Chapter 8 - The Skeletons of Lake Forest
The drive north to Lake Forest was silent and suffocating.
The snow was beginning to stick to the pine needles flanking the winding, secluded estates of Chicago's old-money enclave.
Richard Mercer had bought the six-bedroom colonial house fifteen years ago, using the first major profit surge from Mercer Freight's expansion.
To Claire, the house had never been a home; it had been a gilded cage where she was constantly reminded that her quiet habits, her books, and her heavier frame did not match the aesthetic Richard wanted to project.
Three black police cruisers were parked down the block, kept at bay by two of Gabriel’s attorneys who had arrived thirty minutes earlier with non-disclosure orders and private security jurisdiction.
Gabriel walked through the front door with Claire at his side, Marcus leading the way with his hand resting on the grip of his sidearm.
The house was in ruins.
The antique rosewood console table in the entry hall had been shattered.
Paintings had been slashed off the walls, their canvas guts hanging in strips.
In the master bedroom on the second floor, the walk-in closet smelled of sulfur and burnt wiring.
The floorboards had been torn up with crowbars, and a four-foot steel safe lay on its side, its heavy door peeled back like a tin can.
Claire walked into the closet, carefully stepping over scattered hangers, expensive silk ties, and empty velvet jewelry boxes.
"My mother’s pearls are gone," Claire whispered, her voice tightening with grief.
"Her wedding ring... her grandmother’s locket."
Gabriel stood in the center of the room, examining the scorched metal around the safe’s locking bolts.
"This wasn't a standard burglary," Gabriel observed, crouching down to run a gloved finger over the burnt steel.
"They used thermite paste."
"Military grade."
"Burglars don't carry thermite, and they don't leave five thousand dollars in loose cash lying on the closet floor."
He pointed to a stack of crisp hundred-dollar bills that had been knocked under a shelf and ignored.
"What were they looking for?" Claire asked, turning to face him in the ruined closet.
Marcus entered holding a broken wooden cigar box he had retrieved from beneath the torn insulation of the wall.
"Found this behind the HVAC vent, Boss," Marcus said, handing it to Gabriel.
The cigar box had a false bottom made of thin balsa wood.
Gabriel pried it open with the tip of his pocketknife, revealing a single, tarnished brass key with a stamped serial number: Vault 414 — First Commonwealth Trust.
Beneath the key was a yellowed, handwritten letter dated twelve years ago, written on stationary from the Cook County Coroner’s Office.
Claire saw the handwriting and felt her knees turn to water.
It was her mother’s handwriting.
Gabriel handed the letter to Claire, his touch steadying her arm as she took the paper with trembling fingers.
Claire read the first lines silently, her lips moving as horror painted itself across her face:
'Richard, if you are reading this, it means you have finally taken the first payout from the Vale syndicate. I know what you and Dominic discussed in the basement. I know you doctored the delivery logs for the chemical shipments through Gary. If anything happens to me, the toxicological samples are in Vault 414. Do not let Evan near the keys. He is too much like you.'
Claire stopped reading, a sound of pure agony tearing out of her throat.
She dropped the letter, stumbling backward against the closet wall, her hands clutching at her chest.
"No..." Claire choked out, tears instantly blinding her vision.
"No, no, no..."
Gabriel caught her before she could collapse, pulling her flush against his chest, wrapping his heavy arms around her shaking frame.
"Claire," Gabriel said, his voice unusually soft, his mouth close to her ear.
"Breathe."
"She didn't die of kidney failure," Claire sobbed into Gabriel's lapel, her fingers digging desperately into the thick wool of his coat.
"She didn't die of natural causes!"
"My father... my father poisoned her!"
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Gabriel held her tightly, feeling the violent, wracking sobs that shook her entire body.
The realization was monstrous.
Evelyn Mercer had not been an unfortunate victim of chronic illness; she had discovered Richard and Dominic Vale’s illegal toxic-shipment racket twelve years ago.
And Richard had systematically silenced his own wife, nursing her with poisoned tea while Claire sat by her bedside every night, innocently handing him the cups.
The guilt that hit Claire was worse than any physical blow Evan had ever landed.
"I gave her the medicine," Claire wailed, her voice breaking into ragged, ragged pieces.
"I was the one who poured the tea every evening at eight o'clock!"
"I helped him kill her!"
Gabriel pulled her back slightly, grabbing both of her shoulders with a firm, unyielding grip.
"Look at me, Claire Mercer!" Gabriel commanded, his voice sharp enough to pierce through her hysterical spiral.
Claire looked up, her face drenched in tears, her chest heaving violently.
"You were a child," Gabriel said, his dark eyes burning with pure, unadulterated fury directed not at her, but at the monsters who had raised her.
"You were a fifteen-year-old girl taking care of a dying mother while two sociopaths used your innocence as a shield."
"You did not kill your mother."
"Your father murdered her to protect his dirty money."
"And he let you carry that grief for five years while he stole her company."
Claire buried her face back into his shoulder, her tears soaking through his shirt, the dam of five years of repressed horror breaking completely.
Gabriel wrapped his arms around her again, holding her in the cold, ruined closet of the house that had been her prison.
He looked over her head at Marcus, who was standing by the door with his jaw set like an iron anvil.
"Marcus," Gabriel said, his voice flat, emotionless, and colder than the frozen lake outside.
"Yes, Boss?"
"Bring Richard and Evan Mercer back from the holding depot."
"Don't put them on the bus to Indiana."
"Take them to the cellar at the Gary terminal."
Marcus gave a single, curt nod.
"And Dominic, Boss? His flight leaves at midnight."
Gabriel looked down at Claire, whose trembling was slowly subsiding against the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.
May you like
"Cancel the flight," Gabriel commanded.
"Nobody leaves Chicago until Evelyn Mercer gets her justice."
