Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN WHO HAD BEEN DEAD FOR TWENTY-TWO YEARS
“I saw your mother after her funeral.”
Arthur Mills spoke the words so quietly that Roman Kane almost missed them.
Almost.
The storage facility suddenly seemed too small for the three of them.
Roman stared at the elderly man who had helped raise him.
“Say that again.”
Arthur's hands trembled around the brass key.
“Your mother. Elizabeth. I saw her seven days after we buried her.”
Roman looked at the photograph inside the metal box.
His mother stood beside a black Cadillac, wearing a cream-colored coat. Her dark hair fell across one shoulder, and she was smiling at someone outside the frame.
He remembered that smile.
He remembered her perfume.
He remembered the last morning she'd kissed his forehead and told him to behave for Arthur.
He had been fourteen when she died.
Twenty-two years had passed.
“That's impossible,” Roman whispered.
Arthur lowered his eyes.
“I thought so too.”
Roman turned toward him.
“Where?”
“At the old lake house.”
“Who was with her?”
Arthur hesitated.
“Your father.”
Roman felt something cold move through his chest.
“My father told me she died in a car accident.”
“I know.”
“He identified her body.”
“I know.”
“He stood beside me at her funeral.”
Arthur nodded.
Roman stepped backward.
For a moment, he looked less like Chicago's most feared businessman and more like the fourteen-year-old boy who had watched a coffin disappear into the ground.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Arthur's eyes filled.
“I tried.”
Roman stared at him.
“Three times. I tried to see you.”
The forged letter lay on the table between them.
Roman looked down.
I believe it is best that you move forward without further contact with the family.
His own name beneath words he had never written.
Eleven years.
Eleven years of silence.
And now twenty-two years of lies.
Roman picked up the cassette recorder.
“Did my father leave anything else?”
Arthur pointed toward the envelope.
“There should be a second letter.”
Roman searched.
Beneath the photographs, he found a smaller envelope.
On the front, in his father's handwriting, were four words.
WHEN YOU KNOW THE TRUTH.
Roman opened it.
Inside was a single sheet.
Roman,
If you are reading this, I have failed to protect you from the consequences of decisions I made when I believed fear was the same thing as love.
Your mother did not die in that accident.
But the woman you knew as Elizabeth Kane was not the woman she claimed to be.
Roman stopped reading.
Arthur watched him.
“What does it say?”
Roman swallowed.
Then continued.
There are things about our family that cannot be explained in a letter.
The recordings will tell you where to begin.
Trust Arthur.
And whatever you do, do not confront Elizabeth alone.
Roman slowly lowered the paper.
Arthur looked frightened.
“Roman?”
Roman stared at the cassette recorder.
Then reached for the first tape.
On its label, written in faded blue ink, were three words.
ELIZABETH — OCTOBER 2004.
Roman pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman's voice emerged.
His mother's voice.
Calm.
Beautiful.
Terrifyingly familiar.
“Daniel, if you tell our son who I really am, I'll make sure he never lives long enough to forgive you.”
Roman stopped breathing.
May you like
The tape continued.
And for the first time in twenty-two years, he heard his father cry.
