Chapter 4 - The Message Hidden in the Wooden BeadThat evening, I brought Maya and Ellie to a secure apartment owned by one of my legitimate companies.
Maya objected for nearly twenty minutes.
She said she would not accept charity. She said she would not let Ellie become involved in my family's business. She said she didn't trust me, and she made it abundantly clear that the feeling was mutual.
Finally, I told her the truth.
“If you stay at the bakery tonight, Calvin's men may return. If you come with me, I can put guards outside your door. You don't have to like me. You only have to decide which option gives Ellie a better chance of seeing tomorrow.”
Maya stared at me.
Then she packed a small bag.
Ellie brought her coloring book, two stuffed animals, and a shoebox full of photographs.
Theo met us at the apartment.
He had already arranged cameras, reinforced the locks, and placed trusted men in the surrounding buildings.
I asked him to bring a locksmith and a jeweler, but neither could tell me anything useful about the wooden bead.
The mark resembled a wheat stalk with three leaves.
It was too precise to be accidental.
At ten that night, Ellie fell asleep on the sofa with one stuffed rabbit tucked under her chin.
Maya sat beside her, exhausted.
I placed the photograph of my mother and Clara on the coffee table.
“Did your sister ever mention a safe, a vault, or a hidden document?”
“She spoke about a recipe book.”
“A recipe book?”
“She said our mother had taught her that some things were worth protecting, even if nobody understood their value. After she died, Clara became obsessed with an old book of recipes. She kept it wrapped in oilcloth and wouldn't let Ellie touch it.”
“Where is it?”
Maya looked troubled.
“I thought it was destroyed when the bakery flooded last winter.”
I called Theo.
“Search the bakery. Every room, every cupboard, every inch of the basement. Bring anything belonging to Clara.”
He left with two men.
Half an hour later, my phone rang.
It was Theo.
“Boss, we have a problem.”
“What now?”
“The bakery has been broken into.”
“By whom?”
“I don't know yet. The back door was forced. The office drawers have been emptied, and somebody took a crowbar to the floorboards.”
I looked at Maya.
She had gone pale.
“They're searching for the recipe book,” she whispered.
“There's something else,” Theo said over the phone. “I found this underneath the counter.”
A photograph appeared on my screen.
It showed a small metal tin, blackened around the edges, with a piece of burnt paper inside.
Written across the paper in fading ink were six words:
WHEN THE SAINT LOSES A BEAD, REMEMBER.
I turned toward the rosary in my pocket.
My mother's rosary had twenty-three beads.
I had counted them dozens of times.
But now that I thought about it, there had always been one bead that looked slightly different from the others. A darker olivewood bead with a tiny seam running through its center.
I pulled the rosary from my pocket.
Maya leaned forward.
“That's the one.”
The distinct bead sat near the small silver crucifix.
Its surface was darker than the rest.
I touched it with my fingernail and felt a tiny ridge.
The bead wasn't solid.
It was a container.
I took a pocketknife from my desk and carefully twisted the bead. It resisted, then separated along the seam.
A thin metal key fell into my palm.
Beneath it was a strip of paper so small I nearly mistook it for a fiber.
The message had been written in my mother's handwriting.
Sebastian, if this has reached you, Clara has failed to return. Trust the girl. Not the men who promise to protect you. The truth will be found where the first promise was made.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Maya covered her mouth.
I heard a tiny sound from the sofa.
Ellie was awake.
She had padded into the room holding her stuffed rabbit.
“That's Mommy's writing,” she whispered.
I lowered myself to her height.
“How do you know?”
“She wrote like that in my birthday cards.”
She examined the paper.
Then she pointed at the final line.
“The first promise was made where the bells sing.”
Maya frowned.
“What does that mean, sweetheart?”
Ellie shrugged.
“Mommy used to sing it when we went walking. She said there was a place where she promised somebody she would never let a bad man hurt us.”
The bells sing.
A church?
Perhaps.
But my mother had once told me that every secret she kept had a place where she could remember why she was keeping it.
I knew that place.
St. Agnes Church, on the south side of Chicago.
It was where my parents had renewed their wedding vows. It was also where my father had promised my mother that their children would never be raised to fear the family name.
The promise had lasted until he was murdered.
I slipped the key into my pocket.
“We're leaving before dawn.”
Maya's voice shook.
“Where are we going?”
“To the place where my mother made her last promise.”
I looked at the girl in the red coat.
“Ellie, your mother left something behind. Something men are willing to kill for.”
She hugged her rabbit tighter.
“Will they hurt Aunt Maya?”
I wanted to promise her that they wouldn't.
But my mother's note had warned me not to trust men who promised protection.
So I told Ellie the truth.
“Not while I'm standing.”
Outside, in the parking garage, a man sat inside a black car with his phone held to his ear.
He had watched us enter the building.
He had watched the lights come on.
And now he had heard enough through a tiny microphone planted beneath the limousine's rear bumper.
“Tell Calvin,” he whispered, “that Rourke has the key.”
A pause.
“No. He doesn't know what it opens yet.”
May you like
The man smiled into the darkness.
“But he will.”
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