Chapter 2 - THE MAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
The woman stared at me so long that I began wondering whether blood loss had finally started manufacturing hallucinations.
Then Noah tugged her sleeve.
“Mom?”
She blinked.
The rain kept pouring.
I pressed my palm harder against the wound beneath my ribs.
“Who was his father?”
Her face tightened instantly.
“That’s none of your business.”
“You turned white when you heard my name.”
“You’re bleeding to death.”
“And you’re avoiding the question.”
She glanced toward the mouth of the alley.
Fear.
Not ordinary fear.
Recognition.
The kind that had lived inside someone for years.
Then she looked at Noah.
“Sweetheart, go upstairs.”
“No.”
“Noah.”
“The scary men might come back.”
I stared at him.
“What scary men?”
The woman’s head snapped toward her son.
Noah pointed toward the alley entrance.
“The black car.”
My pain sharpened beneath a colder realization.
“What black car?”
He lowered his voice.
“It drove past two times.”
The woman swore under her breath.
She crouched in front of him.
“Go through the kitchen door and lock it. Take your dinosaur flashlight. Do not open the door unless I say the blue word.”
“What’s the blue word?”
“Pancakes.”
Noah frowned.
“That’s not blue.”
“I know. Go.”
He looked at me.
“You’re coming too.”
“I don’t think I’m walking anywhere.”
His mother answered for me.
“Yes, he is.”
She put one of my arms over her shoulders.
She was smaller than me by almost a foot.
It didn’t matter.
Adrenaline made her stronger.
Pain made me cooperative.
Together, we staggered through the rear entrance of the abandoned bakery.
Except it wasn’t entirely abandoned.
The street-level bakery had closed years ago, but the second-floor apartment had been renovated.
Barely.
The kitchen smelled like coffee, antiseptic, and peanut butter.
Noah locked three bolts behind us.
His mother lowered me onto the floor beside an old farmhouse table.
“Shirt off.”
Despite everything, I looked at her.
“Buy me dinner.”
She glared.
“I’m an ER nurse.”
“That explains the personality.”
“It also explains why you’re still alive.”
Fair.
She cut my shirt open with trauma shears from a medical bag.
I studied her while she worked.
Early thirties.
Dark brown hair pulled into a wet ponytail.
Gray eyes.
No makeup.
Hands that did not shake.
“What’s your name?”
“Grace.”
“Last name?”
“Bell.”
The name meant nothing.
Then Noah returned carrying the soggy cardboard box.
Grace snapped, “I told you upstairs.”
“I need Dad’s picture.”
My attention sharpened.
Grace froze.
“Noah.”
He opened the box.
Inside were photographs.
Children’s drawings.
A Phillies ticket.
A man’s watch.
Noah pulled out a framed picture.
“My dad.”
Grace tried to take it.
Too late.
I saw him.
And the room disappeared.
Eight years earlier.
Pier Thirty-Seven.
A winter night.
A young man standing between me and three armed dockworkers.
Blood on his temple.
His mouth split.
But his spine straight.
Ethan Bell.
My accountant.
Not some bookkeeper.
The one man who had discovered someone was laundering money through my legitimate shipping companies.
The man who disappeared before he could tell me who.
The man Carter told me had stolen from me and fled.
I looked at Grace.
“Ethan Bell.”
Her expression hardened.
“So you do remember him.”
“I thought he ran.”
Grace actually laughed.
It was bitter enough to cut.
“That’s what they told you?”
“Who is they?”
“You.”
My chest tightened.
“What?”
She ripped open sterile gauze.
“My husband spent the last week of his life terrified of you.”
“Why?”
“Because he thought you wanted him dead.”
“That’s a lie.”
She pressed gauze into the bullet wound.
Pain exploded.
I nearly blacked out.
“Easy.”
“You stabbed me.”
“I’m stopping the bleeding.”
“You could have warned me.”
“You’re a mafia boss. I assumed you were tough.”
Noah sat cross-legged ten feet away.
“My mom is tougher.”
I believed him.
Grace taped the pressure dressing in place.
“The first bullet went through the upper arm. The second is lower torso. I don’t know if it penetrated the abdominal cavity.”
“Comforting.”
“You need a hospital.”
“No.”
“You may need surgery.”
“If I go through a public emergency room under my name, Carter will know within twenty minutes.”
“Who is Carter?”
“My lieutenant.”
“The one who shot you?”
“He ordered it.”
Grace went very still.
“Carter Voss?”
Now it was my turn.
“You know him.”
She stood abruptly.
“Oh my God.”
“Grace.”
“No.”
She paced away.
“No, no, no.”
“Tell me.”
“You need to leave.”
