PART 4 — THE MOTHER’S TERRIBLE CONFESSION

Norah couldn’t breathe.

Her mother had been ᴅᴇᴀᴅ for seven years.

At least, that was what the police report said.

A car accident on an icy road outside Chicago.

A burned vehicle.

A funeral with a closed casket.

Norah remembered the flowers.

She remembered her father standing beside her, his face so pale that she thought he might collapse.

And she remembered the last time he held her hand.

Promise me you’ll keep living, sweetheart.

Now the woman from that funeral stood beneath the emergency light, perfectly alive.

“Mom?”

The word escaped Norah before she could stop it.

Her mother’s smile trembled.

“My little girl.”

Norah stepped backward.

“No.”

“Norah, please.”

“You’re ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.”

“I had to disappear.”

“You let me bury an empty coffin?”

Her mother’s eyes filled with tears.

But Norah felt no comfort.

Only a cold, expanding emptiness.

Sebastian stood between them.

His gaze was fixed on the woman.

“Is it true?” he asked.

Her mother nodded.

“Most of it.”

“Most?”

“I never wanted your father hurt.”

Marcus suddenly laughed.

“Beautiful family reunion. Truly touching.”

Clarence kept his badge raised.

“Everyone stay where you are.”

But Marcus had stopped listening.

He grabbed Norah by the shoulder and dragged her toward him, pressing his pistol against her side.

“Now we have a problem.”

Sebastian’s expression hardened.

“Let her go.”

“First, the book.”

“You already have it.”

“I want the other half.”

Norah felt her mother’s gaze sharpen.

There it was.

The missing piece.

Marcus hadn’t come for the register.

He hadn’t even come for the money.

He had come for something hidden in the diner.

Something her father had divided into two pieces.

“Where is it?” Marcus demanded.

Norah looked at the counter.

Then at the clock.

2:28 a.m.

Eleven minutes.

That was how long until the diner’s automatic backup system sent a silent alert to the security company.

She had installed it herself after a customer attacked the cook six months earlier.

Marcus didn’t know.

But Sebastian noticed her looking at the clock.

“Norah,” he said quietly. “What are you thinking?”

“That you should stop asking questions.”

Marcus shoved her forward.

“Move!”

Norah stumbled toward the kitchen.

Her mother followed, hands raised.

“Marcus, listen to me. The second half isn’t here.”

“Liar.”

“Your employer told you it was.”

Marcus froze.

Norah noticed the word.

Employer.

Not partner.

Not accomplice.

Employer.

Sebastian looked at him.

“Who sent you?”

Marcus’s silence answered nothing.

But Jesse suddenly spoke from the floor.

“It was Vincent.”

Every face turned.

Marcus went white.

Jesse was crying now.

“Vincent Gallow. He said Sebastian was going to betray the family. He said if we got the ledger first, we’d be rich.”

Sebastian’s face became unreadable.

“My brother?”

Norah’s mother nodded.

“Vincent ordered the hit on your father.”

The diner seemed to tilt.

Norah stared at her.

“What?”

Her mother reached inside her coat.

Clarence raised his badge higher.

“Don’t.”

She slowly withdrew a small silver locket.

Inside was a tiny memory card.

“Your father found evidence that Vincent had been selling names to our enemies,” she whispered. “He hid the ledger here, but he gave me the proof.”

Norah stared at the locket.

“You let me believe he abandoned us.”

“I was trying to protect you.”

“No. You were protecting yourself.”

The words struck harder than Norah expected.

Her mother lowered her head.

Then Sebastian spoke.

“Where is Vincent now?”

Before anyone could answer, the diner’s front windows shattered.

A black SUV slammed to a stop outside.

Men poured into the parking lot.

And a voice boomed through a megaphone.

“Sebastian! Step away from the waitress.”

A familiar voice.

Smooth.

Amused.

The voice of a man who had never once been told no.

Vincent Gallow had arrived.

And he wasn’t alone.

He had brought a dozen armed men.

But as Norah looked through the broken window, she saw something that made her heart stop.

Vincent was holding a little girl’s hand.

A little girl with Norah’s eyes.

And the child was calling him Daddy.