Chapter 4 - The Woman Waiting in the WoodsThe woman in the forest called my name again.
“Claire! He's going to kill you if you stay in there!”
Leandro Moretti kept his pistol aimed toward the broken doorway. Blood had begun to seep through the bandage around his leg, darkening the fabric of his trousers.
“Who is she?” I whispered.
“I don't know.”
“You're a terrible liar.”
“I've had a difficult evening.”
“You crashed a private jet into my lake, brought an armed mafia family to my doorstep, and apparently helped my supposedly dead father disappear. Don't tell me about your evening.”
His eyes flickered toward me.
“Fair enough.”
Beyond the door, Michael Voss groaned. He was still alive, curled on the floor near the entrance, his right hand clamped over his wounded shoulder.
I stared at him.
“Did you shoot him?”
“He shot first.”
“You could have killed him!”
“I was trying to.”
He said it without emotion.
I realized then that there were rules in Leandro's world that I would never understand. A wounded man on the floor wasn't necessarily someone who needed help. Sometimes he was someone who would reach for a weapon the moment you turned your back.
Michael shifted.
Leandro's pistol rose.
“Don't,” Michael rasped. “You're making a mistake.”
“You broke into my cabin with a gun.”
“I came to save her.”
“From whom?”
Michael's eyes found mine.
“From you.”
Leandro fired into the floor beside his head.
“Try another lie.”
Michael flinched, but he didn't scream.
“The second ledger,” he whispered. “You don't understand what it contains.”
“Then explain it.”
“Not here.”
“Why not?”
Michael looked toward the trees.
“Because the people outside are listening.”
A burst of static crackled from a small device clipped to his belt.
Then a voice spoke through it.
“Package secured. Cabin compromised. Proceed with extraction.”
Michael went pale.
Leandro's expression became frighteningly still.
“Who are they?” I asked.
Neither man answered.
Outside, a car door slammed.
The woman in the woods screamed.
A gunshot followed.
My body reacted before my mind could catch up. I lurched toward the doorway, but Leandro caught the back of my jacket.
“Let go!”
“You'll get yourself killed.”
“She could be hurt!”
“She could be bait.”
I turned on him.
“What is wrong with you?”
He looked at me, and for one moment the cold, controlled man vanished. Beneath his expression was something raw and exhausted.
“Everyone I have ever trusted has either betrayed me or died because I trusted them. I won't let you become another name on that list.”
The words stopped me.
Not because I believed him.
Because I believed that he believed them.
Another shout came from the forest, followed by the sound of footsteps crashing through wet leaves.
A figure emerged between the trees.
A woman in a gray scarf.
She stumbled onto the porch, one hand pressed against her side. Blood darkened her coat, but she kept moving, clutching something against her chest.
“Claire!”
I ran to her.
Leandro cursed and followed, dragging his injured leg behind him.
The woman collapsed into my arms.
She smelled of rain, smoke, and something metallic.
“Don't let him take you,” she whispered.
“Who?”
She looked past me at Leandro.
“Either of them.”
Her fingers tightened around a small brass cylinder.
“Your father wanted you to have this.”
I stared at it.
“What is it?”
“The truth.”
Then her knees buckled.
I caught her before her head struck the floor.
“Someone help me!”
Leandro crouched beside us, checking her pulse.
“She's alive.”
“Then do something!”
He tore open the front of her coat to examine the wound.
“Bullet grazed her ribs. She's lost blood, but it hasn't penetrated deeply.”
He reached for my first-aid kit.
“Get me clean towels.”
I obeyed without thinking.
For the next several minutes, the cabin became a makeshift emergency room. I held the woman's hand while Leandro worked to stop the bleeding. Michael remained near the doorway, watched by one of Leandro's men who had appeared from somewhere in the darkness.
Eventually, the woman opened her eyes.
Her gaze settled on me.
“Claire Bennett?”
“Yes.”
“My name is Evelyn Cross.”
I felt the air leave my lungs.
My father had mentioned that name.
Evelyn Cross.
The woman who was supposed to meet me at the railway station.
I leaned closer.
“My father said you could help me find the ledger.”
Her lips trembled.
“He also said you might be the only person who could destroy it.”
“Why me?”
“Because your father didn't hide it in a bank.”
She struggled to sit up.
Leandro gently pushed her back.
“Don't move.”
Evelyn stared at him with open contempt.
“Still giving orders, Mr. Moretti? Some things never change.”
