Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Attended Her Own Funeral|
I spent the next twenty minutes staring at my mother's photograph.
I touched her face with one trembling finger.
Her dark hair.
Her familiar eyes.
The small pearl earrings she'd worn every Sunday.
I remembered sitting beside her coffin at the funeral, too young to understand why the lid remained closed.
My father told everyone the accident had been terrible.
He said I shouldn't see her.
He said remembering her beautiful face would be better than remembering what death had done.
I had believed him.
Now I wondered whether the coffin had been empty.
"Nora."
Nico's voice brought me back.
He sat beside me.
"Whoever gave Matteo this photograph says there may be more information."
I looked at him.
"Who?"
"A woman named Margaret Ellis."
I froze.
"Mrs. Ellis?"
"You know her?"
"She was our housekeeper."
The words came out in a rush.
"She worked for my family when I was little. She used to braid my hair before school. She made cinnamon toast when my mother was traveling."
My throat tightened.
"Then one day she disappeared."
Nico nodded.
"She says your father fired her shortly after your mother's funeral."
"Where is she?"
"Brooklyn."
I stood so quickly that the chair scraped the floor.
"I want to see her."
Nico hesitated.
Then nodded.
"We'll arrange it somewhere safe."
The following afternoon, I walked into a private office on the Upper East Side.
A gray-haired woman stood near the window.
She turned.
And burst into tears.
"Oh, my sweet girl."
"Mrs. Ellis?"
She crossed the room.
I ran into her arms.
For a moment, I was twelve again.
A frightened girl clinging to the only adult who had ever believed her.
Margaret held me tightly.
"I looked for you," she whispered.
I began sobbing.
"Why did you leave?"
Her face crumpled.
"Your father threatened my family."
We sat down.
Nico remained nearby but gave us privacy.
Margaret took a deep breath.
"Your mother didn't die in that car accident."
I gripped her hand.
"Where is she?"
Margaret's eyes filled.
"I don't know where she is now."
My hope faltered.
"But you saw her?"
"Yes."
"When?"
"Three weeks after the funeral."
Margaret looked toward Nico.
Then back at me.
"Your father made me pack some of her belongings. He told me to deliver them to a private residence in Manhattan."
"Why?"
"He said the family had donated them."
Her voice trembled.
"When I arrived, a woman opened the door."
"My mother."
Margaret nodded.
"She was frightened. She had injuries on her face. She asked whether you were safe."
I covered my mouth.
"What did you tell her?"
"That you were at boarding school."
Margaret began crying.
"She begged me to help her contact you."
I leaned forward.
"Why didn't you?"
"Because two men appeared behind her. They told me to leave. One of them followed me home."
She wiped her cheeks.
"Three days later, your father came to my apartment. He said if I ever spoke about Eleanor, my husband would lose his job and my children would be harmed."
I stared at the woman who had once tucked me into bed.
"I'm sorry."
She shook her head.
"Don't apologize, Nora. I should have done more."
Nico spoke gently.
"Do you remember the address?"
Margaret nodded.
"I wrote it down."
She reached into her handbag and removed an old notebook.
The address was on East Seventy-Third Street.
A private medical residence.
Nico read it.
His expression changed.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
He turned toward Matteo.
"Run the property records."
Matteo made a call.
Within minutes, he returned with an answer.
The building had been owned by a medical trust associated with Atlantic Meridian Holdings.
The same company connecting our fathers.
I felt cold.
"My mother was kept in a building owned by the people she was investigating."
Nico nodded.
"Possibly. We still need to establish what happened there."
Margaret squeezed my hand.
"There's something else."
I looked at her.
"Your mother gave me a message."
My heart pounded.
"What message?"
Margaret reached into her handbag again.
This time, she removed a small velvet pouch.
Inside was a silver locket.
My mother's locket.
I remembered playing with it as a child.
She had worn it almost every day.
Margaret opened it.
Inside was a tiny photograph of me at seven years old.
And behind the photograph was a folded strip of paper.
The writing was so small I could barely read it.
Nico handed me a magnifying glass.
My mother's handwriting appeared.
NORA MUST NEVER SIGN THE WHITMORE RELEASE.
I stared.
"The what?"
Margaret shook her head.
"I don't know."
But Nico's expression had become dangerously still.
He reached for his phone.
"Matteo, get me the inheritance documents for Eleanor Whitmore."
I looked at him.
"What is it?"
He hesitated.
"Nora, your mother came from one of the oldest private investment families in New York."
"I know."
"What you may not know is that her family trust was worth considerably more than your father's hedge fund."
My stomach tightened.
"How much more?"
Nico looked at me.
"At the time of her disappearance, its holdings were estimated at more than four hundred million dollars."
I stared at him.
"That money wasn't my father's?"
"No."
"Then who inherited it?"
His jaw tightened.
"According to the current records, your father controls most of it as trustee."
My hands went cold.
Nico continued.
"But that authority may depend on documents supposedly signed by your mother and you."
"I never signed anything."
"I believe you."
Before I could respond, Matteo's phone rang.
He listened.
Then his expression changed.
"Mr. Ferrara, we just received a copy of an old trust amendment."
He placed it on the table.
At the bottom was my mother's signature.
Beside it was another.
Mine.
Nora Eleanor Ashford.
Dated when I was thirteen years old.
I stared at the page.
"That's not my signature."
Nico looked at me.
"Are you sure?"
My voice broke.
"I was thirteen. I didn't even know what a trust amendment was."
Then I noticed something even more disturbing.
The signature wasn't simply forged.
It was copied from an old letter I'd written to my mother.
A letter that had vanished from my bedroom the summer after her funeral.
My father hadn't just stolen my mother's fortune.
He had been preparing to steal mine before I was old enough to understand what money was.
May you like
And now, with the photograph in my hands, I realized something terrifying.
If my mother was still alive, she was the one person who could destroy everything he'd built.
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