Chapter 2 - The Man in the Black SUV
The typing bubble disappeared.
Then returned.
Adrian reached for my phone.
I pulled it away.
"Don't."
"Someone is threatening you."
"It's still my phone."
His expression suggested that people rarely told him no.
Good.
He could practice.
The next message arrived.
EVELYN KEPT SOMETHING THAT BELONGED TO US.
"Your mother's been dead eleven years?" Adrian asked.
"Yes."
"Then somebody wants you frightened enough to believe ghosts have cell plans."
I stared at the photograph.
My mother and Isabella.
"Start talking."
Adrian called Isabella.
She didn't answer.
His face hardened.
Within thirty seconds, the men outside were moving.
I grabbed my coat.
"Where are you going?"
"With you."
"No."
"Your mother knew mine. Someone just threatened me using my dead mother's name. We're past no."
He studied me.
Then opened the door.
Isabella was safe.
She simply hadn't heard her phone.
When we arrived, she was sitting at her kitchen table with tea and a heating pad wrapped around one wrist.
She looked from Adrian to me and sighed.
"I suppose we're doing this tonight."
"Doing what?" I asked.
She opened a kitchen drawer.
Inside was another photograph.
My mother.
Isabella.
And the mysterious Margaret.
This time, Margaret's face was visible.
She looked familiar.
I couldn't place why.
"Evelyn worked for my husband years ago," Isabella said.
"Doing what?"
"Accounting."
Adrian leaned against the counter.
"My father owned restaurants."
Isabella gave him a look.
"Among other things."
That was when I finally understood what Adrian's last name meant.
Moretti.
Chicago newspapers.
Federal investigations.
Restaurants, construction, unions, allegations that never quite became convictions.
I looked at him.
"You're mafia?"
Adrian's mouth tightened.
"My family has a complicated history."
"That's rich-person language for yes."
Isabella almost smiled.
Then she touched the photograph.
"Your mother discovered money being moved through shell companies. She thought my husband was responsible."
"Was he?"
"Partly."
Adrian straightened.
"Mother."
"But someone else had begun stealing identities connected to the companies. Employees. Vendors. Dead relatives. People nobody would notice."
My stomach turned.
"Margaret?"
Isabella nodded.
"Margaret Clark."
Clark.
Vanessa Clark.
The room suddenly felt smaller.
"Vanessa's mother?"
"Her aunt."
I sat down.
Isabella explained that Margaret had disappeared after Evelyn uncovered the scheme.
My mother had left her accounting job.
Isabella had believed the matter finished.
Until she heard my name.
"Why didn't Mom tell me?"
"Because she was protecting you."
"From what?"
Isabella's eyes filled with guilt.
"From knowing why your father disappeared."
I stopped breathing.
I had been told my father left before I was born.
No name.
No photographs.
Nothing.
"Who was he?"
Adrian's phone rang.
One of his men spoke rapidly.
Adrian looked at me.
"What?"
He ended the call.
"Someone broke into your shop."
We reached Brooks & Bloom thirteen minutes later.
The front door hadn't been forced.
Neither had the rear.
Whoever entered had a key.
Nothing obvious was stolen.
The register still contained cash.
Laptop untouched.
Flowers untouched.
Then I saw the office.
My mother's old metal filing box was open.
Every document inside remained except one.
My original birth certificate.
Kayla was the only other person with a shop key.
I refused to believe it was her.
Adrian crouched beside the filing cabinet.
"Amelia."
Something white protruded beneath it.
He pulled out an envelope.
My name was written across the front.
In my mother's handwriting.
I knew every curve.
Every letter.
I tore it open.
Inside was a key.
Small.
Brass.
A number stamped into it.
And one sentence.
IF MARGARET EVER FINDS YOU, DO NOT LET HER LEARN WHO YOUR FATHER WAS.
A noise came from the flower cooler.
Not the compressor.
A knock.
Three slow taps.
From inside.
May you like
Adrian reached for the cooler handle.
Someone knocked again.
