Chapter 4 - The Woman in the Red Coat Knew My Mother's Secret
The next morning, Vincent told me the truth.
Or at least part of it.
The Crow wasn't one person.
It was a network.
Politicians.
Businessmen.
Police officers.
Judges.
Criminals.
They had spent decades building influence through Chicago.
My father had discovered them.
Vincent had been investigating them.
And my mother had apparently hidden evidence that could expose them.
“Why didn't you tell me before?” I asked.
“Because I didn't know how much you knew.”
“I knew nothing.”
“That was what made you valuable.”
“To who?”
“Everyone.”
A woman arrived that afternoon.
She wore a red coat.
She entered without knocking.
Vincent's guards allowed her through.
She was elegant, perhaps in her fifties, with silver hair and piercing eyes.
She looked at me.
Then smiled.
“My God.”
“What?” I asked.
“You have Evelyn's eyes.”
I froze.
“Who are you?”
“Margaret Vale.”
Vincent stepped between us.
“Why are you here?”
“Because your war is beginning again.”
She looked at me.
“And Clara has something the Crow has spent nineteen years trying to recover.”
“The key?” I asked.
Margaret smiled.
“No.”
“Then what?”
She pointed toward my chest.
“You.”
I felt a chill.
She explained that my father had hidden a coded memory inside the bakery's recipe system.
Every recipe contained numbers.
Every number corresponded to a location, a name, or a transaction.
My mother had taught me the recipes.
Without realizing it, I had memorized the code.
I laughed.
“That sounds insane.”
Margaret shook her head.
“Tell me your mother's cinnamon roll recipe.”
I did.
Margaret gave me a sequence of numbers.
She entered them into her phone.
A map appeared.
A warehouse.
I stared.
Vincent looked at me.
“Your mother didn't teach you recipes.”
“She taught me the map.”
That night we returned to my bakery.
Vincent insisted on coming.
The kitchen looked destroyed.
Broken glass.
Blood.
Flour everywhere.
I stood among the ruins feeling tears burn my eyes.
“My parents built this.”
Vincent stood beside me.
“We'll rebuild it.”
“You can't rebuild everything.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“But some things deserve another chance.”
I touched a flour-covered counter.
Then I remembered something.
The bread.
My mother's bread recipe.
I pulled an old recipe notebook from beneath the counter.
The page contained measurements.
But one number looked strange.
I circled it.
Vincent looked over my shoulder.
“What is it?”
“It's not an ingredient.”
“What is it?”
“It's an address.”
We followed it.
The address led to an abandoned church.
Underneath the church was a hidden chamber.
Inside was a metal vault.
The brass key opened it.
And inside we found photographs.
Hundreds of them.
My father.
My mother.
Vincent.
And one child.
A little girl.
Me.
My hands shook.
Vincent lifted a photograph.
On the back was written:
PROJECT HEIR.
I turned to him.
“What is this?”
He stared at the picture.
May you like
Then whispered:
“They knew you existed before you were born.”
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