hargrove.”
Adrian’s cousin.
Chief financial officer of Hargrove Health Group.
The company that had rejected me.
“Why?”
“I discovered irregular payments.”
My pulse quickened.
“What kind?”
“I hadn’t finished investigating.”
“And then you collapsed.”
“Yes.”
Coincidence was becoming unemployed.
Before I could ask more, a scream came from inside.
Adrian shouted:
“Mother!”
We ran.
Margaret’s tea cup sat on the drawing-room table.
A housekeeper stood beside it, terrified.
Adrian held a silver teaspoon.
“What?”
I asked.
He looked at me.
“The tea smells wrong.”
I crouched.
Not because I possessed magical toxicology skills.
Because something was floating on the surface.
Fine powder.
Margaret whispered:
“I almost drank that.”
Adrian’s face became terrifyingly calm.
“Who prepared it?”
The housekeeper started crying.
“I did, sir. But I left the tray outside for maybe two minutes.”
Adrian turned toward his security chief.
“Lock the gates.”
I stepped between them verbally before this became a gangster movie.
“Call an ambulance and police.”
“Nora—”
“If somebody contaminated her tea, you need independent evidence handling.”
He looked like he hated that I was right.
Good.
Then the lights went out.
Not flickered.
Out.
The conservatory became black.
Security men shouted.
A door slammed.
Margaret grabbed my arm.
I pulled her behind a stone planter.
Adrian’s voice came through darkness.
“Nora?”
“Here.”
“Mother?”
“With me.”
Backup lights switched on.
Red emergency glow.
The security chief ran toward us.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“West gate opened thirty seconds before the power failed.”
“Who left?”
He checked his tablet.
Then looked up.
“Julian Hargrove.”
Adrian’s cousin.
The man Margaret had intended to remove from her will.
But Adrian did not look satisfied.
He looked confused.
“Julian wasn’t invited tonight.”
Margaret whispered:
“Then why was he inside the house?”
Nobody answered.
A phone began ringing on the table.
Margaret’s.
Unknown number.
Adrian answered on speaker.
A woman whispered:
“Mrs. Hargrove?”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed.
“Who is this?”
A sob.
“Julia.”
The missing assistant.
Margaret stepped forward.
“Julia, where are you?”
“I didn’t poison you.”
“Then why did you run?”
“Because I saw who did.”
Silence.
Adrian leaned toward the phone.
“Who?”
Julia began crying.
“You’re not going to believe me.”
“Try.”
A pause.
Then:
“It wasn’t Julian.”
Adrian went still.
Julia whispered one name.
“Thomas.”
Margaret’s cane slipped from her hand.
I looked between them.
“Who is Thomas?”
Adrian answered.
“My older brother.”
“And?”
His face emptied.
“He died twelve years ago.”
The phone disconnected.
May you like
For the second time that week, an ordinary medical emergency had opened a door into something nobody in the Hargrove family wanted to believe.
A dead man had just been accused of trying to kill his mother.
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