Chapter 4 - The Woman Everyone Thought Was Dead
Grace stopped breathing.
“My mother?”
The phone remained against my ear.
Gideon Vale laughed softly.
It was not the laugh of a man enjoying himself.
It was worse.
Patient.
Confident.
The laugh of someone who had waited twenty-eight years for the same door to open.
Grace grabbed my wrist.
“My mother died when I was nine.”
Gideon heard her.
“No, sweetheart.”
Grace’s face emptied.
“Your mother has been expensive to keep.”
I wanted to put a bullet through the phone.
Instead, I kept my voice calm.
“Proof.”
“You sound like your father.”
“That isn’t proof.”
A pause.
Then a woman’s voice came through.
Weak.
“Grace?”
Grace folded against my desk.
I caught her before she hit the floor.
“Mom?”
The sound she made was not a word.
It was twelve years old.
Maybe nine.
Maybe every age a daughter became when she suddenly heard the mother she had buried.
“Grace,” the woman whispered. “Don’t give him anything.”
The line changed.
Gideon returned.
“Sunrise.”
Then he disconnected.
For ten seconds, nobody spoke.
Grace stared at my phone.
“My mother died.”
Anthony shook his head.
“You were told she died.”
She turned on him.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You knew everything else!”
“I didn’t know this.”
“Stop lying to me!”
Mia appeared at the doorway.
Grace immediately covered her mouth.
Too late.
Mia had heard.
“Grandma?”
Grace crossed the room and knelt in front of her.
“Mia, honey—”
“You said Grandma was in heaven.”
Grace closed her eyes.
“I thought she was.”
The cruelty of it settled over the room.
Gideon was not threatening one hostage.
He was detonating twenty-eight years of grief inside a family.
I crouched beside Mia.
“I need you to stay with Vincent.”
“Are you going to get Grandma?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
I had already promised too much tonight.
But some promises were worth becoming dangerous for.
“Yes.”
Mia studied me.
Then held out her pinky.
I stared at it.
Vincent looked away, wisely hiding whatever expression crossed his face.
I hooked my finger around hers.
“Promise.”
Once the children were moved to the secure upstairs suite, I turned to Anthony.
“Where is the ledger?”
“I told you. We don’t know.”
“Then Gideon believes we do.”
“Because Mia triggered the passage.”
Grace rubbed her arms.
“What exactly does that mean?”
Anthony explained.
Samuel had designed the hiding system himself.
Three knocks identified a safe person.
A sequence hidden within ordinary household patterns was supposed to lead Grace, years later, toward the copy.
“But she forgot,” I said.
“Yes.”
“And Gideon spent decades waiting for her memory to return?”
“He spent decades looking for an easier way.”
Catherine stood by the window.
“He used me.”
I looked at her.
“He’s your father.”
“That doesn’t mean I knew what he was doing.”
“You forced Mia to clean.”
Her head snapped toward me.
“I did not.”
“Mia says you did.”
“I told Mia to stop following me.”
Grace stiffened.
“What?”
Catherine wiped her face.
“The first night she saw me open the passage, she followed me. I panicked.”
“So you threatened her mother’s job?”
“No.”
Catherine shook her head.
“I told her children shouldn’t wander around after dark. The next night, I found her polishing silver.”
“Mia said you made her.”
“She misunderstood.”
I had dismissed that defense earlier.
Now something about Catherine’s tone changed the shape of it.
“What exactly did you say?”
Catherine looked ashamed.
“I said Grace’s work had been questioned.”
“By whom?”
She stared at Vincent.
Vincent’s face hardened.
“Careful.”
“Not you.”
“Then who?”
“Our new estate manager.”
I frowned.
I had hired no estate manager.
Grace looked at me.
“Mr. Donnelly.”
“Who?”
“He’s been handling the household schedules for three weeks.”
Every eye turned toward me.
“There is no Mr. Donnelly.”
Grace went pale.
“He changed my shifts.”
Vincent swore under his breath.
“How did he get access?”
Grace looked frightened now.
“He had your authorization.”
“I gave none.”
Catherine crossed the room.
“That’s who told Mia I thought Grace’s work wasn’t good enough.”
The reversal hit hard.
Catherine had lied.
But perhaps not about that.
“Find Donnelly,” I told Vincent.
He was already calling his men.
“No employee record,” he said thirty seconds later.
“Camera?”
“We’re checking.”
Anthony said, “Gideon’s inside your structure deeper than we thought.”
“No.”
I walked toward my father’s desk.
“He wants us to think that.”
“What?”
“If he already controls the house, why threaten us?”
Anthony stared.
“Because he doesn’t know where the ledger is.”
“Exactly.”
