Chapter 22 - lingering ashes
I stood up so fast my heavy leather chair scraped violently against the hardwood floor. "What are you saying, Nora? Julian died in Lake Michigan. I identified his watch. I buried his empty casket in the family plot!"
"You buried what the police told you to bury," Nora said, her dark eyes remaining steadfast despite the violent tremor in her hands. "Julian was terrified, Daniel. In the months leading up to his disappearance, he realized the investment firm your father left you both was being used to launder money for an international shipping syndicate. He tried to pull his name off the accounts, but his senior partners made it clear that the only way out of the firm was in a box."
She walked over to the desk and laid the small leather notebook on top of the green felt blotter, right beside the silver lighter.
"Julian staged the crash," Nora continued, her voice dropping into a urgent, breathless whisper. "He paid a mortuary attendant for a body from the county morgue, placed his watch on the wrist, and set the car on fire over the embankment. He needed the world to believe he was dead so he could disappear and gather the evidence to bring down the men who threatened his family."
"And where is he now?" I demanded, my hands gripping the edge of the mahogany desk so hard my knuckles turned white. "If he survived the fire, why did he leave you and Chloe alone in a tenement apartment for three years? Why did you come here pretending to be a hired housekeeper?"
Nora swallowed hard, looking down at her polished black shoes. "Because six months ago, Julian stopped making contact. His weekly drop-off in the train station locker ceased. I didn't come here to ask for a job, Daniel. I came here because I was running out of money for Chloe's medicine, and because the men who hunted Julian have finally started watching my street."
Before I could answer, the landline phone on the desk rang. The shrill, piercing tone tore through the silence of the library. We both stared at the black plastic receiver as it rang a second time, then a third.
May you like
I reached out and picked up the phone, pressing it to my ear without speaking.
Through the static wire, three distinct rhythmic taps echoed into my ear—two short, one long—followed by a low, metallic click. It was the exact signal Julian used to tap on his bedroom door when we were boys.
