Chapter 2 - The Dead Man Who Came Back for the Woman Who Knew His Secret
Cormac moved Sadie into a secure room before dawn.
Julian survived the shooting.
The bullet had grazed his shoulder.
The attacker was gone.
Victor Kane was still officially dead.
That was the problem.
Cormac stood beside the hospital window.
“Tell me everything.”
Sadie sat on the edge of the bed.
“I can't.”
“Try.”
“My mother never talked about the fire.”
“Except?”
“Except when she thought I was asleep.”
“What did she say?”
Sadie closed her eyes.
“Names.”
“Which names?”
“Your father.”
“Michael Vale.”
“Yes.”
“My uncle?”
“I don't know.”
“Victor Kane?”
She opened her eyes.
“Yes.”
Cormac stared.
“Why?”
“Because he came to our house.”
“When?”
“The night of the fire.”
“What did he do?”
“I don't remember all of it.”
“What do you remember?”
Sadie whispered:
“He wasn't alone.”
“Who was with him?”
“My father.”
Cormac froze.
“Your father was alive?”
“At the time.”
“No.”
Sadie shook her head.
“My biological father wasn't the man who raised me.”
Cormac stared.
“What?”
“My mother never told me his name.”
“Then who was your father?”
“I don't know.”
That answer disturbed him more than anything else.
Because if Sadie was connected to his family, there had to be a reason.
He contacted an old investigator.
Within hours, they found the original birth records.
Sadie had been born twenty years ago.
Mother: Evelyn Harper.
Father: Unknown.
But a sealed supplemental record existed.
Cormac requested access.
The father field was restricted.
Then came the shock.
The name was:
Matteo Vale.
Cormac's younger brother.
The man everyone believed had died in the fire.
Cormac stared at the page.
Matteo had a daughter.
And that daughter had been raised under another name.
Sadie.
His niece.
He found her later that afternoon sitting beside Julian's hospital bed.
“You're a Vale.”
Sadie looked up.
“What?”
“Your father was my brother.”
Her face drained.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My mother would have told me.”
“She didn't.”
“Then you're lying.”
Cormac placed the document in front of her.
She read it.
Her hands shook.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Julian, awake now, answered from the bed.
“Because she wanted you alive.”
Sadie looked at him.
“Then tell me the truth.”
Julian sighed.
“Your father discovered that Cormac's father was laundering money through the Vale organization.”
Cormac stiffened.
“He tried to expose him.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“Your grandfather ordered the fire.”
Sadie whispered:
“He killed my father.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did my mother survive?”
“She shouldn't have.”
Sadie looked at Cormac.
He nodded.
“My father wanted everyone dead.”
“But you survived.”
“I was told you died too.”
She shook her head.
“I didn't.”
Cormac stared.
“I know.”
Julian looked at Sadie.
“Your mother saved you.”
“How?”
“She put you inside a piano case.”
Sadie's breath stopped.
The memory returned.
Smoke.
Wood.
Her mother's voice.
Don't make a sound.
She remembered the piano.
The fire.
A man pounding on the door.
Then someone opening the case.
Cormac.
Eighteen years old.
Terrified.
He had carried her outside.
Then someone had taken her.
Her mother had disappeared.
Everything had been erased.
Cormac suddenly remembered.
He had found a little girl.
She had been coughing.
She had been clutching a red ribbon.
He had handed her to a woman standing outside.
A woman he trusted.
That woman had never been seen again.
He had always believed the child died.
He was wrong.
Sadie was alive.
And the person who saved her had disappeared.
Cormac looked at Julian.
“Who took her?”
Julian whispered:
“Your father's attorney.”
Cormac frowned.
“Richard Bell?”
“Yes.”
Cormac felt cold.
Richard had been his mentor.
His father's lawyer.
The man who told Cormac the fire was unavoidable.
The man who had built the legal foundation of the Vale empire.
The man who had helped Cormac survive after his father died.
Richard had been lying.
For twenty years.
Cormac stood.
“I'll find him.”
Sadie grabbed his arm.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because if he knows I survived, he will come after me.”
“He already is.”
She looked at him.
“How do you know?”
“Because the shooter wasn't trying to kill me.”
Cormac looked at her.
“He was trying to kill Julian.”
“Why?”
“Because Julian knows where the ledger is.”
Sadie froze.
“What ledger?”
“The one your father stole.”
“My father had a ledger?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
Cormac looked at Julian.
Julian shook his head.
“Only Evelyn knew.”
Sadie stared.
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
Cormac thought.
“Then we need to find your mother.”
Sadie's eyes filled.
“She died.”
Julian said quietly:
“Did she?”
Sadie froze.
Her mother had been declared dead eight years earlier.
Heart failure.
But there had been no funeral.
Only a private burial.
Cormac looked at Julian.
“Did you ever see the body?”
“No.”
Sadie stared.
“So she's alive.”
“Possibly.”
“Where?”
Julian looked at her.
“That's the question Richard has been trying to answer for eight years.”
Cormac's phone rang.
A message.
A photograph.
Evelyn Harper.
Alive.
Standing outside a small church.
Taken two days earlier.
Underneath:
YOU HAVE ONE DAY TO RETURN THE GIRL.
Cormac stared.
Sadie whispered:
“She's alive.”
“Yes.”
“And he's watching her.”
“Yes.”
The message continued.
Or she dies next.
Cormac looked at Sadie.
“I promised your father I would protect you.”
“You barely knew me.”
“I knew enough.”
She stared at him.
“Then don't break that promise.”
He nodded.
May you like
“I won't.”
---
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