CHAPTER 3 — THE AUNT WHO BURIED HER
Grace had spent fifteen years believing Lydia Mercer saved her life.
After Evelyn’s supposed death, Lydia had taken seventeen-year-old Grace into her Brooklyn townhouse. She had attended parent conferences, sat beside Grace through panic attacks and worked two jobs—or claimed she did—to pay for Grace’s university expenses.
She had been there when Grace met Ethan.
She had helped plan their wedding.
She had walked Grace down the aisle.
Now Lydia stood in the darkness of the bedroom, aiming a pistol at her chest.
“Give me the letter,” Lydia repeated.
Grace barely recognized her.
Lydia was sixty-one, with silver beginning to appear in her dark hair and lines of permanent concern around her eyes. Tonight, she wore a gray coat over black trousers. Rainwater glistened on her shoulders.
Her hand did not shake.
Ethan’s gun remained trained on her.
“Lower the weapon,” he said.
Lydia smiled without warmth.
“You first.”
“Grace is not part of this.”
“She has always been part of it. That was your family’s decision.”
Grace looked from one to the other.
“You were working together.”
“No,” Ethan said.
“Yes,” Lydia answered at the same time.
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
Lydia stepped closer.
“I warned you not to trust him, Grace.”
“You encouraged me to marry him.”
“To keep you alive.”
Grace felt physically sick.
“That seems to be everyone’s favorite excuse.”
“Because it is the truth.”
“Whose side are you on?”
Lydia’s expression hardened. “The side that survives.”
The answer chilled Grace more than any lie could have.
Ethan shifted in front of her.
Lydia immediately raised the gun higher.
“Do not move.”
“You’re not shooting her,” Ethan said.
“Are you willing to risk that?”
He stared at her.
For the first time, Grace understood that neither of them fully trusted the other.
They knew pieces of the same secret, but they were not partners.
They were competing jailers.
“What is in Locker 317?” Grace asked.
Lydia’s eyes flickered.
Ethan turned his head slightly.
It was enough.
Grace knew the locker mattered.
“So Evelyn told you,” Lydia said.
“She told me you helped bury her.”
A flash of pain crossed Lydia’s face.
“I helped her disappear.”
“You let me believe she was dead.”
“It was the only way to stop you from searching.”
“I was seventeen.”
“And reckless. You would have gone after her. Margaret Holloway would have followed you directly to Evelyn’s hiding place.”
“Is she alive?”
Lydia did not answer.
Grace stepped around Ethan.
“Is my mother alive?”
“Stay behind me,” Ethan ordered.
Grace ignored him.
“Lydia, look at me.”
Her aunt’s face began to fracture.
Beneath the controlled expression, Grace saw grief.
Real grief.
“I don’t know,” Lydia whispered.
The uncertainty hurt more than a simple denial.
“When did you last see her?”
“Eight years ago.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“Because the people searching for her monitor everything.”
Grace thought of the hidden cameras and anonymous messages.
“The Holloways?”
“Not only them.”
Ethan lowered his weapon slightly.
“Lydia, who sent the envelope?”
“You know who.”
“Daniel Vale is dead.”
“No,” Grace said. “My mother’s letter says to trust him.”
Lydia looked at her sharply.
“You read all of it?”
“Enough.”
“Did she mention the child?”
The question escaped too quickly.
Lydia realized her mistake immediately.
Ethan turned fully toward Grace.
“What child?”
Grace studied his face.
He did not know.
That terrified her more than if he had.
“My mother wrote that the child survived,” Grace said. “Who was she talking about?”
Lydia’s gaze moved toward Ethan.
“I will tell you after you give me the letter.”
“No.”
“You don’t understand what you’re holding.”
“It is the first honest thing anyone has given me in fifteen years.”
A sharp crack echoed from the hallway.
The bedroom window shattered.
Ethan threw Grace to the floor.
A bullet struck the wall behind them.
Lydia dropped beside the dresser and returned fire toward the hallway.
The apartment filled with deafening gunshots.
Glass exploded across the floor.
Grace covered her head.
Ethan grabbed her around the waist and dragged her behind the bed.
“Stay down.”
“Who is shooting?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said the person who sent the envelope was coming.”
“I was wrong.”
Another bullet tore through the mattress.
Feathers burst into the air.
Lydia moved to the doorway and fired twice.
A man cried out in the hall.
Then the emergency sprinklers activated.
Water poured from the ceiling.
Alarms began screaming throughout the building.
Ethan pulled Grace toward the bathroom.
“There is a service passage behind the mirror.”
Grace stared at him. “What?”
He grabbed the large mirror above the sink and twisted a concealed latch.
The entire frame swung outward, revealing a narrow metal corridor.
Grace’s blood ran cold.
“There has been a secret passage in our apartment?”
“It connects to the maintenance shaft.”
“For how long?”
“Grace, move!”
Lydia entered behind them, clutching her left shoulder. Blood stained her coat.
“Two men,” she said. “Possibly three.”
“Whose?” Ethan asked.
“Your mother’s.”
Ethan looked toward the bedroom.
“My mother doesn’t know Grace has the letter.”
“She does now.”
A voice came from the hallway.
“Mr. Holloway, Mrs. Holloway—we are not here to harm you.”
Lydia laughed bitterly.
“They always say that before they harm you.”
The voice continued.
“Place the envelope in the bedroom and enter the bathroom with your hands visible.”
Ethan pushed Grace into the passage.
Lydia followed.
He closed the mirror behind them just as footsteps entered the bathroom.
