Chapter 2 - THE DOCTOR WHO SIGNED A GHOST'S DEATH
By morning, my face looked worse. Bruises had spread beneath the stitches, turning my left cheek the color of storm clouds. The hospital cafeteria smelled of toast and burnt coffee, and I sat in a corner with a paper cup of tea I could barely hold.
Across the room, an elderly man peeled an orange for his wife. The ordinary tenderness of it made me want to cry. I wondered whether Alexander had ever been allowed a morning like that with his brother: no bodyguards, no whispered business calls, no fear that someone at the table had come to betray him.
Detective Keene arrived at nine with another officer. "The caller used a disposable number," she said. "We've requested records, but don't expect a quick answer. Tell us if anyone contacts you again."
"Do you believe what he said? About the death certificate?"
"We obtained a copy of Gabriel Whitlock's file. His presumed death was certified after a vehicle fire near Blackwater Pier. The chronology has inconsistencies. That's what we're examining."
"What kind?"
She looked at me steadily. "The sort that suggest somebody knew what conclusion the investigation was going to reach before it started."
I thought of Oliver's voice ringing through the ballroom: Daddy, don't drink that. Six years old, and he had stopped a planned toast that adults had prepared with criminal care.
"Is Gabriel safe?"
"He's in a guarded ward. You shouldn't try to visit until his doctors clear it."
"I wasn't going to."
She raised an eyebrow.
"All right," I admitted. "I was thinking about it."
Keene almost smiled. "You can help most by recovering and telling the truth."
My younger sister, Maisie, called as soon as Keene left. She was nineteen and studying culinary arts at a community college on the South Side. I had raised her through more dinners than I could count after our father died and our mother began working nights. Maisie could detect a lie in my breathing.
"You're on the news," she said.
"They didn't mention my name."
"They said an injured employee warned the family. I know you work there. Why didn't you call?"
"I didn't want you worrying."
"Excellent plan. I'm only furious instead."
I told her about the stitches, leaving out the worst details until she demanded them. She went quiet, then said she was coming to the hospital.
"Please stay at school," I said. "I need one person in this family to keep doing normal things."
"You're a terrible patient."
"I've heard that."
She promised to check in, but I recognized the fragile quality of the promise. Maisie was the person I most feared the attacker would find if he came back.
That afternoon I was discharged with medication, care instructions, and an appointment to check the wounds. Daniel arranged a car. I refused his suggestion that I immediately return to the mansion.
"I want my own apartment," I said.
He nodded. "Fair. The police asked that you not stay alone for the first few days. Can Mrs. Carter be with you?"
"She has Oliver."
"She has already arranged coverage."
When Mrs. Carter met me outside my building, carrying soup and a bag of groceries, I nearly laughed. "Did you appoint yourself my grandmother?"
"Someone had to," she said. "Yours would probably thank me."
My apartment was small, above a laundromat. The radiator clanked like a spoon against a pan, and a shelf sagged beneath cookbooks Maisie kept borrowing without returning. Mrs. Carter set the soup on the stove and began opening the curtains.
"Mr. Whitlock has authorized full medical leave," she said. "Paid. No conditions."
"Can he afford it?" I asked, attempting humor.
She fixed me with a look. "He can afford to learn what happened in his own household."
A knock came half an hour later. Alexander stood outside in a dark wool coat, not a tuxedo. His hair was damp, and the shadows beneath his eyes looked carved into his face. A uniformed officer waited near the stairwell.
"May I come in?" he asked.
Mrs. Carter looked to me rather than answering for me. I appreciated that, too.
"For a few minutes," I said.
Alexander sat in the kitchen chair that didn't wobble. He glanced at the framed photograph of Maisie and me at our father's last birthday, then at the stitches above my eyebrow. His expression held something I couldn't name without making us both uncomfortable.
"Gabriel is awake," he said. "He keeps asking whether Oliver is all right."
"What did you tell him?"
"That Oliver is safe. And that I don't understand why I failed to keep him safe before last night."
He rubbed his eyes. "I spent years looking for the truth about Gabriel. I searched the waterfront, paid investigators, threatened men who told me he'd died. Then I believed a piece of paper."
"You believed what people showed you," I said.
"I also stopped asking questions. There's a difference."
Mrs. Carter placed tea in front of him. He thanked her by name. I noticed the way she looked at him, stern and compassionate at once. She had served his family since he was a child; she was one of the few people who could tell him when he was being foolish and expect him to listen.
