Chapter 7 - The Man Who Came Back from the Dead
The chapel stood on a wooded property outside Chicago, abandoned since the death of Adrian's grandfather.
By the time we arrived, police vehicles blocked the access road. Officers moved between the trees with flashlights while an ambulance waited near the entrance.
Santos ran ahead.
Daniel Santos was alive.
He lay on a narrow bed inside the chapel's former caretaker's room, his face bruised and his wrists marked by restraints. The moment he saw his sister, he began crying.
She took his hand.
For several seconds, the detective who had interrogated me was simply a younger sister who had almost lost her family twice.
I stayed near the doorway with Adrian.
Daniel's eyes found us.
“Silas,” he rasped.
Santos leaned over him. “What about Silas?”
“He ordered Sofia's death. Karen arranged the medication. They planned to make it look like complications after childbirth.”
Adrian went utterly still.
“My wife trusted you,” he whispered, though Daniel had been speaking about Silas.
Daniel struggled to sit up.
“Your father discovered the thefts before he died. He was going to expose Silas. The warehouse fire wasn't an accident either.”
“My father died in that fire.”
“Yes,” Daniel said. “And Mateo Ruiz was there.”
I stepped forward.
“My father?”
“He was Silas's accountant. He discovered the missing money and helped your father escape the warehouse before it burned. Then Mateo disappeared with evidence that could put Silas away.”
Adrian's face hardened.
“Why didn't you tell me this before?”
“Because I didn't have proof. I was following the Saint Fund transfers when someone attacked me. I thought I was going to die.”
Santos clasped her brother's hand.
“Who took you?”
“Karen. She wanted to know where I hid the original ledger.”
“Where is it?”
Daniel looked toward me.
“Your mother had it.”
The room seemed to tilt.
“My mother died years ago.”
“Your mother hid the ledger before she died. Mateo spent years searching for it. Karen believed you might know where it was.”
“I was a child.”
“Exactly. She thought you were the safest place to hide it because nobody would suspect you.”
I remembered the small wooden music box my mother had kept beside her bed. After she died, Lucia and I had placed it in a cardboard box with her belongings. We never opened the false bottom because neither of us knew it existed.
I had kept the box in my apartment.
My apartment had been searched after my arrest.
I pulled out my phone and called the landlord.
No answer.
Then a message appeared from an unknown number.
It was a photograph of my apartment door, hanging open.
May you like
Beneath it were eight words.
WE FOUND YOUR MOTHER'S BOX. YOUR SISTER IS NEXT.
