Chapter 4 - The Woman From the Funeral
Her name was Evelyn Mercer.
Thaddius’s older sister.
I remembered her from one photograph and one terrible afternoon.
At my mother’s funeral, she had worn a gray hat with a crooked ribbon and spent most of the service staring at Thaddius instead of the coffin. Afterward, she pressed twenty dollars into my hand and whispered, “Keep something for yourself.”
Then she disappeared from my life.
Now she stood in the church vestibule at two in the morning with snow on her boots and fear etched into every line of her face.
Rowan searched her bag before Wesley allowed her farther inside.
She did not complain.
That frightened me more than if she had.
“You’ve been following me?” I asked.
“No.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“Thaddius called me.”
Wesley’s eyes sharpened.
“When?”
“An hour ago.”
“What did he say?”
Evelyn looked at me.
“He said you finally found what your mother hid.”
My fingers closed around the blue tin.
“How would he know?”
“I told him years ago where Nora used to volunteer.”
Her shame arrived before I could speak.
“I didn’t understand then. He told me he wanted family photographs. I gave him the church name. I’m sorry.”
Anger rose fast.
“So he searched here?”
“For years.”
Father Brennan crossed himself quietly.
Evelyn continued.
“He never found the box because he was looking in offices. Closets. Filing cabinets. He never thought you would hide anything in Christmas decorations.”
I almost smiled.
My mother had known him well.
“What do you know about her death?”
Evelyn looked toward Wesley.
“I’m not saying this in front of him.”
“You are,” I said.
She blinked.
I surprised myself too.
But secrets had shaped my entire life. I was done letting other people decide which room truth belonged in.
Evelyn sat in the front pew.
We joined her.
“My brother was in love with your mother,” she said.
I stared.
“No.”
“Not the way healthy people love. He wanted to own her. She never wanted him.”
I felt sick.
“When your father died, Thaddius started helping with groceries, repairs, paperwork. Nora was grieving. She thought he was being kind.”
Of course he had.
Thaddius understood debt better than affection.
“He learned Patrick had copied financial records,” Evelyn said. “He told Vescari. I heard the calls.”
Wesley leaned forward.
“Gabriel Vescari personally?”
“I don’t know. Someone under him.”
“What happened to Nora?” I asked.
Evelyn’s eyes filled.
“She planned to take you and leave Boston.”
I remembered packed bags.
I had thought we were visiting an aunt.
“She never made it,” Evelyn whispered.
My mother died in what police called an accidental apartment fire.
Smoke inhalation.
Faulty wiring.
I had been at school.
Thaddius arrived first to tell me.
I spent years thanking him for being there.
Now I understood why he had been.
“Did he start the fire?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer hurt because I believed it.
Evelyn wiped her face.
“But I know he was inside your apartment that afternoon. He came to my place later smelling like smoke. He told me Nora was dead and you were his responsibility now.”
My stomach twisted.
Wesley stood and walked a few steps away.
His hands were clenched.
The control I had seen in the restaurant looked thinner now.
“You knew about this?” I asked him.
“No.”
“But you suspected.”
“I suspected Mercer was searching for Patrick’s records. I did not know he might have been involved in your mother’s death.”
“You sat at my table for four months because of my father.”
“Yes.”
The admission landed cold.
Not because I had expected different.
Because some small part of me had liked the idea that he came to Il Farro for the food.
Or the quiet.
Or even for me.
Instead, I had been an investigation.
“You should have told me.”
“I didn’t know if telling you would put you in more danger.”
“So you decided for me.”
“Yes.”
He did not dress it up.
That made it worse and better at the same time.
Evelyn reached into her coat.
Rowan moved.
She froze.
“It’s paper.”
She slowly pulled out an envelope and handed it to me.
Inside was a bank statement from an account in Thaddius’s name.
Deposits every month for years.
The sender was listed as M. Vescari Holdings.
“He’s been paid to watch me,” I said.
Evelyn nodded.
“Until recently.”
“What changed?”
“The payments stopped three months ago.”
Three months.
One month before Wesley began coming every Thursday.
I looked at him.
He understood the connection too.
“That’s when Vescari’s people started asking about you directly,” Wesley said.
My skin went cold.
“Why?”
“Because someone learned Patrick’s records were still missing.”
“And you learned too.”
“Yes.”
“So table six was surveillance.”
“At first.”
The last two words slipped out before he could stop them.
I looked at him.
“At first?”
His expression closed.
Before he could answer, Rowan’s phone rang again.
He listened for ten seconds.
Then handed the phone to Wesley.
Wesley’s face hardened as he read the message.
“What now?” I asked.
He turned the screen toward me.
A photograph.
My apartment.
This time, the image was taken from inside my bedroom.
Someone had placed my mother’s old scarf across my pillow.
On top of it sat a handwritten note.
BRING THE KEY TO PIER 19 AT NOON.
COME ALONE OR THE OLD WOMAN DIES.
I read it twice.
“What old woman?” I whispered.
Evelyn made a small sound beside me.
Her phone was gone.
So was her car.
Then Father Brennan came rushing from the rectory, holding his own phone.
“Cora,” he said, pale. “Your former neighbor in Dorchester called the parish. Someone took Mrs. Callahan.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Mrs. Callahan had lived across the hall from my mother.
She was seventy-nine now.
And she had been the one person who held me while I screamed at my mother’s funeral.
Wesley reached for the note.
I pulled it away.
“No.”
May you like
His eyes met mine.
“No more deciding for me,” I said. “If they want the key, then we use the key.”