For the first time that night, something almost hopeful appeared in Grace’s face.
“So he still needs us.”
“Yes.”
Which meant her mother was more valuable alive than dead.
For now.
I looked around my father’s study.
If Samuel built the clue for Grace, he would use something she remembered.
Three knocks.
Childhood.
Her father.
“Grace.”
She looked at me.
“What games did Samuel play with you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Songs?”
“Lots.”
“Numbers?”
Her expression changed.
“There was one.”
Anthony leaned forward.
Grace whispered, “The Boston game.”
“What Boston game?”
“My father would name places around the city. I had to say what number they were.”
“Number?”
“Beacon Hill was three. North End was seven. The harbor was nine.”
“Why?”
“I never knew.”
I looked at Anthony.
He was already understanding.
“A route.”
Grace closed her eyes.
“Three, seven, nine…”
“What came after nine?”
“I don’t remember.”
Mia’s voice came from the hallway.
“Four.”
Everyone turned.
She stood barefoot at the door.
Vincent looked deeply irritated with himself.
“I told her to stay upstairs.”
Mia shrugged.
“I’m quiet.”
Grace hurried toward her.
“Mia, you cannot keep sneaking around.”
“But the numbers are four.”
“What do you mean?”
Mia pointed at the bookshelf.
“The red books.”
I turned.
“What red books?”
“There are numbers inside.”
My pulse changed.
Mia walked to the shelf.
Third shelf.
Seventh book.
Ninth page.
Fourth line.
She pointed.
I pulled the volume free.
An old history of Boston.
Inside the cover was handwriting.
Not my father’s.
Grace gasped.
“My dad.”
Written in faded blue ink:
WHEN THE CITY FORGETS, FOLLOW THE WATER.
Below it were four numbers.
3-7-9-4.
Grace stared at them.
“I remember.”
“Where?”
“The Public Garden.”
Anthony shook his head.
“That isn’t water.”
“The Swan Boats.”
Grace’s eyes widened.
“My father took me every birthday.”
Vincent returned.
“Donnelly’s image came through.”
He held out his phone.
A security still.
A man in his late fifties wearing a dark suit.
Grace looked at him.
“That’s Mr. Donnelly.”
Anthony took the phone.
Then nearly dropped it.
“What?”
He handed it to Catherine.
She staggered backward.
“No.”
“Who is he?”
Catherine whispered, “That man worked for my father.”
“What’s his real name?”
“Elias Voss.”
Anthony stared at me.
“Roman, he died in the warehouse fire when I escaped.”
Apparently dead men were becoming a family tradition.
Vincent zoomed in.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“The image timestamp is tonight.”
My skin tightened.
“Where?”
“Basement hallway.”
“What time?”
“Three minutes ago.”
I drew my gun.
Anthony stood.
I shoved him back down.
“You can barely walk.”
“He knows the tunnels.”
“So do you.”
“That’s why you need me.”
Grace stepped forward.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Roman—”
“No.”
Her expression hardened.
“My mother is alive because of this.”
“Which is why you are staying with your daughters.”
“You don’t get to decide everything.”
“In my house during an armed intrusion?”
“Yes, actually.”
For half a second, despite everything, we simply stared at one another.
Then she said quietly, “If Samuel left the clues for me, you may need me.”
She was right.
I hated that.
“Behind me at all times.”
We entered the hidden passage.
Vincent first.
Me.
Grace.
Anthony limping behind despite orders.
The tunnel beneath the second room continued farther than I had realized.
At the end was another staircase.
It opened beneath the abandoned brownstone next door.
Dust lay everywhere.
Except for one set of fresh footprints.
Vincent pointed.
We followed them.
A door stood open at the far end.
Beyond it was a concrete chamber containing monitors.
Every room in my townhouse appeared on those screens.
Bedrooms.
Kitchen.
Study.
Hallways.
Grace covered her mouth.
“My God.”
Someone had been watching us.
For years.
One monitor showed Mia asleep.
Another showed Grace changing Lily’s diaper earlier that week.
Rage so cold it barely felt like rage moved through me.
Then Grace pointed.
“Roman.”
On the central monitor was a live video feed.
A room somewhere else.
A woman sat tied to a chair.
Silver hair.
Thin face.
Bruised cheek.
Grace stepped toward the screen.
“Mom.”
A digital timer appeared beneath the image.
02:14:37.
Two hours.
Fourteen minutes.
Then a message appeared.
BRING THE CHILD WHO REMEMBERS THE NUMBERS.
Grace went completely still.
I felt Anthony behind me.
“What?”
He whispered, “Gideon doesn’t want the ledger anymore.”
I looked at him.
May you like
Anthony’s face had gone gray.
“He wants Mia.”
