Chapter 3 - THE MAN BEHIND HER BROTHER
Sullivan Mercer turned toward the man who had protected his family for eleven years.
“Cal.”
His voice was dangerously quiet.
“Tell me she's mistaken.”
Calvin Rourke didn't immediately answer.
And that hesitation changed everything.
Wynn struggled against her hospital pillows.
“He locked the door! He said nobody would believe me!”
Cal raised both hands.
“Mr. Mercer, your sister was confused. Mrs. Mercer instructed me to keep her safe.”
“Which Mrs. Mercer?”
“Your aunt.”
Sullivan stared at him.
“You told me Wynn was staying with friends in Wisconsin.”
Cal swallowed.
“That was the information I received.”
“You just said you were following my aunt's instructions.”
Hollis stepped between the men and Wynn's bed.
“Everyone needs to lower their voices. She's sick.”
Cal looked at Hollis with open irritation.
“This is a family matter.”
“No,” Hollis replied. “A family matter is deciding where to spend Christmas. This girl has bruises on both wrists and an infected wound.”
Sullivan's eyes moved to Wynn's arm.
He looked as though someone had struck him.
“Who hurt you?”
Wynn couldn't answer.
A nurse rushed in after hearing the disturbance.
“Either everyone settles down, or security clears the room.”
Sullivan stepped back.
“Cal, leave.”
“Sir—”
“Now.”
Cal walked out with the second guard.
Sullivan waited until the door closed.
Then he approached his sister slowly.
“Winnie, look at me.”
She shook her head.
“I tried to reach you.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
Her voice rose.
“I sent you messages. I went to your office. Aunt Vivienne said you didn't want to see me.”
Sullivan's face hardened.
“She told me you wanted space.”
Wynn laughed once.
It was a terrible sound.
“You believed her.”
He had no answer.
Hollis watched the silence between them.
For all Sullivan's money and power, he looked helpless in front of the girl he had raised.
Finally, he sat beside the bed.
“I should have called you myself.”
“Yes,” Wynn whispered. “You should have.”
The physician returned with preliminary results.
Wynn had a serious soft-tissue infection around her forearm wound and needed continued intravenous antibiotics and observation.
The doctor also suspected she had been given a sedating medication recently.
Wynn covered her face.
“They made me take pills.”
“Who?” Sullivan asked.
“Cal brought them. Aunt Vivienne said they would help me sleep.”
Sullivan rose abruptly.
Hollis caught his sleeve.
“Don't leave her to go after somebody.”
He looked down at her hand.
She released him.
“She's been abandoned enough,” Hollis said.
Something in his expression shifted.
He sat down again.
And this time, when Wynn reached toward him, he held her hand.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Then Sullivan noticed the star-covered blanket.
“That's not yours.”
Wynn shook her head.
“A little girl gave it to me.”
“Whose little girl?”
Hollis cleared her throat.
“Mine.”
Sullivan looked at her properly for the first time.
The inexpensive shoes.
The cracked hands.
The cleaning-company badge still attached to her sweater.
“You found my sister?”
“Behind the trash bins at Halloran Tower.”
His jaw tightened.
“Why didn't you call the police?”
“Because she was barely breathing. I took her home, got help from my neighbor, and called an ambulance when we realized how serious it was.”
Sullivan looked toward Wynn.
“Is that true?”
She nodded.
“Mom, she carried me three flights of stairs,” Wynn whispered automatically.
She stopped at the word Mom.
Her face crumpled.
Sullivan squeezed her hand.
Their mother, Nora Mercer, had been dead for eleven years.
It was the first time Hollis saw the powerful man look close to tears.
He turned back to her.
“You saved her life.”
“I did what anybody should do.”
“No,” Sullivan answered. “You did what somebody actually did.”
He reached into his jacket.
Hollis immediately shook her head.
“Please don't.”
“You haven't heard what I was going to say.”
“I don't need to.”
