PART 3 — THE MAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ᴅᴇᴀᴅ

The emergency lights flickered red.

For one terrible second, Norah heard nothing but the ringing in her ears.

Then came the sound of a chair scraping across the floor.

A woman sobbing.

Someone shouting.

“Don’t move!”

Norah dropped behind the counter.

The gunsH๏τ hadn’t come from Sebastian.

She knew that because he was suddenly beside her, one hand gripping the edge of the counter, the other holding a small flashlight.

His expression had changed.

The cold indifference was gone.

In its place was something far more dangerous.

Anger.

“Where’s Jesse?” he asked.

Norah looked toward the office.

Empty.

Marcus was crouched near a booth, cursing under his breath.

And Jesse had disappeared.

A second later, the office door slammed.

“Damn it,” Marcus muttered.

Sebastian looked at Norah.

“What is in that office?”

“Nothing that belongs to you.”

His jaw тιԍнтened.

“You have no idea what you’re involved in.”

“Funny. That’s what my father used to say.”

For the first time, Sebastian looked genuinely shaken.

“Your father said that?”

Norah reached beneath the counter.

Sebastian caught her wrist.

“Don’t.”

She stared at his hand.

“Take your hand off me.”

He did.

Slowly.

“I thought he was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ,” he said.

“Join the club.”

A muffled crash came from the office.

Then Jesse stumbled back through the doorway.

His face was white.

In one hand, he held an old pH๏τograph.

In the other, a leather notebook.

Marcus rushed toward him.

“What did you find?”

Jesse backed away.

“This isn’t a robbery.”

Marcus grabbed the notebook.

“Shut up.”

“No!” Jesse shouted. “You told me it was a simple score. You said the diner was empty. You said nobody would get hurt!”

The young man’s voice cracked.

Norah looked at Sebastian.

He wasn’t watching Marcus anymore.

He was watching the notebook.

“What is that?” she asked.

Sebastian didn’t respond.

Marcus opened the cover.

The moment he saw the first page, his face drained of color.

“Where did you get this?”

Jesse pointed at the office.

“Behind the wall.”

Norah closed her eyes.

Her father had hidden it there.

Seven years ago, when she was nineteen, he’d given her a key and told her never to lose it.

She’d kept it on a chain around her neck.

But she had never known what it opened.

Marcus turned toward her.

“You knew.”

“No.”

“You knew about this book.”

“I knew my father hid something. I didn’t know what.”

Marcus flipped through the pages.

His hands began to shake.

Sebastian stepped forward.

“Give it to me.”

Marcus laughed.

It was a brittle, desperate sound.

“You have no idea what’s in here, do you?”

Sebastian stopped.

Marcus lifted the notebook.

“Payments. Names. Judges. Cops. Every dirty deal your family ever made.”

A terrible silence filled the diner.

Clarence, the old regular, slowly raised his head from behind a booth.

Norah noticed him.

His right hand was inside his coat.

Something metallic glinted between his fingers.

She recognized the object.

A police badge.

Before she could warn anyone, Clarence stood.

“Sebastian Gallow.”

His voice was steady.

“Put your hands where I can see them.”

Marcus swung his pistol toward him.

Everything happened at once.

Sebastian shoved a nearby table sideways, sending the patrons scrambling for cover.

Norah pulled the frightened young woman near the entrance behind the counter.

Jesse dropped to his knees.

And Clarence shouted, “Nobody move!”

Then the office door opened again.

A woman stepped out.

She wore a black coat, silver earrings, and a smile Norah remembered from a pH๏τograph she had seen hundreds of times.

A pH๏τograph of her parents.

The woman looked directly at Sebastian.

“Hello, darling.”

Sebastian went completely still.

Norah stared.

Because the woman standing in her father’s office was supposed to have died seven years ago.

Her mother.

And the first words she spoke were:

“Sebastian, tell her what you did to her father.”

PART 4 — THE MOTHER’S TERRIBLE CONFESSION