Chapter 3 - THE DEAD MAN WHO TAUGHT ME FALCON
Four years earlier, I met Dorian Cain inside an ambulance bay at St. Agnes Rehabilitation Center.
I was twenty-four.
Poppy was two.
I worked evenings as a patient transport aide because the hospital daycare offered reduced rates.
At 2:13 one rainy morning, a black SUV arrived without warning.
Two men carried in a third.
Bleeding.
Conscious.
Furious.
His name, according to the admission paperwork, was Daniel Cross.
It wasn't.
I discovered that later.
The bullet had passed through his shoulder.
Another wound along his neck damaged tissue around his throat.
He could breathe.
He could swallow eventually.
But for several weeks speaking was almost impossible.
He hated everybody.
Nurses.
Doctors.
Security.
Especially me.
The first time I pushed his wheelchair, he tapped twice against the metal armrest.
I ignored him.
He tapped again.
I looked down.
His fingers formed a crude sign.
Stop.
I stopped.
He pointed toward my phone.
The lock screen showed Poppy.
She was signing milk.
“You know ASL?” I asked.
He nodded.
That was how it started.
Dorian knew basic ASL.
I knew more because Poppy's speech therapist had encouraged signing during her delay.
Over the next month, Dorian and I communicated more with our hands than our voices.
He never told me who he was.
I didn't ask.
Then one night I entered his room and found him drawing a falcon.
Not once.
Twenty times.
On napkins.
Paper cups.
The back of a therapy schedule.
“Obsessed?” I asked.
He smiled.
Then signed:
Mother.
I pointed to the bird.
“Your mother is a falcon?”
He laughed silently.
Then taught me the first Falcon sign.
Thumb across palm.
Two fingers turned inward.
Home.
Falcon wasn't really a language.
It was a code layered over signs.
Dorian had invented it with Evelyn when he was eleven after his father began bringing dangerous men into their house.
If mother and son needed to speak privately across a crowded room, they could.
Ronan never bothered learning.
“He thought we were playing,” Dorian eventually whispered after his voice partially returned.
“Were you?”
“At first.”
Then their father died.
The game became useful.
One night Dorian asked:
“Do you trust people who say they're protecting you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“Why?”
“Because protection is the prettiest word controlling people ever invented.”
I thought about that sentence for years.
He was discharged after six weeks.
I expected never to see him again.
Three months later he appeared outside my apartment carrying groceries.
I nearly slammed the door.
“How did you find me?”
“You filled out emergency contact paperwork when daycare called.”
“That is deeply creepy.”
“Yes.”
He held up a bag.
“But I brought cereal.”
Poppy adored him immediately.
Not as a father.
As the strange tall man who knew how to make paper birds.
Dorian never gave me money.
I wouldn't take it.
But sometimes groceries appeared.
Sometimes he repaired things.
Once he replaced Poppy's broken stroller wheel and denied doing it despite being the only person with access.
Eventually he told me his real name.
Cain.
I almost threw him out.
Everybody knew.
Dorian laughed.
“That's why I didn't lead with it.”
He was Ronan's younger brother.
Not the boss.
Not interested in becoming boss.
He had served in the Army before returning to handle legitimate security operations for the family.
Or mostly legitimate.
Dorian spoke carefully about the rest.
Then, six months after we met, he arrived at my apartment at midnight.
No groceries.
No jokes.
Blood on his cuff.
“Pack a bag.”
I stared.
“What happened?”
“Nothing to you yet.”
“Dorian.”
“Pack.”
“I am not going anywhere until you tell me.”
He looked toward Poppy's bedroom.
Then lowered his voice.
“Someone inside my family is selling us out.”
I said nothing.
“I found transfers. Routes. Meeting information.”
“Then tell Ronan.”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“He thinks the leak is lower.”
“And you don't?”
“No.”
“Who?”
Dorian hesitated.
“My uncle Gideon.”
Gideon Cain.
His father's younger brother.
Family attorney.
Advisor.
The man newspapers called the reasonable Cain.
Dorian believed Gideon had been providing sensitive information to a rival organization for years.
Not enough to destroy the Cains.