Sullivan withdrew his hand.
For the first time that day, he seemed uncertain how to respond to someone.
Wynn broke the silence.
“I was checking the Mercer Winter Fund.”
Sullivan looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because the families we promised to help weren't getting their heating assistance.”
The fund had been established by Nora Mercer years earlier.
It paid emergency bills for elderly residents, single parents, and families facing eviction during Chicago winters.
Sullivan supplied much of its money.
Vivienne managed the accounts.
“I found transfers,” Wynn continued. “Hundreds of thousands of dollars going to companies that didn't exist in our approved vendor list.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I tried.”
She looked away.
“Aunt Vivienne said the foundation would collapse if I started asking questions.”
Hollis remembered something.
“Room 214.”
Sullivan turned toward her.
“Excuse me?”
“That's where she says they kept her.”
His expression darkened.
“Two fourteen is supposed to be empty.”
“It isn't,” Hollis said. “Someone cleans the hallway outside it every night.”
“Who?”
“Me.”
Sullivan stared at her.
Wynn looked between them.
Then she whispered something that made Hollis's stomach drop.
“They knew about you.”
Hollis frowned.
“What?”
“When Cal brought me food yesterday, Aunt Vivienne was there. She said a cleaner would be useful if anyone started asking how I got out.”
“Useful how?”
Wynn's eyes filled.
“She said people believe whatever story the cameras tell.”
Sullivan took out his phone.
He didn't call anyone.
Instead, he opened the building access records already forwarded by his security office.
He showed Hollis a still image.
It depicted a woman wearing a gray cleaning uniform outside Room 214.
Her face was partly turned away.
But the badge appeared to read:
HOLLIS BRENNAN.
Hollis stared.
“That is my uniform.”
Sullivan said nothing.
“But I've never been inside that room.”
“Are you certain?”
She looked at him sharply.
“I carried your sister through freezing streets. Don't start questioning whether I locked her up.”
Wynn gripped the blanket.
“She didn't hurt me!”
Sullivan lowered the phone.
“I'm trying to understand.”
“Then start by believing the people who were actually there,” Hollis replied.
A woman appeared at the doorway.
She was in her late fifties, elegantly dressed in a dark gray coat, with pearl earrings and perfectly arranged silver-blond hair.
Vivienne Mercer.
Her expression softened dramatically when she saw Wynn.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
Wynn went rigid.
Vivienne approached the bed.
“Thank heaven you're safe.”
Sullivan blocked her path.
“We need to talk.”
“Of course.”
“You told me Wynn was in Wisconsin.”
Vivienne's eyes flickered.
“She needed privacy. Her behavior had become unpredictable.”
“She was restrained.”
“I was advised that she might hurt herself.”
“By whom?”
“Calvin.”
Hollis watched the exchange.
Vivienne didn't seem surprised that Cal had been accused.
She seemed irritated that Sullivan had heard it.
Vivienne turned toward Hollis.
“You must be the cleaning woman.”
“Hollis Brennan.”
“Yes. I've heard quite a bit about you.”
Her smile disappeared.
“Unfortunately, your employer believes you've been involved in something very serious.”
Sullivan frowned.
“What are you talking about?”
Vivienne opened a thin folder.
Inside was a printed photograph showing a woman in a cleaning uniform guiding Wynn down the second-floor hallway.
Wynn's face was recognizable.
The woman's badge read Hollis Brennan.
The timestamp showed the previous evening.
Hollis felt sick.
“I never did that.”
Vivienne placed the image on the bedside table.
“Then perhaps you can explain why building security recorded you escorting my niece from the very room where she says she was imprisoned.”
Hollis leaned forward.
Her eyes fixed on the photograph.
Then she saw something beside the woman's shoes.
Something Vivienne had apparently overlooked.
A bright blue streak across the polished floor.
Hollis knew that streak.
May you like
She knew exactly when it had appeared.
And the photograph's timestamp was impossible.
