Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN AT THE GATE
“There’s someone at the gate.”
Adrian DeLuca looked up from the security footage for the first time in nearly an hour.
His eyes were bloodshot. The cast on his left arm rested against the desk, and a half-empty bottle of pain medication sat beside his untouched dinner.
“Who?”
His security chief, Marcus Hale, hesitated.
“Your mother.”
Adrian stared at him.
“My mother is in Switzerland.”
“She landed at O’Hare two hours ago. She says she isn't leaving until you let her inside.”
Adrian pushed himself upright.
Eleanor DeLuca had not visited her son's home in nearly three years.
She had missed birthdays, anniversaries, and business celebrations. But she had never missed a moment when someone in the family was truly suffering.
She had attended Sophie's funeral in a black coat and said almost nothing.
Now she was standing outside his gate at eleven o'clock at night.
“Let her in.”
Ten minutes later, Eleanor entered the study.
She was seventy-one, with carefully arranged silver hair and the quiet dignity of a woman who had spent decades surviving powerful men.
Her eyes moved from Adrian's injured arm to the frozen security footage.
Claire stood on the screen, holding Sophie's urn.
Eleanor's expression hardened.
“Still hunting your wife?”
Adrian ignored the question.
“Did you see Claire before she disappeared?”
“Yes.”
“Did she tell you where she was going?”
“No.”
“Mother.”
“Don't use that voice with me.”
She removed her gloves.
“I buried my granddaughter last week. And now my daughter-in-law has disappeared because she could no longer bear to live in a house full of lies.”
Adrian clenched his jaw.
“You don't know what happened.”
“I know Sophie died in your car.”
His eyes flickered.
“I know Claire had to identify her little girl's body alone.”
“Enough.”
“And I know that when you woke in the hospital, you asked about another woman before you asked about your daughter.”
Adrian went still.
“Who told you that?”
Eleanor looked at him with undisguised disappointment.
“Does it matter?”
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Eleanor placed a small yellow envelope on his desk.
“This arrived at my hotel.”
Adrian immediately reached for it.
Inside was a photograph.
Sophie stood in their backyard wearing a pink sweater, smiling at the camera with a missing front tooth.
On the back, in Claire's handwriting, were six words.
She deserved a father who stayed.
Adrian sank into his chair.
Eleanor watched him.
“I didn't come here to help you find Claire.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because someone is trying to find her before you do.”
Adrian looked up sharply.
“What are you talking about?”
Eleanor opened her handbag and removed a second photograph.
It showed a silver sedan parked across from her Chicago hotel.
Inside sat a man Adrian recognized immediately.
Daniel Mercer.
His late father's former attorney and financial adviser.
A man Adrian had dismissed four years earlier after discovering irregularities in several family accounts.
“Mercer?” Adrian whispered.
“He approached me this morning,” Eleanor said. “He wanted to know whether Claire had contacted me.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing.”
Adrian stood too quickly and winced as pain shot through his ribs.
“Marcus!”
His security chief appeared.
“Find Daniel Mercer. Right now.”
Marcus nodded, but Eleanor raised a hand.
“Before you do something foolish, there's something else.”
She placed a folded paper on the desk.
It was a photocopy of a hospital visitor log.
At 6:18 on the morning following Sophie's death, someone had requested access to the pediatric trauma records.
The signature read:
Daniel Mercer.
Adrian stared at the name.
“That isn't possible. He has no relationship to Sophie.”
“Apparently, someone believed he did.”
A terrible thought entered Adrian's mind.
“What if Claire is with him?”
Eleanor's expression changed.
“Then perhaps you should ask yourself why she would trust him more than her own husband.”
Adrian picked up the photograph of Sophie.
His daughter looked so alive.
So wonderfully unaware of everything coming.
He remembered that morning.
Sophie had climbed into his SUV carrying her school backpack and a little stuffed rabbit.
“Daddy, can we listen to my song?”
He had promised they would.
Instead, Vivian had called.
And everything afterward had become a nightmare.
Adrian closed his eyes.
He could still hear Sophie's voice.
Not from the morning.
From the road.
Daddy, please slow down.
His hand tightened around the photograph.
There was something about the accident he had never told Claire.
Something he had remembered when he woke in the hospital.
Something he had forced himself not to think about.
Marcus returned twenty minutes later.
“We found Mercer.”
“Where?”
“His office was emptied yesterday. His apartment too.”
“Airport records?”
“Nothing under his name.”
Adrian cursed.
Marcus hesitated.
“There's more.”
He held out a tablet.
“We recovered another camera angle from the alley where Mrs. DeLuca disappeared.”
Adrian grabbed it.
The footage showed Claire entering the alley with the urn pressed to her chest.
Eight seconds later, the rear door of a black delivery van opened.
Claire climbed inside.
The van drove away through a private loading entrance that had not been visible in the first recording.
“Plate number,” Adrian demanded.
“Registered to a charitable transportation company.”
“Whose company?”
Marcus swallowed.
“Your mother's.”
Adrian slowly turned toward Eleanor.
She did not look away.
“You helped her.”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“Somewhere she can sleep without hearing your voice.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“She's my wife.”
Eleanor's answer was quiet.
“She was Sophie's mother first.”
He stared at her.
“You have no idea what you're interfering with.”
“Neither do you.”
Eleanor picked up her gloves.
“Claire didn't leave because she stopped loving you, Adrian. She left because loving you was destroying what remained of her.”
She walked toward the door.
Then stopped.
“There is one more thing you should know.”
Adrian waited.
Eleanor turned back.
“The night before she disappeared, Claire asked me a question.”
“What question?”
“She asked whether Sophie had been wearing her little silver bracelet when the hospital received her.”
Adrian frowned.
The bracelet had been a birthday gift from Eleanor.
A delicate silver chain with a tiny blue star.
Sophie had worn it almost every day.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I didn't know.”
Eleanor's voice trembled.
“Then Claire showed me a photograph taken at the accident scene.”
Adrian felt the room grow colder.
“In the photograph, Sophie was still wearing the bracelet.”
“So?”
Eleanor looked directly into his eyes.
“Adrian, when Claire collected Sophie's belongings from the hospital, the bracelet was missing.”
Marcus glanced at his employer.
Adrian whispered, “Maybe it was lost during treatment.”
Eleanor shook her head.
“The hospital inventory says it was removed by an unidentified person before Sophie entered surgery.”
Adrian stared at her.
Then Marcus's tablet chimed.
A newly recovered image had arrived from a traffic camera near the accident site.
It showed Vivian being helped into an ambulance.
Her right hand was pressed against her chest.
And wrapped around her fingers was a delicate silver chain.
May you like
A tiny blue star glittered beneath the emergency lights.
Vivian had been holding Sophie's bracelet.
