Chapter 6 of 12
MY SON GAVE OUR WEDDING DANCE TO HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW, THEN THE MAFIA BOSS CROSSED THE BALLROOM AND HELD OUT HIS HAND
THE MARRIAGE HELEN CORSY ARRANGED
We intercepted the plane before it left Arizona.
That sounds more dramatic than it was.
There were no vehicles racing across runways.
No bullets striking airplane windows.
No men hanging from landing gear.
Gino called someone.
That person called someone else.
Twenty-three minutes later, federal agents appeared at the private airfield with enough official paperwork to make even Gino smile.
“See?” he said.
“See what?”
“Sometimes bureaucracy is useful.”
“You hate bureaucracy.”
“I hate inefficient bureaucracy.”
Chloe was inside a hangar office.
Alive.
Terrified.
Her father sat beside her.
Charles Corsy looked nothing like the man from the wedding.
His cheek was bruised.
His expensive shirt was torn at the collar.
One wrist had been bandaged.
Noah entered first.
“Chloe.”
She stood.
For one second, I expected her to run into his arms.
She didn't.
Noah stopped.
Her eyes filled.
“You came.”
“Of course I came.”
She looked toward me.
Then Gino.
Then back to Noah.
“My mother lied to me.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Her voice cracked.
“You don't.”
Charles looked down.
Noah moved closer.
“What did she tell you?”
Chloe wiped her face.
“She wanted us married.”
Silence.
“I know she approved after I took the job.”
“No.”
Chloe shook her head.
“She wanted us together before we met.”
My son stared.
“What?”
Charles whispered, “Chloe.”
She ignored him.
“My first fundraiser at Northwestern.”
Noah's face changed.
Where they met.
A charity event.
I remembered Noah calling me at midnight afterward.
Mom, I met someone.
I had teased him because he sounded fourteen.
Chloe continued.
“My mother put us at the same table.”
“So?”
“She knew who you were.”
“I assumed.”
“No.”
Tears rolled down her face.
“She knew whose son you were.”
Noah looked confused.
Then horrified.
“Before?”
“Yes.”
My stomach turned.
Gino's expression hardened.
Charles stood.
“I can explain.”
Noah looked at him.
“You've had eleven months.”
Charles closed his eyes.
“I didn't know until after the engagement.”
“Know what?”
“Why Helen wanted the relationship.”
Noah laughed bitterly.
“I'm listening.”
Charles looked at me.
“Aaron told Helen he had hidden evidence somewhere only his family could find.”
I froze.
“When?”
“Two days before he died.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was there.”
Gino stepped forward.
“Where?”
“Corsy headquarters.”
Charles' voice shook.
“Aaron confronted Helen.”
“And you?”
“I represented the company.”
“So you protected her.”
“I didn't understand what she had done.”
Everyone said that.
I was becoming tired of people who never understood until understanding became safer than ignorance.
“What did Aaron say?”
Charles looked at Noah.
“He told Helen that if anything happened to him, his son would finish what he started one day.”
Noah stopped breathing.
“That was a threat?”
“No.”
Charles shook his head.
“Aaron meant he was raising you to care about right and wrong.”
I smiled sadly.
“That sounds like him.”
“Helen heard something else.”
Gino understood.
“She believed Aaron had given the evidence to Noah.”
“Yes.”
“But I was seventeen,” Noah said.
“She watched you.”
My son looked sick.
“For eleven years?”
“Yes.”
“She arranged Chloe?”
Charles' silence answered.
Chloe began crying.
Noah stared at his wife as if the floor had vanished between them.
“So what are we?”
Her face broke.
“I don't know.”
“Was any of it real?”
“For me?”
She stepped toward him.
“All of it.”
“How do I know?”
“You don't.”
The honesty stopped him.
Chloe pressed a hand against her mouth.
“I don't even know whether Mom encouraged me because she thought you might lead her to the evidence or because she wanted control over you.”
Noah looked toward the hangar doors.
