Chapter 4 - ROSE
They found Rose at St. Agnes Children’s Home.
Nora expected a frightened child.
Instead, the six-year-old sitting at a small table was carefully coloring a purple horse.
She looked up when Nora entered.
Her brown eyes widened.
“You look like my picture.”
Nora stopped.
“What picture?”
Rose climbed down and retrieved a worn photograph from her backpack.
Lily.
Nora’s sister was holding newborn Rose against her chest.
Nora pressed one hand to her mouth.
Rose studied her.
“Are you Aunt Nora?”
The word broke something open inside her.
She crouched.
“Yes.”
Rose nodded as though confirming a fact she had always known.
“Daddy said you’d come if he couldn’t.”
Declan turned away.
Nora noticed.
Even ruthless men apparently had limits.
Rose had been living with an elderly foster mother until six months earlier, when the woman suffered a stroke.
Rourke had paid the home’s fees anonymously.
That confused everyone.
“He kept her safe?” Nora asked later.
Owen shook his head.
“Or kept her where he could find her.”
The director handed Nora a small bag of Rose’s possessions.
Inside was a red coat, two books and a wooden music box.
Rose pointed at it.
“Daddy’s.”
Patrick had made it.
Inside the lid, beneath a painted blue bird, were four names.
Patrick.
Lily.
Rose.
Nora.
Declan stared at the names.
Patrick had planned for Nora to become Rose’s guardian.
But no paperwork existed.
Someone had removed it.
Nora sat beside Rose that afternoon.
“Did a man named Gavin visit you?”
Rose concentrated.
“The man with shiny shoes?”
“Maybe.”
“He asks about my box.”
Nora’s pulse quickened.
“What does he ask?”
“If Daddy put a key in it.”
Declan heard from the doorway.
“What key?”
Rose shrugged.
“He gets mad when I say I don’t know.”
Nora’s protective instinct surged so violently it frightened her.
“He won’t bother you again.”
Rose looked at Declan.
“Are you the scary man?”
Nora nearly choked.
Declan raised an eyebrow.
“Depends who told you.”
“Mrs. Harlow.”
“And what did Mrs. Harlow say?”
“That bad men are scared of you.”
Declan considered this.
“Mrs. Harlow sounds intelligent.”
Rose smiled.
It was Lily’s smile.
That evening, Declan arranged for Rose to stay temporarily at the mansion while Nora pursued guardianship through proper channels.
Nora objected.
“You cannot solve everything by moving people into your house.”
“It has twenty-three bedrooms.”
“That is not an argument.”
“It feels like one.”
Rose tugged Nora’s sleeve.
“Does he have pancakes?”
Declan answered immediately.
“Yes.”
Rose looked at Nora.
“I vote his house.”
Nora closed her eyes.
“Wonderful. Democracy has failed.”
For the first time, Declan laughed.
The sound startled everyone, including him.
At the mansion, Rose chose a room near Nora’s.
She refused the enormous princess room and picked a smaller bedroom overlooking the garden.
“It feels normal,” she explained.
That night, Nora found Declan in the library.
The place where she had collapsed.
He had removed the broken glass.
He had also placed a plate of sandwiches on the table.
“For Rose?” she asked.
“For you.”
“I ate.”
“You moved food around a plate.”
“You were watching?”
“I notice things.”
Nora remembered waking with her hand around his.
“You stayed.”
Declan’s gaze dropped briefly.
“You asked me to.”
“I was unconscious.”
“You still asked.”
Something quiet passed between them.
Then Rose screamed upstairs.
They ran.
Rose stood beside her open music box.
She wasn’t hurt.
She was pointing inside.
“The bird moved.”
Declan examined the painted wooden bird.
One wing had shifted.
Under it was a tiny brass key.
Nora remembered Rose’s words.
The man with shiny shoes asks about my box.
Owen arrived moments later.
He recognized the key.
“Old bank deposit box.”
Declan frowned.
“Which bank?”
“Grayhaven Mutual.”
Nora looked toward Rose.
Patrick had hidden the key inside his daughter’s toy because he believed no adult would find it.
But Rourke had known a key existed.
The next morning they went to the bank.
The box contained no money.
Only a ledger.
Page after page of names.
Women.
Medical debts.
Interest charges.
Payments.
Some had paid two or three times what they borrowed.
Several names were crossed out.
Beside them were locations Nora recognized as private clubs owned by Gavin Rourke.
Nora felt physically ill.
Then she found her own name.
NORA BENNETT — DO NOT TOUCH. P.K.
Someone had later written beneath it in different ink:
EXCEPTION APPROVED.
Declan stared at those words.
Nora whispered, “Approved by who?”
Owen turned the ledger toward the light.
Beside the notation was a symbol.
A black W.
Declan’s family mark.
Nora slowly looked at him.
“You said you didn’t know.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then somebody using your name did.”
Declan’s face hardened.
Only a handful of people could authorize business under that mark.
Owen began listing them.
Then stopped.
Because one name stood above all the others.
Declan’s older brother.
Sean Walsh.
The man everyone in Grayhaven believed had spent the last five years living quietly in Ireland.
May you like
Declan stared at the black W.
“He never left Grayhaven.”
