Chapter 1 - The Photograph
Vera Sullivan slammed the greenhouse door and shouted, “Show me the photograph.”
Nikolai Voss reached into his charcoal coat and placed a scorched photograph on the potting table.
There was a date written across the bottom.
Yesterday.
And beneath it were three handwritten words.
SHE DOESN’T KNOW.
Vera realized the photograph was not a threat.
It was a message.
“What doesn’t she know?”
Her voice sounded steadier than she felt.
Nikolai did not answer.
That frightened her more than if he had reached for the gun concealed beneath his coat.
The greenhouse smelled of damp soil and winter roses. Condensation streaked the glass walls. Beyond them, six armed men moved across the estate grounds with the deliberate silence of men who had been trained not to be noticed.
Three years earlier, Vera would have found that terrifying.
Now she knew two of them by name.
She also knew which one secretly smoked behind the equipment shed and which one had once accidentally backed a security SUV over her newly planted hydrangeas.
Living at Nikolai Voss’s estate had changed her definition of normal.
But not enough for this.
She picked up the photograph.
It showed her leaving the hardware store yesterday afternoon. Her hair was tied loosely behind her head. A bag of greenhouse fittings was tucked beneath one arm.
The photographer had been close.
Close enough that Vera could see the tiny silver button on her coat.
Her stomach turned.
“You knew someone followed me.”
“I learned about the photograph this morning.”
“And said nothing.”
“I increased security.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“No.”
She stared at him.
Nikolai was thirty-five, though there were moments when his stillness made him seem older. He had dark hair, gray eyes, and the kind of physical presence that caused strangers to unconsciously move out of his path.
Vera had never moved.
Perhaps that was why their relationship had become so strange.
On her second week at the estate, she had informed him that his expensive landscaping contractor had planted eighteen rosebushes incorrectly.
Nikolai had stared at her for several seconds.
Then he had fired the contractor.
Vera had spent three years wondering whether that had been the moment she stopped being merely another employee.
“Tell me everything,” she said.
Nikolai removed his gloves.
“The Helian Group owned a warehouse near the river. We believed it was abandoned. Last night someone burned it.”
“Your people?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“We don’t know.”
He nodded toward the photograph.
“Dmitri found that in the ruins.”
“With my name.”
“Yes.”
Vera folded her arms.
“And ‘she doesn’t know.’”
“Yes.”
“Know what?”
Nikolai’s jaw tightened.
“That is what I intend to find out.”
“You mean what we intend to find out.”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Vera almost laughed.
“You still haven’t learned.”
“Learned what?”
“That ordering me around makes me do the opposite.”
“I have noticed.”
“Then save us both some time.”
Nikolai looked toward the greenhouse door.
“Pack enough clothing for a week.”
Vera blinked.
“What?”
“You’re leaving the estate tonight.”
“With whom?”
“Dmitri.”
“No.”
“Vera.”
“I’m not being hidden in some bunker because somebody took my picture.”
“The person who photographed you stood less than twenty feet away.”
The controlled quality vanished from his voice.
Vera went quiet.
Nikolai stepped closer.
“They knew your schedule. They knew where you shop. They knew you were alone. And instead of taking you, they took a photograph.”
“Why?”
“That is precisely what concerns me.”
Vera looked again at the picture.
He was right.
If they wanted to hurt Nikolai through her, yesterday had given them an opportunity.
They had not used it.
Why?
Her phone vibrated.
Both of them looked down.
Unknown number.
Nikolai reached for it.
Vera pulled away.
“It’s my phone.”
“Do not answer.”
“That sounded suspiciously like an order.”
“Vera.”
She answered.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Then breathing.
Slow.
Quiet.
Vera’s face changed.
Nikolai saw it.
He held out his hand.
She switched the call to speaker.
A man spoke.
“Miss Sullivan.”
Nikolai became perfectly still.
Vera swallowed.
“Who is this?”
“You should ask Mr. Voss about Bellweather.”
Nikolai’s eyes sharpened.
The caller continued.
“Ask him what happened there twenty-two years ago.”
The line disconnected.
Vera lowered the phone.
“Bellweather?”
Nikolai said nothing.
“Nikolai.”
His face had become unreadable.
But Vera knew him too well.
He recognized the name.
“What is Bellweather?”
“A town.”
“Where?”
“About ninety miles north.”
“What happened there?”
Nikolai looked away.
That tiny movement was enough.
“You know.”
“I know the name.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“It was where my father conducted business.”
Vera stared.