“I need air.”
He walked out.
Chloe didn't follow.
That was probably wise.
I sat beside her.
For a moment, I did not know whether I was her mother-in-law or merely the woman her mother had humiliated twelve hours earlier.
Then Chloe whispered, “Do you hate me?”
“No.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew Noah was becoming embarrassed by the bakery.”
That surprised me.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“Did you encourage it?”
Her eyes dropped.
“Sometimes.”
Honesty again.
“That was cruel.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
“My mother notices status before she notices people.”
Chloe laughed painfully.
“I spent my whole life learning to notice what she noticed.”
I understood more than I wanted to.
“And now?”
“I think I married a man who was trying to become someone my family would approve of, while I was trying to become someone my mother would approve of.”
She looked toward the door where Noah disappeared.
“Maybe neither of us knew who we were.”
“That's fixable.”
“Is it?”
“Sometimes.”
I thought of Aaron's letter.
“Late isn't the same as too late.”
Chloe wiped her face.
“You told Noah that?”
“How do you know?”
“He texted me.”
Despite everything, I smiled.
Charles sat across from Gino.
“Where is Helen?”
“We hoped you knew.”
“She left me a message.”
His phone had been taken, but federal agents recovered the voicemail.
Helen's voice sounded calm.
Charles, if you're listening, your daughter chose poorly. You always said my greatest flaw was believing I could arrange people like pieces on a board. Maybe you were right.
A pause.
But you were wrong about Beth.
I looked up.
Helen continued.
Aaron told me his wife knew nothing.
I believed him.
I should have understood that a man like Aaron would never hide evidence somewhere sophisticated.
He would hide it somewhere sentimental.
My heart stopped.
Gino looked at me.
The recipe book.
We had found manifests there.
But maybe not everything.
Helen continued.
Tell Beth I'll be seeing her soon.
The message ended.
“No,” Gino said immediately.
“What?”
“You are not going back to your house.”
“She knows about the recipe book.”
“Yes.”
“She thinks something else is there.”
“Yes.”
“Then I need to know what.”
“No.”
I crossed my arms.
He stared.
Charles watched us.
“Are you two always like this?”
“Yes,” I said.
“No,” Gino said.
We looked at each other.
Chloe almost laughed.
Gino sighed.
“Fine. We search remotely first.”
“How?”
“My people.”
“No.”
He looked offended.
“What?”
“That is Aaron's mother's recipe book.”
“They will wear gloves.”
“That isn't the point.”
“What is the point?”
“I don't know. It simply feels wrong.”
“Beth.”
“Gino.”
Noah returned.
His eyes were red but his expression was calmer.
“What's happening?”
I explained.
He immediately said, “I'm going.”
Gino looked toward the ceiling.
“Your family is exhausting.”
“We bake.”
“That does not explain this.”
We flew back to Chicago.
By then, Gino had moved security around my entire block.
My neighbors would gossip for ten years.
Good.
At the house, I placed the green recipe binder on the kitchen table.
We had already cut the back cover.
Gino examined the spine.
“Anything unusual?”
“No.”
Noah flipped pages.
“Grandma wrote notes everywhere.”
I smiled.
Aaron's mother had opinions about butter.
Strong opinions.
Chloe joined us.
Even Charles came.
Hours passed.
Nothing.
Then I saw a page titled:
AARON'S FAVORITE LEMON CAKE.
I froze.
Gino looked over.
“What?”
“My lemon cake isn't mine.”
He frowned.
“Excuse me?”
“The recipe.”
I touched the page.
“Aaron's mother taught me.”
Gino stared.
“You've been feeding me Aaron's favorite cake for three years?”
“I suppose.”
He looked genuinely disturbed by that coincidence.
I smiled.
“Romantic statement?”
“Potentially supernatural one.”
Noah leaned over.
“There are numbers beside the ingredients.”
I looked.
Flour — 417.
Sugar — 226.
Lemons — 904.
Butter — 118.
I had always assumed they were old price calculations.
