Chapter 3 - THE VOICE OF A DEAD WOMAN
Vincent did not return to Duca Manor.
That told Hannah more than anything he could have said.
Instead, they drove to a narrow brick building near the Chicago River that appeared abandoned from the street.
Inside was another world.
Steel doors.
Security monitors.
Weapons locked behind reinforced glass.
Marcus disappeared upstairs to contact men he trusted.
Vincent brought Hannah into a room containing an old desk, two leather chairs, and shelves filled with obsolete electronics.
“You keep cassette players?”
“My organization existed before streaming.”
Despite everything, Hannah laughed.
It surprised both of them.
Vincent stared at her for half a second too long.
Then he looked away.
He found a cassette recorder.
Hannah placed Clara’s tape inside.
Neither moved.
“Ready?” Vincent asked.
“No.”
He pressed play anyway.
Static filled the room.
Then breathing.
A woman’s voice.
Vincent closed his eyes.
“Vincent.”
Hannah looked at him.
His face became something she had not seen before.
Young.
Not physically.
Emotionally.
For a moment the dangerous man disappeared, and Hannah could see the sixteen-year-old boy who had watched someone vanish into fire.
Clara continued.
“If you are hearing this, then Sarah kept her promise.”
Hannah gripped the edge of the desk.
“Hannah is alive.”
Vincent opened his eyes.
“She is my daughter.”
The words struck the room like thunder.
Hannah stopped breathing.
“No.”
The recording continued.
“I know what they will tell you. They will tell you I died in the fire. They will tell you the baby died with me. They may even show you bodies.”
Hannah covered her mouth.
Vincent did not move.
“But Hannah survived.”
Tears filled Hannah’s eyes.
“Sarah Brooks took her before the fire. She promised to raise her as her own.”
Hannah shook her head.
“No.”
The voice continued.
“If Hannah is standing beside you now, tell her Sarah was her mother in every way that mattered.”
That broke her.
Hannah turned away.
Vincent reached toward her.
Stopped.
His hand lowered.
Clara’s voice crackled through the old speaker.
“There is something else.”
A pause.
“Vincent, you need to know why they came for us.”
The tape hissed.
“My father kept records. Payments. Judges. Police. Aldermen. Contractors. Men who built careers by laundering money through city projects.”
Vincent stared at the machine.
“He called it the Ledger.”
Marcus entered silently.
Clara continued.
“The Ledger was divided into three pieces. No one person could expose everything.”
Hannah wiped her face.
“Sarah had one piece. I had another.”
Static.
“And the third belongs to the Duca family.”
Vincent frowned.
“What?”
The recording suddenly distorted.
Then Clara said something that made him step toward the machine.
“Your father knew.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“No.”
“He helped them, Vincent.”
Hannah looked at him.
“He helped arrange the fire.”
The tape clicked.
Silence.
Vincent stood completely motionless.
Marcus spoke first.
“Could it be fake?”
Vincent turned slowly.
“No.”
“How can you know?”
“Because she called my father by the name only she used for him.”
Hannah stared at the cassette.
“My biological mother knew your father?”
Vincent laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Apparently she knew my family better than I did.”
Marcus leaned against the desk.
“Why send Hannah to you now?”
“She didn’t,” Hannah said.
Both men looked at her.
“I applied to the agency myself.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“Why Duca Manor?”
“I didn’t choose it. The agency assigned me.”
Marcus and Vincent exchanged a look.
Hannah understood.
“You think someone arranged it.”
“Yes,” Vincent said.
“But why?”
“To make sure we met.”
“Who?”
Vincent looked toward Marcus.
“Someone who knew Clara’s plan.”
Marcus frowned.
“That list is probably short.”
“Short enough to kill.”
They replayed the cassette.
Near the end, beneath the static, Marcus noticed something.
“Wait.”
He rewound it.
A faint sequence of numbers followed Clara’s final sentence.
Eight.
Four.
Two.
Nine.
One.
Seven.
Hannah recognized them.
“My mother used those numbers.”
Vincent looked at her.
“For what?”
“I don’t know. She wrote them everywhere.”
“Where?”
“Recipe books. Grocery lists. Sometimes birthday cards.”
Vincent leaned closer.
“She was trying to make sure you remembered them.”
Hannah’s stomach twisted.
A childhood memory returned.
Sarah standing at the kitchen table.
Teaching Hannah to memorize numbers.
“If you ever lose me,” Sarah had said, “numbers can bring you home.”
At eight years old, Hannah thought it was a game.
Now she whispered the sequence.
“842917.”
Marcus entered it into a secure search system.
Nothing.
Vincent tried separating the numbers.
84-29-17.
Still nothing.
Hannah stared at the photograph.
Then she noticed the hospital sign behind Clara.
St. Matthew’s.
“Could it be a medical record?”
Marcus searched.
The hospital had closed nineteen years earlier.
Its records had been transferred.
Vincent made one phone call.
Fifteen minutes later they had access to archived admission numbers.
842917 belonged to someone.
Hannah Brooks.
Date of birth.
Twenty-six years earlier.
Hannah leaned closer.
“That’s impossible.”
Vincent read the file.
Most information had been removed.
One line remained.
Mother.
Clara Vale.
Father.
Blank.
Hannah whispered, “Why is there no father?”
Vincent said nothing.
She looked at him.
Something in his expression made her heart beat harder.
“You know.”
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
“I suspect.”
“What?”
Vincent looked at Marcus.
“Leave us.”
Marcus hesitated.
Then walked out.
Hannah crossed her arms.
“Tell me.”
Vincent stared at the photograph.
“Clara disappeared from Chicago for almost two years before the fire.”
“And?”
“When she came back, she had a baby.”
Hannah waited.
“She never told me who the father was.”
“So?”
Vincent looked uncomfortable for the first time.
“She told me he was dangerous.”
Hannah almost laughed.
“She told a Duca that another man was dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
The door opened.
Marcus returned.
His expression was grim.
“We have a problem.”
Vincent turned.
“What?”
“Dominic is gone.”
Silence.
“From the manor?”
“Security footage shows him entering your study. After that, nothing.”
Vincent reached for his phone.
Marcus continued.
“And there’s something else.”
He placed a tablet on the desk.
A security image appeared.
Dominic standing beside a black sedan outside Duca Manor three nights earlier.
Talking to a woman.
Hannah leaned toward the screen.
Her entire body went cold.
“No.”
Vincent looked at her.
“You know her?”
Hannah could barely speak.
The woman was older now.
Her hair gray.
Her shoulders thinner.
But Hannah knew that face.
She had stared at it in framed photographs throughout childhood.
“That’s impossible.”
Vincent’s eyes sharpened.
“Who is she?”
Hannah touched the screen.
“My mother.”
Marcus stared.
“Sarah Brooks?”
Hannah nodded.
Vincent looked again at the timestamp.
Three nights ago.
The woman who had supposedly died from cancer eight years earlier was standing outside his home.
Alive.
Talking to Dominic Salerno.
Then Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
His expression changed.
“Put it through.”
A voice came over the speaker.
Female.
Old.
Weak.
“Hannah?”
Hannah nearly dropped the phone.
“Mom?”
Sarah Brooks began crying.
“Hannah, listen to me. You need to get away from Vincent Duca.”
Vincent’s eyes went cold.
May you like
Sarah whispered the next words.
“Because Vincent is the reason Clara Vale is dead.”