"Who signed the certificate?" I asked.
"Dr. Julian Mercer. He was at the engagement dinner. He was sitting three chairs from Bianca's father."
I remembered a distinguished silver-haired guest with an expensive watch and a narrow, impatient smile. He had barely looked up when I brought Oliver into the room. Yet when Gabriel's ring appeared, I had seen his hand tighten around his napkin.
"Was he questioned?"
"Yes. He's claiming a clerical error, which isn't the same as explaining how he identified burned remains as my brother."
"And Bianca?"
Alexander looked at the rain streaking my window. "Her lawyer says she merely kissed an old family friend. She denies knowing Gabriel was alive until yesterday."
"She's lying."
"I know what you saw. The police are building the case."
He paused, then spoke so quietly I nearly missed it. "Nora, she hurt you inside my home. You don't owe me loyalty because I pay you. If you want to resign, I won't challenge it."
The offer left me unexpectedly hollow. For nine months I'd worn a uniform and learned which hallways to avoid when important visitors were angry. I'd told myself the work was temporary. Still, there had been Oliver, whose missing front tooth had made him shy of family photographs. There had been Mrs. Carter and the warm, busy kitchen. Leaving meant leaving them.
"I haven't decided," I said.
"That's your decision to make."
When he stood to leave, his phone rang. His face drained of color as he listened.
"Who?" he demanded. "Where?"
He ended the call and looked at me. "Mercer's house is empty. His family claims he left for a medical conference this morning. His office records were removed overnight."
"By him?"
"Nobody knows."
I remembered the late-night caller's precise instruction: Ask Alexander why his brother's death certificate was signed before the police found the car.
"Did your caller know something about Mercer?" Alexander asked.
"He might be trying to make us look in the wrong place."
"That's what Daniel said."
Before he could go, Mrs. Carter pulled a chair across the kitchen floor. "Sit for another minute, Mr. Whitlock. You're going to hear something you won't like."
He obeyed, looking almost like a schoolboy.
"Five years ago," she said, "Gabriel left an envelope in my pantry cupboard. He said if he didn't return that night, I should give it to you."
Alexander stared. "You never did."
"I tried. Your uncle Victor came the next morning. He told me Gabriel had gone missing after stealing from the family's shipping company. He said handing over the envelope would contaminate the police investigation."
"Victor told you that?"
"He did. When I insisted, he took it and said he'd deliver it personally."
Alexander stood so fast the chair rocked. "Victor told me Gabriel left no letter."
Mrs. Carter's voice sharpened. "Then your uncle lied to both of us."
Victor Whitlock was the family patriarch's younger brother, a man who looked like an ordinary retired businessman until you heard how people fell silent when he arrived. I'd met him twice. Both times he'd called me 'girl' instead of asking my name.
Alexander's phone lit up again. This time he showed me the screen. Victor was calling.
He answered on speaker.
"Alex," Victor said, sounding warm and authoritative. "I've heard such terrible things. You must be devastated."
"My brother is alive," Alexander replied. "You were wrong about him."
A pause. Then Victor said, "That depends on what he remembers."
Mrs. Carter went rigid.
"What does that mean?" Alexander asked.
"It means a man who has been missing for five years may not remember events clearly. Bring Gabriel home. We'll deal with him as a family."
"He's staying under medical protection."
"Medical protection? From whom?"
Alexander's eyes hardened. "That's what I intend to find out."
Victor ended the call without saying goodbye.
For a moment the only sound was the hiss of rain against the radiator. Alexander slipped his phone into his pocket.
"Uncle Victor chaired the board while I searched for Gabriel," he said. "He supervised the investigation. He recommended Mercer. He told me the funeral should happen quickly so my mother could grieve."
I thought of Gabriel hidden for five years, of a ring placed in a child's palm, and of Bianca's panic when the boy recognized the truth.
"If Victor knew Gabriel was alive," I asked, "why wait until now to stop him coming home?"
Alexander looked at the untouched tea in front of him.
"Because tomorrow morning," he said, "I was supposed to sign the documents that would give Victor permanent control of the Blackwater shipping division."
The radiator clanged once. Neither of us moved.
May you like
Then Mrs. Carter picked up my empty soup bowl and spoke with the unnerving calm of a woman who had already decided which side of a war she was on.
"Well," she said, "I believe tomorrow's meeting just became very interesting."