Nikolai almost never spoke about his father.
Anton Voss had died twelve years earlier. According to Dmitri, that death had transformed Nikolai overnight from a twenty-three-year-old university graduate into the head of an empire containing both legitimate corporations and operations nobody discussed around police officers.
“What kind of business?”
“The kind I spent years dismantling.”
Vera studied him.
“And twenty-two years ago?”
“I was thirteen.”
“So you remember.”
His silence returned.
Vera hated his silences because they were never empty.
“What happened?”
“A family disappeared.”
The greenhouse seemed colder.
“What family?”
“The Sullivans.”
Vera stopped breathing.
Nikolai immediately saw the recognition.
“My last name.”
“Yes.”
“You knew?”
“Not until today.”
She stepped backward.
Her hip struck the potting table.
“My father told me we came from Vermont.”
“What was his name?”
“Daniel.”
Nikolai’s expression changed.
Not much.
But enough.
Vera saw it.
“You know that name too.”
“I knew a Daniel Sullivan.”
Her heart began pounding.
“What do you mean, knew?”
“He worked for my father.”
“No.”
“Vera—”
“My father repaired industrial machinery.”
“That may also have been true.”
She stared at him.
Daniel Sullivan had been quiet, gentle, permanently tired. He taught Vera how to repair a mower engine and how to identify poison ivy before she could read.
He died when she was seventeen.
At least, that was what she had been told.
A highway accident.
Closed casket.
Her aunt Margaret had handled everything.
Vera suddenly remembered something she had not thought about in years.
The night before the funeral, Margaret had burned a box of Daniel’s papers in the backyard.
She had told Vera they were old bills.
“Nikolai.”
“Yes?”
“My father’s body.”
He waited.
“I never saw it.”
Something flickered across his face.
Vera reached for the table.
“What?”
“The funeral was closed casket.”
“Why?”
“They said the accident was too bad.”
Nikolai took out his phone.
“Dmitri.”
Vera grabbed his wrist before he could call.
“What are you doing?”
“Finding out whether Daniel Sullivan actually died.”
The words landed like stones.
She released him.
Nikolai made the call.
Dmitri answered immediately.
“I need everything on Daniel Sullivan. Bellweather. Twenty-two years ago. Then his supposed death approximately—”
“Eleven years ago,” Vera whispered.
Nikolai repeated it.
Dmitri went silent.
Then he said something Vera could not hear.
Nikolai’s face hardened.
“What?”
Another pause.
“Send it.”
He ended the call.
“What did he say?”
Instead of answering, Nikolai looked at the greenhouse entrance.
Vera turned.
One of his security men stood outside.
He looked pale.
That alone terrified her.
Nikolai opened the door.
“What happened?”
The guard held out a small black box.
“This was found at the east gate.”
“Who left it?”
“We don’t know. Cameras went dark for forty-seven seconds.”
Nikolai took the box.
Vera saw his hand tighten around it.
“Don’t open that,” she said.
He looked at her.
“For once,” she added, “try listening to me.”
A faint smile almost appeared.
Then disappeared.
Dmitri entered behind the guard.
He had driven back from town faster than seemed legally possible.
His expression stopped Vera from making a joke.
“What did you find?” Nikolai asked.
Dmitri looked at Vera.
“Daniel Sullivan’s death certificate exists.”
Vera exhaled.
“But?”
Dmitri held up his tablet.
“There is no corresponding accident report.”
Her throat tightened.
“No hospital record. No coroner photographs. No police file.”
“That’s impossible.”
“There’s more.”
He turned the tablet around.
An old photograph appeared.
Four men stood outside a brick factory.
One was a younger Anton Voss.
Vera recognized another instantly.
Her father.
Daniel Sullivan.
But it was the third man who made Nikolai swear under his breath.
“Who is he?” Vera asked.
“Leon Helian,” Nikolai said.
The former head of the Helian Group.
The man whose sons now wanted Nikolai dead.
Vera looked at the fourth figure.
His face had been scratched out.
Underneath the photograph was a typed caption.
BELLWEATHER PROJECT — 2004.
Nikolai turned toward the black box.
“Open it,” Vera whispered.
He did.
Inside was a key.
Old brass.
A paper tag hung from it.
Vera leaned closer.
Two words had been written on the tag.
GREENHOUSE NINE.
Then something clicked behind them.
Everyone turned.
At the far end of Nikolai’s greenhouse stood a storage door Vera had personally kept locked for three years.
May you like
The handle slowly began to move.
Someone was opening it from the other side.