Enough to create chaos Gideon could profit from.
Dorian had also discovered something worse.
“Mother knows.”
“What?”
“She heard him.”
“Then let her tell Ronan.”
“She did.”
“And?”
Dorian looked sick.
“Ronan thinks grief is affecting her.”
“Grief over what?”
“Our father.”
This was before Evelyn's silence.
Before Dorian's death.
Before Raven Hill became a mausoleum.
Dorian paced.
“Gideon has Dr. Hollis in his pocket.”
That name meant nothing to me then.
Now it meant everything.
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because you're outside the family.”
“That isn't comforting.”
“You're the only person Gideon wouldn't think matters.”
I laughed bitterly.
“That's extremely comforting.”
Dorian reached into his coat.
He held out a small brass capsule.
“No.”
“Mara.”
“No.”
“If something happens—”
“No.”
“Listen.”
His voice sharpened.
I stopped.
“If something happens to me, do not take this to Ronan immediately.”
“What?”
“Wait.”
“For what?”
“My mother.”
He taught me one final Falcon exchange.
Where are you, my child?
I am not lost.
“If she signs that to you someday, she remembers.”
“Why would I ever meet your mother?”
“You may not.”
“Then what?”
“Keep living.”
He looked toward Poppy's room.
“Keep her safe.”
“What's inside?”
“Something Ronan needs.”
“Then give it to him.”
“I can't yet.”
“Why?”
“Because he's angry.”
“That seems like a family trait.”
Dorian almost smiled.
Then he rolled up his sleeve.
A small falcon tattoo sat on his inner wrist.
I had seen it before.
That night he took me to a tiny tattoo shop owned by an old Army friend.
I refused twice.
Then Dorian explained.
“If Mother sees this after I'm gone, she'll know I trusted you.”
“Can't I carry a note?”
“Notes disappear.”
“Jewelry?”
“Gets stolen.”
“Apparently skin is the secure option?”
He smiled.
“Apparently.”
I should have walked away.
Instead, forty minutes later, a black falcon sat beneath my left wrist.
Three days after that, Dorian left Ashport.
He told me he was meeting someone who could verify the financial trail.
He never returned.
The official story said his vehicle was attacked outside the city.
By the time Ronan's men reached him, Dorian was dead.
Closed casket.
No viewing.
I stood in the back of the funeral wearing a black coat.
I never approached the family.
That night, the photograph of Poppy appeared beneath my door.
I understood the message.
Somebody knew Dorian had trusted me.
Somebody knew I had a child.
So I ran.
For four years.
Now I stood inside Raven Hill holding another photograph of Poppy.
Same threat.
Different day.
I was still staring when Ronan entered the staff room.
I shoved the photograph into my pocket.
Too late.
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
Ronan held out his hand.
“Mara.”
“No.”
His expression changed.
“I am becoming tired of that word.”
“Get used to it.”
He stepped closer.
“Something frightened you.”
“I have a six-year-old and seventeen dollars until Friday. Lots of things frighten me.”
He looked at my pocket.
Then at me.
“Show me.”
“No.”
“Mara—”
“Your mother needs me. That doesn't make my life yours.”
For several seconds neither moved.
Then Ronan did something unexpected.
He backed away.
“Fine.”
I blinked.
He walked toward the door.
Then stopped.
“But if whatever you're hiding puts my mother in danger, I won't forgive you.”
The door closed.
I pulled out the photograph again.
At the bottom corner, nearly invisible, was a small embossed mark.
A letter G inside a circle.
I'd seen it once before.
On the envelope sent after Dorian died.
G.
Gideon.
Or someone who wanted me to think Gideon.
Either way, the past had found me.
That evening, instead of going home, I walked to Evelyn's room.
I locked the door.
Pulled the brass capsule from beneath my shirt.
And placed it in her palm.
Her entire body began trembling.
Falcon.
Open?
I nodded.
“Yes.”
The capsule unscrewed.
Inside was not a letter.
It was a tiny memory card.
May you like
And wrapped around it was a strip of paper containing seven handwritten words.
IF I AM DEAD, THE HOUSE IS COMPROMISED.
