Chapter 2 - I hesitated before taking it.
Gabriel opened to a marked page.
Daniel Kane’s handwriting was untidy and rushed.
Thomas says numbers tell the truth if people are patient enough to listen. He found another discrepancy today. He refuses payment beyond his normal consulting fee. Says if something happens to him, Claire will know what matters.
My throat tightened.
I read the sentence again.
Claire will know what matters.
“I don’t know anything,” I whispered.
“Maybe he didn’t mean financial information,” Gabriel said.
I looked up.
For the first time that night, Gabriel Kane did not look like a man demanding answers.
He looked like a man hoping I might possess one.
I closed the journal.
“I want to go to my apartment.”
“No.”
The word came immediately.
My eyes narrowed.
Gabriel corrected himself.
“It may not be secure.”
“That’s better.”
Mason suddenly became very interested in checking his phone.
Gabriel almost looked embarrassed.
Almost.
“We can send someone,” he said.
“No.”
“Claire.”
“My father’s things are mine.”
“If someone is watching your building—”
“Then going alone would be foolish.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t say I was going alone.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You’re asking me to go with you?”
“I’m telling you that if you want to search my father’s belongings, I will be there.”
Mason finally looked up.
“I can arrange it for morning.”
Gabriel glanced at the clock.
It was nearly four.
“Morning,” he agreed.
I expected to feel relieved.
Instead, a strange certainty settled inside me.
My father had hidden something.
And whatever it was, someone had spent years waiting for it to surface.
I slept for three hours.
When I woke, sunlight was beginning to turn the rain clouds silver.
Someone had placed clean clothes outside the guest room.
Not expensive clothes.
Not silk or designer labels.
Gray sweatpants.
A navy sweater.
And sensible black flats in my size.
I stared at the shoes.
Then laughed for the first time since the tunnel.
At breakfast, I found Gabriel feeding Eli mashed banana with absolutely no skill whatsoever.
Eli had banana on his nose.
Gabriel had banana on his cuff.
Neither appeared satisfied with the arrangement.
“You’re holding the spoon wrong,” I said.
Gabriel looked over.
“There are multiple ways to hold a spoon?”
“Apparently one correct way and whatever you’re doing.”
Mason coughed into his coffee.
Gabriel handed me the spoon.
“Demonstrate.”
I sat beside Eli.
He immediately opened his mouth.
Gabriel stared at him.
“That seems personal.”
“It probably is.”
For a few minutes, the world felt ordinary.
A baby ate breakfast.
Coffee steamed in mugs.
Morning light touched the hardwood floor.
Then my phone rang.
Mom.
I answered immediately.
“Claire? Where are you?”
“I’m safe.”
“I called your apartment last night. Then someone from your office told me there had been a traffic incident.”
I closed my eyes.
“I’m okay, Mom.”
Gabriel glanced over.
“Are you hurt?”
“Nothing serious.”
That was not completely true, but mothers were entitled to carefully edited versions of terrifying nights.
She went silent.
Then she said, “Claire, did this have something to do with your father?”
Every sound in the kitchen seemed to disappear.
I sat straighter.
“Why would you ask that?”
Another silence.
Longer.
“Mom?”
“There are things I should have told you.”
My pulse quickened.
“What things?”
“Not over the phone.”
I looked at Gabriel.
He was already reading my expression.
“Where are you?” I asked her.
“Home.”
“We’re coming.”
I ended the call.
Gabriel stood.
“We?”
“You wanted answers.”
“You’re bringing me to meet your mother?”
“You seem terrified.”
Mason made another suspicious coughing sound.
Gabriel gave him a look.
Twenty minutes later, we were driving toward Oak Park.
My mother opened the door before we reached the porch.
Margaret Bennett was sixty-two, five feet four inches tall, and capable of making a roomful of adults feel guilty simply by asking whether anyone had remembered to eat.
She hugged me carefully.
Then she noticed Gabriel.
“Oh.”
Gabriel Kane, feared by half the city’s corporate boardrooms, suddenly looked uncertain.
“Mrs. Bennett.”
“You’re taller than television makes you look.”
I covered my face.
“Mom.”
“What? He is.”
To my surprise, Gabriel smiled.
Only slightly.
But genuinely.
Mom led us into the dining room.
There, in the center of the table, sat my father’s old wooden toolbox.
I stopped.
“You kept it?”
“I told you I donated it.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
“Why?”
She sat.
“Because your father asked me not to.”
Gabriel remained near the doorway.
Mom looked at him.
“You look like Daniel.”
Gabriel froze.
“You knew my brother?”
“A little.”
She rested both hands on the toolbox.
“Thomas trusted him.”
Then she looked at me.
“Your father knew someone was hiding money. But that wasn’t what frightened him.”
“What frightened him?”
“He discovered the money was being moved into something else.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“What?”
Mom opened the toolbox.
Beneath a tray of rusted screwdrivers was a false wooden bottom.
My heart began pounding.
She lifted it.
Inside lay a sealed envelope.
My name was written across the front.
CLAIRE.
I reached for it.
Inside was a letter.
And one small brass key.
I unfolded the paper.
Claire,
If you are reading this, then something I hoped would remain buried has returned.
Do not begin with the money.
Begin with the house.
The house was never Daniel’s greatest investment.
It was his promise.
Ask Gabriel why Lake House Number Seven was purchased in your name.
I stopped breathing.
Gabriel took the letter from my trembling hand.
He read the final line twice.
Then looked at me.
“I have never heard of Lake House Number Seven.”
My mother went pale.
“Then Thomas was right.”
“About what?” I asked.
She stared at Gabriel.
May you like
“That Daniel Kane was hiding something from his own family.”
And for the first time since this began, Gabriel looked every bit as lost as I felt.
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