Chapter 3 - A Secret Sewn Into the Blue Dress
My father had never spoken about my mother's death without becoming quiet.
But that afternoon, he looked genuinely afraid.
I sat across from him.
"Who tried to kill Mom?"
He closed his eyes.
"Nora, please."
"No. You don't get to say something like that and ask me to forget it."
His fingers tightened around the photographs.
For twenty years, I'd accepted the story he told me.
My mother died in a factory accident.
There was a funeral.
We moved apartments.
Life continued.
Painfully.
But it continued.
Now every memory felt uncertain.
"Was she really killed in that fire?"
He stared at the table.
"The fire happened."
"That's not what I asked."
He swallowed.
"I was told she died."
"By whom?"
"A man from the company."
"What man?"
He hesitated.
"Charles Whitaker."
Matthew's father.
My stomach dropped.
"Charles Whitaker told you Mom was dead?"
"He came to the hospital where I was recovering."
"Recovering from what?"
My father looked ashamed.
"I was injured the night of the fire."
I stared at him.
"You told me you hurt your back at work."
"I did."
"At the factory?"
He nodded.
A terrible possibility began forming.
"Dad, were you there?"
His eyes filled.
"I went looking for your mother."
He explained that Evelyn had worked as a senior pattern technician at Whitaker Atelier.
She'd discovered suspicious production records.
Expensive imported fabrics were being replaced with cheaper materials.
Orders were being duplicated.
Payments were being sent to companies that didn't appear to exist.
At first, she thought it was accounting fraud.
Then she discovered something worse.
The factory was being used to conceal shipments unrelated to clothing.
She threatened to report it.
Three nights later, the warehouse caught fire.
My father went there after receiving a frantic telephone call from her.
He remembered smoke.
A locked side entrance.
Someone striking him from behind.
Then waking in a hospital.
Charles Whitaker visited the next morning.
He told my father that Evelyn hadn't survived.
And he warned him that asking questions would put me in danger.
"Why didn't you go to the police?"
"I did."
"What happened?"
"The detective told me the fire was an accident."
"Who was the detective?"
My father hesitated.
"Daniel Mercer."
The name meant nothing to me.
But I wrote it down.
"Did you ever see Mom's body?"
"No."
I stared at him.
"Then you don't know she died."
His face crumpled.
"I wanted to believe she might be alive. For years, Nora. Every time the telephone rang, I hoped."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I didn't want you spending your childhood waiting for someone who might never come home."
I stood.
Anger and grief collided inside me.
"You let me believe she was dead."
"I know."
"You let me visit an empty grave!"
He began crying.
And suddenly, the man across from me wasn't the father who had protected me through every difficult year.
He was a frightened husband who'd spent two decades living with an unbearable secret.
I wanted to scream.
Instead, I walked into my bedroom and closed the door.
That night, I barely slept.
At seven the next morning, I arrived at Bellamy House.
Matthew was already waiting.
"You look exhausted."
"I know about the fire."
His expression changed.
"Your father told you?"
"Some of it."
I placed my notes on his desk.
"Charles Whitaker. Daniel Mercer. The warehouse fire. The missing body."
Matthew read silently.
Then reached for his telephone.
"Cancel my morning meetings."
He turned back to me.
"My father died when I was twenty-three. He left me an empire and enough enemies to fill a city."
"Did you know about my mother?"
"No."
"Do you believe me?"
"Yes."
The answer came immediately.
"Why?"
"Because someone tried to remove those production records from our archives last week."
My skin prickled.
"Who?"
"We don't know."
He opened a secure drawer and removed the navy dress.
The same one from the store.
I stared.
"You bought it?"
"I had the store send it to my office."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted you to examine it."
He laid the dress across the table.
I turned the cuff inside out.
There it was.
Three short stitches.
One long.
Two short.
But this time, I looked more carefully.
The seam contained a tiny second layer of fabric.
I found a seam ripper in Matthew's desk.
"May I?"
He nodded.
I carefully opened the stitching.
Inside was a narrow strip of pale cotton.
Numbers had been written across it in faded blue ink.
14-10-06.
B17.
MERCER.
My heart hammered.
"That's the date on the document."
Matthew leaned closer.
"And Mercer is the detective your father named."
I turned the fabric over.
There was another message.
Only four words.
FIND THE FIRST PATTERN.
Matthew stared at it.
Then looked toward the office windows.
"Someone wanted this found."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"Why put it in a clearance dress?"
"Because it could move through the company without attracting attention."
I looked at the navy fabric.
My mother had taught me that clothing could hold memories.
Now it appeared to hold evidence.
Matthew made a call to his security director, Gabriel Rossi.
Within twenty minutes, Gabriel arrived.
He was a broad man in his forties with a scar above one eyebrow and the watchful expression of someone who trusted very few people.
Matthew showed him the fabric.
Gabriel studied the writing.
"Mercer retired from the police department twelve years ago."
"Find him," Matthew said.
Gabriel nodded.
Then glanced at me.
"And her?"
"She's staying."
Gabriel didn't argue.
After he left, Matthew turned toward me.
"I need to ask you something."
"What?"
"Do you have anything of your mother's?"
I thought about the old wooden sewing box beneath my bed.
Inside were needles.
Buttons.
A faded measuring tape.
And a small photograph of my mother sitting at a sewing machine.
"Yes."
"Could we examine it?"
I hesitated.
Then nodded.
That evening, Matthew accompanied me to Queens.
He didn't arrive in a limousine.
He drove a dark sedan himself.
My father opened the apartment door.
When he saw Matthew, his expression hardened.
"You look like your father."
Matthew stood still.
"I've heard that."
"That's not a compliment."
"I understand."
My father looked at me.
"Nora, you shouldn't have brought him here."
"Dad, we need answers."
Matthew spoke quietly.
"Mr. Bennett, I believe my father was involved in something terrible. I intend to find out what happened."
My father studied him for a long moment.
Then stepped aside.
We opened my mother's sewing box on the kitchen table.
Most of the contents were ordinary.
But beneath the velvet lining, I felt something hard.
I lifted the fabric.
A brass key lay inside.
Attached was a tiny paper label.
B17.
My father covered his mouth.
Matthew looked at the key.
Then at the strip of fabric.
"Building seventeen," he whispered.
I frowned.
"What building?"
May you like
His expression darkened.
"The warehouse that burned down twenty years ago."
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