“I physically cannot.”
“Then I’ll make you.”
“Grace.”
She turned.
“Carter Voss came to my house the night Ethan died.”
Silence.
Noah watched us.
I lowered my voice.
“What did he say?”
“That Ethan had been killed because he betrayed you.”
My heart began pounding harder.
“He said you found out Ethan was cooperating with federal investigators.”
“I never believed Ethan was an informant.”
“He showed me documents with your signature.”
“What documents?”
“An internal order.”
“What did it say?”
Her voice cracked.
“Authorize cleanup. Bell first.”
I stared at her.
“No.”
“I saw your signature.”
“It wasn’t mine.”
“It looked like yours.”
“Carter had access to my files.”
Grace’s eyes filled.
“You expect me to believe that after eight years?”
“I expect you to listen.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m sitting on your kitchen floor with two bullets in me after Carter tried to kill me.”
That stopped her.
I continued.
“If I ordered Ethan’s death, why would Carter need to lie to you afterward?”
She didn’t answer.
I knew why.
Because the lie had not been designed only to explain Ethan’s death.
It had been designed to make Grace afraid of me.
To keep her silent.
“What did Ethan find?”
She looked away.
“I don’t know.”
“You know something.”
“Ethan didn’t tell me details.”
“Grace.”
“He said somebody was using Marcelli freight routes to move things you had forbidden.”
My jaw tightened.
“What things?”
She stared directly at me.
“Girls.”
The word landed heavier than either bullet.
“No.”
“He found manifests. Fake employment records. Port passes.”
I felt sick.
Six months earlier, I had discovered hints of the same thing.
That was why I had shut down several shipments.
Why Carter accused me of getting soft.
But Ethan had found it eight years ago?
Which meant Carter had been running it under my nose for almost a decade.
Grace opened the soggy cardboard box and removed a small silver key.
“Ethan told me if anything happened, I should keep this.”
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never checked?”
“He told me not to.”
“For eight years?”
“I had a baby.”
Her voice sharpened.
“I had no money. My husband was dead. And a man named Roman Marcelli was supposedly responsible.”
Fair.
Noah suddenly stood.
“Mom.”
Grace looked at him.
“What?”
He pointed toward the window.
Headlights moved across the ceiling.
Slowly.
A vehicle stopped outside.
My pulse changed.
“Lights off.”
Grace moved instantly.
The apartment went dark.
I forced myself to my feet.
The room tilted.
Grace grabbed me.
“You cannot fight.”
“Watch me.”
“No.”
Noah whispered, “Black car.”
Through the edge of the curtain, I saw it.
Black Escalade.
Carter’s secondary security vehicle.
The passenger door opened.
Two men stepped out.
Grace’s face went pale.
“What do we do?”
I looked at the silver key in her hand.
Then at Noah.
Then at the back stairs.
“You trust me?”
“No.”
“Good enough.”
I reached into the drawer beside the sink.
Kitchen knife.
Pathetic.
But better than nothing.
“Take Noah upstairs. Hide in the bathroom.”
“What about you?”
“I keep them downstairs.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I only need them to think I can.”
Noah ran toward me before Grace could stop him.
He wrapped both arms around my waist.
Pain shot through my side.
I looked down.
“Kid.”
“Don’t die.”
The words nearly finished what the bullets had started.
I put one bloody hand carefully on his head.
“I’ll try.”
He looked up.
“Promise?”
I had spent my life avoiding promises.
Promises were leverage.
Weakness.
Debts made out loud.
But a five-year-old in yellow rain boots was staring at me like the answer could keep the world together.
“I promise.”
Grace pulled him away.
Then someone pounded on the downstairs door.
Three times.
A voice followed.
“Grace Bell?”
She froze on the stairs.
I recognized the voice.
Anthony Creel.
One of Carter’s men.
“We’re police.”
I almost smiled.
Bad lie.
Grace looked at me.
I shook my head.
Another knock.
“Mrs. Bell, we need to talk about the man you brought inside.”
My blood turned cold.
They had seen us.
Anthony continued.
“He’s dangerous.”
Grace stared at me.
For half a second, doubt returned.
Eight years of it.
I understood.
Then the voice downstairs said the wrong thing.
“Roman Marcelli killed your husband.”
Grace’s face changed.
Because if they were police, how did they know exactly what Carter had told her eight years ago?
She looked at me.
And for the first time, she believed one thing.
Not that I was innocent.
Not yet.
But that someone desperately needed her to think I was guilty.
The downstairs lock began to break.
May you like
And suddenly the lie that had destroyed her family and the betrayal that had nearly ended my life were standing on the same staircase.
Coming toward us.
