Chapter 10 - My Mother Was Supposed to Be Dead
At first, I thought the boy was confused.
“My mother died fourteen years ago.”
Lou’s son, Ben, shook his head stubbornly.
“The man said, ‘Evelyn wants the girls alive.’ I heard him.”
My knees weakened.
Elias gripped the edge of a chair with his uninjured arm.
“Exactly those words?”
Ben nodded.
“Did you see the man who said it?”
“He wore a mask.”
“Accent?”
“I don’t know.”
Lou pulled his son close.
“That’s enough.”
But it was not enough.
Nothing would ever be enough again.
Back at the penthouse, a surgeon stitched Elias’s shoulder while I sat across the room with the twins.
He refused pain medication until the doctor threatened to sedate him.
I watched him wince.
“You deserve that.”
“For being shot?”
“For arguing with doctors.”
“Cruel.”
“You’ll survive.”
His eyes met mine.
“So will you.”
I looked away.
Naomi arrived before dawn with news.
“We checked Evelyn Rose’s death certificate.”
“And?” I asked.
“It’s valid.”
Relief and disappointment collided.
“She died.”
“Legally, yes.”
I frowned.
“What does that mean?”
Naomi placed copies on the table.
“The hospital record exists. Cremation authorization exists. Social Security death record exists.”
“But?”
“No DNA. No family identification at the morgue.”
“I identified her.”
“You identified a closed casket.”
My mouth went dry.
I remembered being twelve.
A social worker beside me.
A cheap funeral home.
The director telling me there had been complications after a fire in the building where Mom worked.
I had never seen her body.
“No.”
Elias sat up despite the doctor’s glare.
“What caused the death?”
“Smoke inhalation.”
“Fire report?”
“Missing from city archive.”
Marco swore.
Naomi continued.
“The funeral home closed two years later. Owner died in Florida.”
I stood.
“So my mother could be alive.”
“Yes.”
“Or someone is using her name.”
“Yes.”
I hated lawyers.
Elias asked, “Financial activity?”
“Nothing under Evelyn Rose. But we found a dormant company called E.V. Custodial Services. It activated three days after the twins were born.”
The initials again.
“Evelyn Vale?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
“Elias Vance,” Marco said.
Everyone looked at him.
Elias’s face hardened.
“My initials are useful camouflage.”
Naomi nodded. “Exactly.”
The company had transferred ten million dollars to a legal defense fund.
“For who?” I asked.
Naomi turned the page.
“Caleb Miller.”
Rage heated my face.
“My mother is paying his lawyers?”
“Someone using a structure tied to her is.”
I looked at Elias.
“What if she planned my marriage?”
He did not answer.
The thought became unbearable.
My entire life rearranged itself into possible manipulation.
The scholarship I mysteriously received after high school.
The diner where Caleb happened to meet me.
The apartment he could suddenly afford after our wedding.
The hospital midwife who already knew my mother.
Maybe poverty had not made me invisible.
Maybe it had made me easy to position.
I laid June in her bassinet.
“I want to go to my old apartment.”
Elias frowned.
“Why?”
“My mother’s things.”
“You said you had almost nothing.”
“I kept one box.”
“Where?”
“Storage unit in Brooklyn.”
Marco was already reaching for his coat.
The storage facility smelled like dust and damp cardboard.
My unit was barely large enough to stand inside.
We moved boxes: old clothes, school notebooks, photographs, my mother’s chipped blue mug.
Then I found the one I remembered.
Her recipe box.
“Your secret inheritance is lasagna?” Elias asked.
“Don’t insult my mother’s lasagna.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
I opened the box.
Index cards.
Soup.
Meatloaf.
Apple pie.
Then I noticed something strange.
Every seventh card had a tiny dot in the upper corner.
I pulled them out.
Seven cards.
The first letters of each recipe spelled:
V A N C E S T
“Vance Street,” Marco said.
Elias looked at him.
“There is no Vance Street.”
“There used to be,” I whispered.
My mother had taken me there once as a child.
A row of abandoned brownstones near the river.
Most were demolished.
One building remained.
Number 41.
We reached it at sunrise.
The brownstone looked condemned, but the front door opened with my mother’s silver key.
Inside, dust covered everything except a narrow path through the hallway.
Someone had been there recently.
Elias motioned for me to stay behind him.
We found a kitchen, empty bedrooms, an office.
On the second floor, one room was locked.
The key worked again.
Inside were photographs.
Hundreds.
Me at eight.
Me at twelve.
Me graduating high school.
Me working at the diner.
Me marrying Caleb.
My pregnancy.
My stomach turned.
Someone had watched every year of my life.
On a desk sat a fresh photograph.
Taken three days earlier.
Elias carrying me from the overpass.
Next to it was a note.
AVA, I AM SORRY YOU HAD TO LEARN THIS WAY.
I touched the paper.
The handwriting was unmistakable.
My mother’s.
My knees gave out.
Elias caught me with his good arm.
“She’s alive.”
A floorboard creaked downstairs.
Marco drew his weapon.
Elias pushed me behind him.
Footsteps climbed slowly.
One.
Two.
Three.
A woman appeared at the top of the stairs.
Silver threaded through dark hair. Fine lines surrounded familiar green eyes.
My eyes.
She looked at me.
Then at the babies’ photograph in my hand.
“Ava,” she whispered.
I could not breathe.
“Mom?”
She began to cry.
Before I could move, Elias raised his gun.
The woman’s expression changed.
“Don’t,” she said.
Elias froze.
She looked straight at him.
“If you shoot me, you’ll never learn why your father killed Roman.”
For a few seconds I could only stare at the woman on the landing.
Fourteen years of grief did not disappear because a familiar face had walked out of a locked room. It changed shape. It became anger so large I could barely hold it.
“You let me bury you,” I said.
My mother flinched.
“You let me stand beside a coffin and think I was alone.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Elias lowered the weapon, but not completely.
Evelyn looked at him. “Still cautious.”
“You’re supposed to be dead.”
“So was Roman.”
That sentence changed the air again.
I stared at her.
“What does that mean?”
May you like
She looked back at me, tears still shining in her eyes.
“It means the story you’ve uncovered is only the version powerful men needed you to believe.”
