Chapter 9 - The Dead Man's ReturnArthur fired twice.
Samuel Bellini fell behind the doorway as bullets tore through the plaster.
Detective Shaw dragged me to the floor. Vincent stumbled toward the corridor, clutching his shoulder, and vanished into the smoke that was beginning to seep through the ceiling.
“Stay down!” Shaw shouted.
Arthur advanced toward the doorway, his gun raised.
I caught the back of his coat.
“Don't go after him!”
“He was supposed to be dead.”
“That's obvious!”
“He shot my brother. He tried to kill me. He destroyed your family.”
“And if you walk into that corridor, he'll finish what he started.”
Arthur stopped.
A voice emerged from the hallway.
“You've grown sentimental, Arthur.”
Samuel stepped into view.
He looked older than the man in the photograph, but unmistakably alive. The silver-handled cane supported his left leg, which dragged slightly as he walked.
His hands were empty.
Behind him stood two armed men.
Arthur aimed at his chest.
“You should be dead.”
“I was dead. Officially. Unofficially, I was doing what I have always done. Making sure the people who mattered most never found me.”
“You let me believe you were dead.”
“I let the city believe it. You were part of the city by then.”
Arthur's expression tightened.
“What happened tonight?”
Samuel regarded the blood on Arthur's jacket.
“You tell me. You came to my house, accused me of stealing your father's records, and put a bullet in me before I could explain.”
“You pulled a gun.”
“I pulled a gun after you threatened to kill me.”
“Because you confessed to ordering the attack on Daniel Hale.”
Samuel's expression hardened.
“I confessed to many things. You chose the one that would make you feel noble.”
I looked at him.
“You ordered my mother's death.”
He turned toward me.
For the first time, a flicker of recognition crossed his face.
“Norah.”
I hated the way he said my name. Not with affection, but with familiarity, as though I were a page from a book he had read years ago.
“You knew my father.”
“I employed him.”
“You framed him.”
Samuel sighed.
“Your father was a good man who mistook a dirty world for a world that could be cleaned. He kept records he shouldn't have kept. He threatened men who had spent decades ensuring those records would never become public.”
“Did you kill my mother?”
“No.”
The answer came too quickly.
“Did you order someone to kill her?”
Samuel's eyes shifted toward Arthur.
“That depends on what you mean by order.”
Arthur's hand tightened around the gun.
Samuel lifted his cane.
“You see, Arthur, this is why I kept you close. You always wanted the truth to fit inside a simple sentence. Good men. Bad men. Betrayal. Loyalty. But every decision is a chain. You cannot break one link without discovering what the next link is attached to.”
“Stop talking.”
“You killed me tonight because you needed someone to blame. But the man who ordered your brother's death was not me.”
Arthur went completely still.
“My brother died in a car bombing.”
“Yes.”
“You told me the rival families did it.”
“I told you what I knew at the time.”
“Who did it?”
Samuel looked at me.
“Ask Norah about the ledger.”
I pulled the cassette from my pocket.
Samuel smiled.
“That's not the ledger.”
“What is it?”
“A confession. One of many. Your father believed he could make the city confess its sins if he collected enough evidence.”
“Then why did you let him live?”
For a moment, Samuel's expression became unreadable.
“Because Arthur begged me to.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Arthur said nothing.
Samuel continued.
“Your father was supposed to die that night. Your mother was supposed to die with him. But Arthur found Daniel wounded in the warehouse and brought him to me. He asked me to spare his life.”
“You said you would,” Arthur whispered.
“I did spare his life. I allowed him to disappear. I even arranged for him to receive money for a time.”
“You sent him nothing after he left Chicago.”
“Because he refused it.”
I stared at Samuel.
My father had never mentioned receiving money. He had never mentioned Arthur's name. He had never told me that his life depended on a favor from the man who had helped destroy it.
“Why did you come back?” I asked.
Samuel's eyes moved to the key in my hand.
“Because Daniel left one piece of evidence that could end this family. And because Vincent has decided he no longer needs me.”
“Where is the ledger?”
Samuel smiled faintly.
“Beneath the house where your father learned to survive.”
Arthur's face turned white.
“The estate.”
“No,” Samuel said. “The other house.”
He looked at me.
“The one your father burned down.”
Before I could ask another question, the lights went out.
Gunfire erupted in the corridor.
Arthur shoved me behind the safe as Detective Shaw fired toward the doorway. Someone screamed. A body struck the floor.
When emergency lights flickered on, Samuel was gone.
So was Detective Shaw.
And beside the open door lay Vincent Rourke's gold ring, covered in fresh blood.
Arthur picked it up.
He turned it over.
Something had been engraved inside the band.
A date.
The date of my mother's death.
Beneath it were four words.
THE DAUGHTER MUST REMEMBER.
Arthur looked at me.
“Norah, where did you grow up?”
I stared at him.
“On the South Side. In a small house my father sold when I was twelve.”
“What was the address?”
I told him.
He closed his eyes.
May you like
Then he whispered something that made my blood run cold.
“That was the house your father burned down.”
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