Gino went still.
“Safe-deposit numbers?”
“One was 417.”
The bank box.
My pulse changed.
“What are the others?”
Noah pulled out his laptop.
“Could be storage units.”
Charles whispered, “Aaron used terminal locker codes.”
We looked at him.
“What?”
“Drivers had personal lockers at old freight depots.”
“Which terminals?”
He scanned the numbers.
“226 could be South Halsted.”
“904?”
“Old Calumet facility.”
Gino stood.
“Closed ten years ago.”
“Still owned?”
Charles nodded.
“By a shell company.”
“Whose?”
He hesitated.
“Helen's.”
There it was.
We drove to the Calumet facility before sunset.
Locker 904 stood in a rusted employees' room.
No key.
Gino's man opened it.
Inside was a lunchbox.
Aaron's lunchbox.
Blue metal.
Noah recognized it before I did.
“Dad's.”
My eyes filled.
I touched the dent near the handle.
He dropped it during a snowstorm once and complained for a week.
Inside was a photograph of Noah at seven.
One of me covered in flour.
And a sealed document pouch.
I opened it.
A ledger.
Names.
Judges.
Police.
Company executives.
Politicians.
Salvatore Balante.
Helen Corsy.
Payments.
Dates.
And beside one date, four days after Aaron died:
S. BALANTE — FINAL PAYMENT — A. LAWSON / M. BALANTE.
Gino's face became utterly still.
I whispered, “Your uncle.”
“Yes.”
“Helen paid him?”
He looked at the ledger.
“To kill Aaron and Matteo.”
The truth was finally on paper.
But beneath the ledger was one final item.
A small digital recorder.
I pressed play.
Helen's voice.
Then Salvatore's.
Helen: “The truck driver goes first.”
Salvatore: “And Matteo?”
Helen: “After.”
Salvatore: “My nephew will come looking.”
Helen laughed.
“Then make sure Gino believes the evidence died with his brother.”
The recording ended.
Gino stared at the device.
Three years of lemon cake suddenly made sense.
His brother had not simply died.
Gino had been deliberately sent down a false trail.
He looked at me.
“I should have found you sooner.”
“No.”
“Beth.”
“You didn't kill Aaron.”
“My family helped.”
“And mine didn't notice he was terrified.”
He looked at me.
“Neither of us gets to rewrite what we didn't know.”
Something deep passed between us.
Then a gunshot shattered the window.
Charles dropped.
Chloe screamed.
Gino threw me behind the lockers.
More shots.
Security returned fire.
Noah crawled toward his father-in-law.
“Charles!”
Blood spread across Charles' shoulder.
Alive.
Outside, tires screamed.
The shooter escaped.
On the floor near the broken window, a phone began ringing.
Helen.
Gino stared at it.
I answered.
“You found the ledger.”
“Yes.”
Her breathing changed.
For the first time, Helen Corsy sounded afraid.
“Beth.”
“You should have stayed in Montreal.”
“You don't understand what you're holding.”
“I understand exactly.”
“If those names become public, people die.”
“My husband already did.”
Silence.
“You think Gino will protect you forever?”
I looked at him.
He was pressing cloth against Charles' wound while shouting instructions.
“I don't need forever.”
Then Helen said something that stopped my heart.
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Because I know where you live.”
I almost laughed.
“So does every person who orders a birthday cake.”
“No.”
Her voice softened.
“I mean the place Aaron bought for you before he died.”
I froze.
“What place?”
Gino looked up.
Helen continued.
“The house he never got to show you.”
My pulse pounded.
“What are you talking about?”
“A lake cabin near Lake Geneva.”
I looked at Noah.
He shook his head.
Nobody knew.
Helen whispered:
“That is where he hid the last thing.”
The line went dead.
Gino slowly stood.
“What last thing?”
I stared at Aaron's lunchbox.
Eleven years after my husband died, he was still leaving us breadcrumbs.
And Helen Corsy knew where the final one led.