Chapter 2 - The Father She Buried Without a Body
Naomi stared at the photograph until the edges blurred.
“That’s impossible.”
Liam did not touch the phone.
“Who is he?”
“My father.”
Marco looked at Liam.
Naomi continued.
“He died when I was twenty-one.”
“How?”
“Work accident.”
“Body?”
She stopped.
The question sounded cruel until she understood why he asked it.
“No.”
The plant fire had burned too hot.
That was what everyone said.
Her father, Samuel Reed, had worked maintenance at a shipping depot on the South Side. An electrical fire broke out overnight. Three men died.
Only two bodies were recovered.
Samuel’s locker, wallet, and wedding ring had been found.
Her mother had held a funeral anyway.
Naomi had spent eight years believing ash could be enough to bury.
“What year was the photograph taken?” Liam asked.
She looked closer.
Behind Samuel stood a mural that had not existed when she was twenty-one.
Naomi knew because the mural belonged to a neighborhood youth project painted four years after his death.
Her knees weakened.
“He was alive.”
Marco pulled out a folding chair from near the security office.
Naomi sat.
“He was alive after the fire.”
No one answered.
Her phone buzzed again.
Greg.
YOU WANT THE REST? COME HOME.
Liam’s voice went quiet.
“You’re not going.”
Naomi looked at him.
“That sounded like an order.”
He corrected himself.
“I don’t think you should go.”
“Better.”
Marco looked between them.
“This is going to be a long night.”
Teresa arrived fifteen minutes later.
She was forty, dark-haired, blunt, and immediately furious when she saw Naomi’s injuries.
“I’m not going to ask whether you walked into a door.”
Naomi looked away.
“Good.”
“I am going to ask whether I can examine your ribs.”
Naomi hesitated.
Teresa waited.
“Okay.”
The exam happened upstairs in a bedroom with the door closed and Liam nowhere near it.
Bruised ribs.
Possible mild concussion.
No obvious fracture.
Teresa wanted a hospital scan.
Naomi still refused.
Teresa did not shame her.
She handed Naomi a bottle of water.
“Then if you vomit, get confused, lose consciousness, or your headache worsens, you go. No negotiation.”
“Okay.”
“And you do not go back to Greg.”
Naomi gave her a tired look.
“That sounded like an order too.”
“It was.”
For the first time that night, Naomi laughed.
It hurt.
But it was real.
Later, wrapped in borrowed sweatpants and a sweatshirt, Naomi sat at Liam’s kitchen island.
He placed copies of old business files in front of her.
“Your father worked at South Meridian Shipping.”
“Yes.”
“My family owned thirty percent of the company.”
Naomi’s head came up.
“Your family?”
“My father invested in it. I was twenty-four and had no control then.”
“Was the fire connected to you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I prefer it to lying.”
She studied him.
“Where does Vincent Orsini fit?”
“Vincent has managed Moretti financial records for nineteen years. Three months ago, he told me someone was moving money through old companies my father used.”
“Illegal money?”
“Yes.”
“You say that very easily.”
“I’m not asking you to mistake me for an accountant with good manners.”
Naomi looked down at the photograph of Samuel.
“What was in the blue envelope?”
“Greg has it.”
“No. What do you think was in it?”
Liam leaned back.
“Proof.”
“Of what?”
“That depends on who wants it.”
Marco entered.
“We got diner footage.”
He placed a tablet on the counter.
The video showed Greg entering at 2:41 a.m.
Jimmy tried to stop him.
Greg shoved him against the counter.
Naomi flinched.
Liam paused the video.
“You want to stop?”
“No.”
He resumed.
Greg went directly to Naomi’s locker.
He had a key.
“How?” Naomi whispered.
She had never given him one.
Then she remembered her spare key ring.
It disappeared two months earlier.
Greg had laughed when she accused him.
The footage showed him removing the blue envelope.
Before leaving, he looked directly at the camera.
Then smiled.
Naomi’s stomach twisted.
“He knew.”
“Knew what?” Marco asked.
“That I’d see.”
Liam said, “This is not just about an envelope anymore.”
“It never was.”
Naomi’s voice surprised even her.
She looked at Greg’s frozen image.
“He has been hurting me for three years.”
No one interrupted.
“He monitors my bank account. Checks my phone. Decides which friends are ‘bad for me.’ He broke my wrist eighteen months ago.”
Teresa, standing in the doorway, went still.
Naomi continued.
“I told urgent care I slipped.”
Liam’s face changed, but he said nothing.
“He doesn’t lose control,” Naomi said. “That’s the lie I told myself. Greg uses control.”
She looked at Liam.
“If he knows about my father, he didn’t discover it tonight.”
“No.”
“He has been connected to this longer.”
“Yes.”
Naomi swallowed.
“I married him because he found me after Dad died.”
Liam frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“Greg worked security at the shipping depot. He came to our house after the fire. He helped my mother with paperwork.”
Marco swore.
Naomi stared at the old photograph.
Greg had entered her life because of her father.
Not despite the tragedy.
Because of it.
Her phone rang.
This time Liam did not tell her whether to answer.
Naomi did.
Greg’s voice came through sweet and calm.
“Baby.”
Her stomach clenched.
“Don’t call me that.”
“You’re scared.”
“No.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Where is my father?”
Silence.
Then Greg laughed softly.
“So you finally looked.”
“Is he alive?”
“You come home, I tell you.”
“No.”
“You don’t have a choice.”
Naomi’s voice steadied.
“I already made one.”
Greg stopped laughing.
“You think Moretti is protecting you?”
Naomi looked at Liam.
Liam gave nothing away.
Greg continued.
“He is the reason your father disappeared.”
Naomi’s chest tightened.
“What?”
“Ask him about South Meridian. Ask him what his father did.”
Then the line went dead.
Naomi looked at Liam.
“You heard him.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
May you like
Liam did not look away.
“My father ordered the South Meridian fire.”