The corridor was barely wide enough for one person. Emergency lights cast everything in dim red.
Water dripped from their clothes.
Lydia pressed a hand against her wound.
Grace stood between her aunt and her husband, both armed, both injured and both still withholding the truth.
“Where does this lead?” she asked.
“Three floors down,” Ethan said. “There is an unfinished penthouse with access to a freight elevator.”
“You planned an escape route.”
“My family plans for everything.”
“Except honesty.”
He did not respond.
They began descending a metal ladder.
Grace went first, the envelope pressed beneath her blouse. Ethan followed. Lydia came last, moving slowly because of her wound.
As they descended, Grace tried to understand the final sentence in her mother’s letter.
Do not let Ethan discover that the child survived.
If Ethan did not know about the child, perhaps the warning was not accusing him.
Perhaps it was warning Grace that someone might use him to find the child.
A distant bang sounded above them.
The attackers had discovered the mirror.
“Faster,” Ethan said.
Grace descended another level.
The shaft opened into a narrow maintenance room on the twenty-eighth floor. Ethan unlocked the panel and helped her through.
The unfinished penthouse beyond it was dark and empty, filled with plastic sheets and construction equipment.
Lydia emerged last.
Her face had gone pale.
Ethan took her gun.
She resisted weakly.
“You’re losing blood,” he said.
“I’ve lost more.”
“We need to stop the bleeding.”
“We need to get Grace out.”
The words sounded protective.
Grace no longer trusted protection.
A freight elevator waited at the opposite end of the floor.
They hurried toward it.
Ethan pressed the button.
Nothing happened.
“The building has locked the elevators,” Lydia said.
Ethan opened a control panel and entered a six-digit code.
The doors separated.
Inside stood a man wearing a maintenance uniform.
His head was lowered.
A toolbox rested at his feet.
Ethan raised his gun.
The man slowly lifted both hands.
“Easy.”
Grace recognized him from old photographs.
He had aged. His hair was gray. A scar ran from his right temple to his jaw.
But the eyes were the same.
Daniel Vale.
The man accused of stealing from her family.
The man who had vanished after her mother’s funeral.
Grace stared at him.
“You’re alive.”
Daniel looked directly at her.
“So is your mother.”
Lydia swayed.
Ethan caught her before she fell.
Daniel stepped from the elevator.
“We have less than four minutes before Margaret’s people close the exits.”
“Where is Evelyn?” Grace demanded.
“Safe for now.”
“Take me to her.”
“I can’t.”
“You just told me she is alive.”
“Because you needed a reason to follow me.”
Ethan grabbed Daniel’s coat and slammed him against the wall.
“You sent the envelope?”
“Yes.”
“You exposed Grace.”
“Your family exposed her the day they placed you in her life.”
Ethan pressed the gun beneath Daniel’s chin.
“Tell me where Evelyn is.”
Daniel looked at Grace rather than Ethan.
“Your husband does not want to find your mother.”
“That is exactly what I want,” Ethan said.
“No. You want to find the ledger she carries.”
Grace stepped closer.
“What ledger?”
“The Mercer Ledger,” Daniel said. “A record of every secret transaction made by the Holloway family and their partners over the last thirty years. Bribery. Blackmail. Political payments. Disappearances.”
“And murders?” Grace asked.
Daniel’s expression darkened.
“Yes.”
Lydia groaned.
Grace knelt beside her.
Blood had soaked through the sleeve of Lydia’s coat.
“We need a hospital.”
“No hospital,” Daniel said. “Margaret controls the building security network and has contacts in emergency dispatch.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Use the locker key.”
Grace pulled the engraved key from her pocket.
Daniel looked relieved.
“Grand Central. Locker 317 contains passports, money and the address of a safe house.”
“What about my mother?”
“The safe house will lead you to her.”
A mechanical sound echoed across the floor.
Metal shutters began descending over the windows.
Daniel looked toward the stairwell.
“They found us.”
The freight elevator doors started closing.
“Inside,” he ordered.
They carried Lydia into the elevator.
Daniel pressed the basement level.
The doors closed.
For one moment, Grace felt the elevator begin descending.
Then it stopped violently.
The lights went out.
Lydia slipped from Ethan’s arms.
A red emergency bulb illuminated the ceiling.
The speaker crackled.
Margaret Holloway’s voice filled the elevator.
“Grace, darling, I’m sorry your evening has become so unpleasant.”
Ethan stared at the speaker.
“Mother.”
“I warned you that affection would compromise your judgment.”
“Release the elevator.”
“Give me Evelyn’s letter.”
Grace looked up at the camera in the corner.
Margaret could see them.
“The letter belongs to me,” Grace said.
“No, dear. It belongs to a dead woman who failed to understand the cost of disobedience.”
“Is my mother alive?”
A pause followed.
Then Margaret laughed softly.
“Which one?”
Grace froze.
Daniel shut his eyes.
Lydia whispered, “No.”
Margaret continued.
“Did they never tell you, Grace?”
“Tell me what?”
“You were not Evelyn Mercer’s only daughter.”
The elevator dropped.
Grace screamed as the floor vanished beneath her feet.
It fell two levels before the emergency brake caught.
Everyone slammed to the ground.
Daniel’s toolbox burst open.
Documents, syringes and photographs scattered across the floor.
One photograph slid toward Grace.
It showed her mother holding two newborn babies.
On the back were two names.
Grace and Claire.
May you like
Beneath them, someone had written:
ONE MUST REMAIN DEAD.
