Chapter 2 - THE GIRL WHO DIED IN THE FIRE
Dominic didn't speak for several seconds.
Then he laughed once.
It wasn't amusement.
It was disbelief sharpened into something dangerous.
“My father died six years ago.”
“I know.”
“He spent the last decade of his life searching for Adrian.”
“That's what he told you.”
Dominic's expression hardened.
“You're accusing a dead man of kidnapping his own son.”
“No. I'm telling you what I saw.”
He leaned forward, immediately wincing as pain pulled across his chest.
I instinctively reached toward him.
He caught my wrist.
“Don't.”
I withdrew.
“You'll reopen your wounds.”
“Then stop giving me reasons to move.”
His anger frightened me, but I had spent twelve years being afraid of men who believed fear made them right.
I refused to retreat.
“Your brother saved my life. If you're going to ask about him, you can at least let me tell the truth.”
Dominic stared.
Then slowly released the bedrail.
“Start at the beginning.”
I looked toward the rain streaking his hospital window.
“My name wasn't always Grace Walker.”
“What was it?”
“Grace Ellison.”
He frowned.
“Ellison?”
“My mother was Dr. Miriam Ellison. She worked as a physician for a private children's residence called Blackwater House.”
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
“I remember that name.”
“She believed the residence provided emergency housing for children without guardians. That's what she was told when she accepted the position.”
“And what was it really?”
I swallowed.
“A place where children were kept until somebody decided what to do with them.”
Dominic went still.
“What does that mean?”
“Some were children of witnesses. Some belonged to families involved in criminal investigations. Others were brought there under false guardianship orders.”
“Who was responsible?”
“I don't know everyone involved. I was fourteen.”
I could still remember the building.
Its long white corridors.
The smell of industrial cleaner.
The windows that wouldn't open.
The locked doors that separated the younger children from the offices upstairs.
My mother worked long hours. She told me we were helping children who had nowhere else to go.
Then she began noticing discrepancies.
A little boy named Samuel disappeared without discharge paperwork.
A girl named Rebecca was listed as reunited with relatives who didn't exist.
Medical files carried identification numbers instead of surnames.
My mother started keeping copies.
When she discovered that several children had been moved using forged court orders, she tried to contact a federal investigator.
Two nights later, the fire started.
Dominic listened without interrupting.
“Where was Adrian?”
“He'd been staying there for almost a month.”
“My father told me Adrian ran away.”
“He didn't.”
I remembered Adrian sitting beside the courtyard fountain, teaching the younger children to fold paper boats.
He had been kind to me.
And angry in a way that seemed older than his seventeen years.
“He said his father wanted him to sign something,” I continued. “A statement about a shipment he witnessed at the docks.”
Dominic's face darkened.
“What shipment?”
“He never told me.”
I drew a shaky breath.
“The night of the fire, Adrian found me in the basement. My mother had told me to hide there. He broke a window and pushed me through.”
“And then?”
“He went back for the younger children.”
I looked down.
“I heard shouting. I saw two men dragging him through the service entrance.”
“Did you recognize them?”
“One was wearing a security jacket. The other was your father.”
Dominic stared at me as if I'd struck him.
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
His voice dropped.
“Then why didn't you tell anyone?”
“I did.”
I forced myself to meet his eyes.
“The detective who took my statement told me I was confused. Three days later, my mother was declared dead, and a social worker informed me that Grace Ellison had died in the fire too.”
Dominic's expression changed.
“What?”
“They gave me a new identity. New records. A new foster placement. They told me if I used my old name, the people responsible would find me.”
“Who told you?”
“A woman named Eleanor Voss.”
Dominic whispered something under his breath.
I recognized the name's effect on him immediately.
“You know her.”
He stared at the pendant.
“Eleanor Voss was my father's attorney.”
A cold silence settled between us.
Then Dominic said, “My father told me Adrian died because I wasn't there to protect him.”
I looked at the man lying in the hospital bed.
For the first time, I saw something beneath his reputation.
A little boy who had spent twelve years believing his brother's death was his fault.
“Dominic,” I whispered, “your brother was alive when I last saw him.”
He closed his eyes.
A tear escaped.
When he opened them again, the feared boss of Boston looked almost unrecognizable.
“Then I'm going to find him.”
Before I could answer, his hospital monitor began alarming.
His heart rate was climbing.
I reached for the nurse-call button.
“Conversation over. You're not dying because you refuse to rest.”
He almost smiled.
Then his phone vibrated.
A photograph appeared on the screen.
It showed me leaving my apartment the previous morning.
May you like
Underneath were six words.
THE DEAD GIRL SHOULD STAY DEAD.
