Chapter 4 - The Uncle in the Shadows
Helen Brooks walked into the center of the library, the heels of her leather boots clicking firmly against the polished wood.
She was sixty-eight years old, walked with a slight limp from an old gunshot wound, and possessed the cynical gaze of a woman who had seen the worst horrors humanity had to offer.
She tossed a yellowed police dossier onto the desk next to the trust documents.
"I retired five years ago, Arthur," Helen said without greeting the old commissioner.
"But when your private courier arrived at my house two hours ago with a photocopy of this birth certificate, I didn't even stop to finish my dinner."
Helen turned slowly toward Hannah.
She stared at Hannah's face, studying her brow, her jawline, and the specific green-flecked hue of her hazel eyes.
"You have your mother's stubborn mouth," Helen muttered softly.
"And your father's stubborn chin."
"Detective Brooks," Hannah pleaded, her voice shaking.
"Please, tell me what is happening."
"Who is the woman lying in that hospital bed right now?"
Helen sighed, pulling an old photograph from the front pocket of the dossier.
She handed it to Hannah.
Hannah looked down at the photograph.
It showed a woman in a police uniform standing in front of the 14th Precinct station.
The name tag read: Officer M. Davis.
The woman had blonde hair, high cheekbones, and sharp, almond-shaped blue eyes.
She looked nothing like the dark-haired, tired, soft-spoken woman who had raised Hannah on Elm Street.
"That was Margaret Davis," Helen said grimly.
"Thomas Reed’s legal wife."
"She was a patrol officer in the narcotics division."
"And she died of a car bombing outside her apartment two weeks before the North Pier massacre."
Hannah’s vision blurred with tears.
"Then who raised me?" Hannah choked out, dropping the photograph onto the desk.
"Who is the woman I’ve called mother my entire life?"
Helen glanced at Arthur, whose head was bowed in deep shame.
"Her name is Sarah Miller," Helen answered quietly.
"She was Thomas Reed’s sister."
"An undercover narcotics detective who gave up her badge, her identity, and her pension to take you into hiding."
"She forged a birth certificate using Margaret’s name to throw off the corrupt detectives on Victor Kane’s payroll."
Hannah felt her world dissolving into fragments of smoke and mirrors.
The woman who had worked double shifts at diners, who had scrubbed floors until her knuckles bled, who had held Hannah through every fever... was her aunt.
Her aunt had erased her own life, pretending to be a widow named Margaret, just to keep an orphaned baby alive.
"Why did she have to hide me?" Hannah asked, her voice breaking.
"If my father was just a messenger between brothers, why would anyone hunt down a newborn baby?"
Victor let out a cold, venomous laugh from the corner.
"Because you weren't Thomas Reed's daughter, you foolish girl," Victor said, pulling a silver cigarette case from his coat.
Cole moved with blinding speed.
Before Victor could open the case, Cole had crossed the room, grabbed Victor by the throat, and slammed him against the oak bookshelves.
Books rattled and fell around them.
"Speak another word without my grandfather’s permission, and I will throw you off the balcony into the rocks," Cole snarled, his forearm pressed hard against Victor’s windpipe.
Victor choked, his face turning crimson, but his cruel eyes remained mocking.
"Check... the DNA... nephew," Victor gasped out between clenched teeth.
"Check... who... your father... really was."
Cole’s knuckles turned white.
"Cole, release him!" Arthur commanded from the chair, coughing violently into a white handkerchief.
A spot of bright red blood stained the linen.
Cole stared at his uncle for three long seconds before releasing his grip with enough force to send Victor stumbling sideways.
Hannah’s phone, sitting inside her apron pocket, suddenly vibrated violently.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
She pulled it out with trembling hands.
There was no caller ID.
Just three incoming text messages from an encrypted burner number.
Hannah looked at the screen and read the first message aloud in the quiet room:
HANNAH, DON'T COME HOME TONIGHT.
Everyone stopped moving.
Even Victor went still.
Hannah swiped to the second message:
THE KANES KNOW WHO YOU ARE. THE LOCKS ON OUR APARTMENT HAVE BEEN BROKEN.
Then the third message lit up the cracked screen:
ARTHUR KEPT HIS PROMISE. VICTOR DIDN'T. HE SENT HIS HITMEN TO MY HOSPITAL ROOM TEN MINUTES AGO.
"Mom!" Hannah screamed, dropping the phone.
She lunged toward the door, but Cole caught her around the waist, pulling her back with immovable strength.
"Let me go!" she shrieked, kicking and clawing at his chest.
"They're going to kill her! Let me go!"
"Quiet!" Cole ordered, holding her tight against him until she stopped thrashing.
He pulled his own encrypted phone from his jacket with his free hand and dialed his head of private security.
"Marcus," Cole barked into the receiver.
"Lock down St. Jude's Memorial Hospital, fourth floor intensive care."
"Send Team Alpha."
"Anyone entering Room 412 who isn't certified medical staff gets put down on sight."
He paused, listening to the voice on the other end.
His expression darkened into something terrifying.
"What do you mean they're already there?" Cole asked, his voice dead and cold.
"Who authorized the transfer?"
Cole slowly turned his eyes toward Victor Kane, who was smoothing down his lapels with a smug grin.
"I did," Victor said softly.
May you like
"She's currently in transit to an undisclosed private clinic."
"If you want her to receive her next dialysis treatment, Cole... you will sign over the North Pier shipping terminals to my holding company by midnight."
