Chapter 2 - MY FATHER’S SECOND LIFE
Dominic did something I did not expect.
He called my mother.
Not one of his men.
Not a lawyer.
He personally called Rachel Mercer and told her I was safe.
Then he handed me the phone.
“Mom?”
“Lena?”
Her panic almost broke me.
“I’m okay.”
“What happened?”
I looked at Dominic.
“I… read something.”
There was silence.
Not confusion.
Silence.
“Mom?”
“Come home.”
Something in her voice frightened me.
Dominic noticed.
An hour later, we were inside our Queens apartment.
Mom opened the door.
Then she saw the journal.
Her face went white.
“No.”
I stared.
“You've seen it.”
She backed away.
“Take that out of my house.”
“Mom.”
“Now.”
Dominic remained near the doorway.
“You knew Daniel was working on it.”
She looked at him.
“I know who you are.”
“So did your husband.”
Mom's eyes filled.
“He promised he was finished with all of you.”
I felt betrayed.
“All of who?”
Nobody answered.
I shouted.
“Dad was a professor!”
Mom looked at me.
“He was.”
“Then what aren't you telling me?”
She sat down.
Dad had consulted for museums, universities, law enforcement agencies—and private collectors.
Some collectors acquired things legally.
Others didn't.
Twelve years earlier, Dominic's father, Carlo Russo, hired Dad to authenticate documents recovered from a European estate.
The journal was among them.
Dad discovered it was not medieval.
Not exactly.
The leather was old.
Some pages were old.
But the encoded writing had been added much later.
Someone wanted the journal to look ancient because age made people assume the secret inside it belonged to history.
It didn't.
Dad called it a camouflage manuscript.
“Why?”
I asked.
Mom looked at Dominic.
“Because it documented something powerful people wanted buried.”
Dominic opened the journal.
“What?”
“I don't know.”
“You lived with him.”
“And he protected me by not telling me.”
I hated that sentence.
Protected me.
Adults loved that word when they meant lied.
Then Mom went into her bedroom.
She returned carrying Dad's old dictionary.
A massive green book I had seen a thousand times.
She handed it to me.
“Your father told me that if anyone ever came asking about the Russo journal, I should give this to you.”
“To me?”
“He said you'd understand what to do.”
I opened it.
Nothing.
Then I noticed page 317.
A tiny dot beside one word.
PALIMPSEST.
Dad had taught me that word when I was nine.
A manuscript where older writing remains beneath newer writing.
I held the page toward the lamp.
Indentations appeared.
Numbers.
Coordinates.
Dominic entered them into his phone.
The location was in Brooklyn.
An old public library branch scheduled for demolition.
Victor Hale had lied about one thing.
The journal did not contain the secret.
It contained directions to pieces of it.
May you like
And my father had hidden the first piece.
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