Chapter 3 - THE BLUE COAT
Dominic had his security chief call Aunt Beth before we left Chicago.
He did not tell her everything.
Neither did I.
He simply asked whether Ben was home.
“He’s asleep,” Aunt Beth said. “Hannah, what on earth is happening?”
“Lock the doors.”
Silence.
“Hannah?”
“Please.”
Something in my voice convinced her.
Dominic took the phone.
“Mrs. Turner, two people from my security team are twenty minutes away. They will identify themselves before approaching the property. Do not open the door for anyone else.”
My aunt was quiet.
Then she asked the question I wanted to ask.
“Is Ben in danger?”
Dominic looked at me.
“I am making sure he isn’t.”
We drove south.
Cassandra rode separately with two security officers.
Dominic had not forgiven her.
He had not arrested her either.
That seemed to make her more nervous.
Rain began somewhere past Joliet.
I sat beside Dominic in the back seat, staring at passing headlights.
“You don’t have to keep apologizing for bringing me into this,” I said.
“I haven’t apologized.”
“You’ve almost done it three times.”
He looked at me.
“I was going to say I should have noticed what was happening in my own house.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No.”
A pause.
“It is worse.”
I understood then why people feared Dominic when he became quiet.
The anger was not theatrical.
It turned inward first.
He examined it.
Measured it.
Then decided where it belonged.
“Cassandra fooled you,” I said.
“So did Samuel.”
“You were fifteen when Samuel disappeared.”
“I wasn’t fifteen when Cassandra started lying.”
I had no answer to that.
We reached Aunt Beth’s house shortly after one in the morning.
Two DeLuca security vehicles were already outside.
Ben stood behind the living room window in dinosaur pajama pants.
The second he saw me, he ran.
“Hannah!”
He hugged me hard.
Then noticed Dominic behind me.
Ben knew who he was.
Everyone in Chicago knew who Dominic DeLuca was.
My brother whispered, “Whoa.”
“Ben.”
“Sorry.”
Dominic almost smiled.
Almost.
Aunt Beth pulled me inside.
“What happened to your face?”
I had forgotten Cassandra’s slap.
“Long story.”
“Is that blood on your sleeve?”
“Longer story.”
Ben looked toward Dominic.
“Are you really a mafia boss?”
“Benjamin.”
“What? Everybody knows.”
Dominic removed his coat.
“I’ve been called worse.”
Ben considered that.
“Cool.”
“Not particularly.”
That answer seemed to earn Dominic more respect than bragging would have.
We found the blue coat in my mother’s cedar chest.
It was dark navy, not bright blue.
Heavy wool.
Old-fashioned brass buttons.
I remembered Mom wearing it once when I was small.
She never wore it again.
Aunt Beth touched the sleeve.
“She told me never to throw that away.”
“Did she say why?”
“No.”
“Did she ever mention Margaret DeLuca?”
My aunt’s face changed.
That was answer enough.
“Aunt Beth.”
“She made me promise.”
“Mom is dead.”
“I know.”
“So whatever she was protecting is protecting nobody anymore.”
Aunt Beth looked toward Ben.
Then toward Dominic.
“She was protecting you.”
My chest tightened.
“From Samuel Cross?”
Her eyes widened.
So she knew that name too.
Dominic moved closer.
“When did Claire last see Samuel?”
Aunt Beth sat down slowly.
“About a year before she died.”
I stared at her.
Mom had died three years ago.
Samuel had supposedly been dead for eight years at that point.
“He came here?”
“No. She saw him outside church.”
“What happened?”
“She came home shaking.”
“Why didn’t she call police?”
Aunt Beth gave Dominic a tired look.
“Your family owned half the people she would have been calling.”
Dominic accepted that without argument.
Ben had been standing near the hallway.
Now he spoke.
“The gray-haired man came here too.”
Every adult turned.
I knelt.
“What gray-haired man?”
“The one who knew Mom.”
“When?”
“Like... last month?”
My heart slammed.
“What did he want?”
“He asked Aunt Beth about Mom’s old stuff.”
My aunt stared at him.
“You never told me this.”
“You were at the grocery store.”
“Ben.”
“He said he was from Mom’s church.”
“What did he look like?”
Ben shrugged.
“Old. Big. Had a line here.”
He touched beside his mouth.
Samuel’s scar.
Dominic immediately asked, “Did he come inside?”
“No. I didn’t let him.”
“Good.”
“He said Mom once helped his family.”
“What else?”
Ben thought.
“He asked about a blue coat.”
Aunt Beth sat down hard.
Dominic looked at me.
Samuel had already been here.
Yet the coat remained.
Why?
I lifted it from the chest.
We examined every pocket.
Nothing.
Dominic ran his fingers along the lining.
Near the bottom hem, he stopped.
“This stitch is different.”
Aunt Beth brought scissors.
Inside the lining was a narrow paper envelope.
My name was written across it.
Not Hannah Reed.
Hannah Lane.
My old name.
My fingers shook.
Inside were three objects.
A yellowed train ticket from Chicago Union Station.
A small silver rosary.
And a folded piece of paper.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
Dominic recognized it instantly.
“My mother.”
He read aloud.
“Claire—
If you are reading this, Carlo found us or Samuel did.
Do not give Samuel the watch.
He believes it contains evidence against Carlo.
It contains something worse for him.
If Hannah is old enough to understand, tell her you changed your name because you refused to let a frightened nineteen-year-old boy pay for the sins of his family.
And Claire—
If Samuel ever comes back, do not let him near Dominic.
He will call what he did loyalty.
It wasn’t.”
Dominic stopped.
No one moved.
I stared at the train ticket.
Printed along the bottom was a handwritten number.
204.
Ben whispered, “What watch?”
Dominic looked at the rosary.
“It belonged to my mother.”
“How do you know?”
“My father gave it to her when they married.”
Aunt Beth crossed herself.
Then I noticed something strange.
One bead on the rosary was larger than the rest.
I turned it.
It opened.
Inside was a strip of paper no wider than my fingernail.
Three words.
ASK ABOUT THURSDAY.
Dominic read them twice.
“What happened Thursday?” I asked.
His face had gone distant.
“The day my mother disappeared was a Tuesday.”
“And she returned Friday.”
“Yes.”
“So Thursday was the day nobody knew where she was.”
Dominic took the train ticket.
Union Station.
Locker 204.
Eleven years ago.
I thought that was our next clue.
Then Ben tugged my sleeve.
“Hannah?”
“What?”
“The gray-haired guy said something weird.”
Dominic crouched so they were eye level.
“What did he say?”
Ben looked embarrassed.
“He said Hannah would think the coat mattered.”
My stomach dropped.
“What else?”
“He said it didn’t.”
Dominic went completely still.
Ben continued.
“He said, ‘Tell your sister Claire always hid important things where people could see them.’”
I looked down at the old coat.
At its brass buttons.
At the rosary.
Then at the train ticket.
And suddenly Aunt Beth whispered:
“Oh, dear God.”
She reached into the cedar chest and pulled out something we had ignored.
My mother’s old framed family photograph.
Me at nineteen.
Ben as a toddler.
Mom between us.
Around Mom’s wrist was a gold watch.
Dominic took the photograph.
His thumb stopped over it.
May you like
“That was my mother’s.”
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