“You know who I am.”
“I've known who you are since before you learned to walk.”
Leandro's face hardened.
“Explain.”
Evelyn looked at me.
“Your father and I worked for Salvatore Moretti. Years ago, we were hired to audit a series of businesses that appeared to be losing money. We discovered the losses were deliberate. Millions were being transferred through legitimate companies and then disappearing.”
“Into the mafia?” I asked.
“Into something much worse. Your father discovered that the money wasn't merely funding criminal operations. It was being used to finance a private network inside law enforcement, local government, and federal agencies.”
Leandro went completely still.
“How much money?”
“Enough to buy silence across three states.”
“Who controlled it?”
Evelyn looked at him.
“Your father believed it was Salvatore. Then he found evidence that someone had been using Salvatore's organization without his knowledge.”
“And the ledger?”
“Your father recorded every transaction. Names, dates, payments, locations. Everything.”
“Why didn't he give it to me?” I asked.
“Because the ledger was never the whole story.”
Evelyn touched the brass cylinder in my hand.
“This contains a decryption key. The second ledger is digital. Your father divided the information because he knew someone would eventually steal the physical records.”
Leandro's eyes narrowed.
“Where is the digital ledger?”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Your father never told me.”
“Then what good is that thing?”
“Without the key, the ledger is useless. Without the ledger, the key is useless.”
I looked at the cylinder.
“What is the key encrypted on?”
“Your father's voice.”
My skin prickled.
“He recorded a message?”
“He recorded hundreds. Ordinary messages. Birthday greetings. Recipe instructions. Voicemails. Every time he called you, he was building a voice pattern that could authenticate the key.”
I stared at her.
My father's obsession with leaving voicemail messages suddenly seemed strange. For years, he had called to remind me to eat, to bring an umbrella, to check whether I'd locked the bakery's back door.
I had saved some of those messages.
Others had disappeared when I changed phones.
The thought made my chest ache.
“He planned this for me,” I whispered.
“He planned for the possibility that he might fail to protect you.”
Leandro moved toward the window.
“Where is Dante now?”
Evelyn laughed weakly.
“Probably preparing to kill you.”
“Why?”
“Because he knows what the second ledger contains.”
Leandro looked back.
“What does Dante have to do with this?”
Evelyn's expression changed.
“Your brother isn't the real enemy, Leandro.”
The room fell silent.
“Then who is?” I asked.
Evelyn turned her head toward me.
“Someone who has been standing beside your family for years. Someone your father trusted. Someone who watched you grow up.”
My thoughts flew to the bakery.
The neighborhood.
The church.
The funeral.
Michael Voss.
I looked toward the doorway.
He was gone.
The man who had been guarding him stood beside the broken frame, staring at the empty patch of floor.
Leandro rushed to the entrance.
Outside, the rain had nearly stopped.
A trail of blood led down the porch steps and into the trees.
Michael had escaped.
But he had left something behind.
His phone lay on the wet boards, screen illuminated.
A message filled the display.
THE GIRL HAS THE KEY. DO NOT LET HER REACH THE STATION.
Beneath it was a second message.
SALVATORE IS ALREADY THERE.
Evelyn made a strangled sound.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
She grabbed my hand so tightly her nails dug into my skin.
“Claire, listen to me. You must not go to that railway station.”
“But my father told me to meet you there.”
“Your father doesn't know what happened tonight.”
“Then what do you know?”
Evelyn's eyes filled with tears.
“Salvatore Moretti died twelve years ago.”
Leandro stared at her.
“That is impossible. I saw his body.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No. You saw a body buried under his name.”
A terrible silence settled over the cabin.
Then Leandro's damaged phone vibrated on the table.
A single message appeared.
No number.
No name.
Just a photograph.
A man stood beneath the flickering lights of Albany's abandoned railway station. He wore a gray overcoat and held a black umbrella.
His face was older, his hair almost entirely white.
But the scar beneath his left eye was unmistakable.
Leandro dropped the phone.
I looked at him.
“Who is that?”
For several seconds, he couldn't speak.
Then he whispered the words as if saying them aloud might make them less real.
“My father.”
The photograph refreshed.
A second image appeared.
My father stood beside Salvatore on the railway platform.
And between them, holding a small girl's hand, was a younger Evelyn Cross.
The caption beneath the image contained only a date.
OCTOBER 14, 2008.
May you like
Exactly eighteen years earlier.
The day my mother disappeared.
Related Stories
