The Grandmother Who Knew His Mother
Chapter 04 - The Grandmother Who Knew His Mother
Claire read the note three times before her mind allowed the words to mean anything.
I should have told you about the Hayes family years ago.
Behind her, Vincent stood in the doorway of the little apartment without crossing the threshold. For a man accustomed to owning rooms, he looked strangely out of place among the crocheted blankets, discount-store curtains, and the chipped ceramic rooster her grandmother refused to throw away.
Claire turned on him.
“What did you do to her?”
His face did not change. “Nothing.”
“Then where is she?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.” He looked at the note in her hand. “But I expect you to keep breathing long enough to find out.”
It was the wrong thing to say and the only useful thing.
Luke came in behind them, checked the windows, the bathroom, the narrow bedroom, the fire escape. He moved with an efficiency that made Claire both grateful and angry. This was her home. Her cracked tile. Her leaking ceiling. Her grandmother's slippers beside the recliner.
Now men with guns were moving through it like a crime scene.
“Medicine bag is gone,” Luke said.
Claire's eyes snapped to the small table by the window. He was right. Her grandmother's canvas medicine bag was missing, along with her winter coat.
“She left?”
“Or someone made her leave prepared,” Vincent said.
Claire found another clue in the bedroom: the framed photograph of her mother had been moved. Behind it, taped to the cardboard backing, was a key.
Not a house key.
Small. Brass. Old.
A number was stamped into the metal.
417.
Vincent saw it and went still.
“Why do you keep doing that?” Claire asked.
“Doing what?”
“Looking like you've seen a ghost and then pretending you haven't.”
His eyes lifted to hers. “Because I have excellent manners.”
“Try again.”
He looked at the key.
“My mother kept a box at Saint Agnes Credit Union. Number 417.”
Claire's fingers closed around the key.
“My grandmother went to Saint Agnes Church tonight.”
Luke entered from the hallway. “Boss.”
“What?”
“Church office says an elderly woman matching her description came in forty minutes ago. She wasn't alone.”
Claire's knees weakened.
“Who was with her?”
Luke hesitated.
“That part's strange.”
Vincent's voice cooled. “Say it.”
“She left with Father Mateo.”
The name meant nothing to Claire.
It meant something to Vincent.
His face went hard in a way she had not seen before. Not anger. Wound.
“Vincent?”
He looked toward the window, where snow scratched at the glass.
“Father Mateo buried my mother.”
Saint Agnes Church smelled of wax, damp wool, and old wood. The sanctuary was empty except for a janitor polishing brass candle stands near the altar. He swore no elderly woman had been there. He swore Father Mateo had gone to visit a shut-in parishioner at five.
Then Claire heard coughing from the parish office.
She ran.
Her grandmother sat in a straight-backed chair, wrapped in a blanket, oxygen tubes beneath her nose and a paper cup of tea trembling in both hands.
“Grandma.”
Edith Bennett looked up, her eyes filling at once. “Oh, Claire.”
Claire knelt and took her hands. “Who brought you here?”
“I came with Father Mateo.”
“He isn't here.”
Edith's gaze moved past Claire to Vincent.
For one long moment, the old woman forgot to breathe.
“You have her eyes,” she whispered.
Vincent did not move.
Claire looked between them. “Whose eyes?”
Edith's hands began to shake.
“Your mother's,” she said to Vincent.
“You knew my mother?” he asked.
The question came out low, almost empty.
Edith nodded. “I cleaned for the Hayes family before I cleaned hospitals. I was there the night Gloria died.”
Vincent stepped closer. “My mother died in a car accident.”
“No.” Edith closed her eyes. “That is what your aunt paid people to say.”
Claire felt the room grow colder.
Vincent's voice changed. “My aunt Helena?”
Edith looked at Claire then, and guilt moved over her face like a shadow.
“I kept something for Gloria. I promised I would give it to her son when he was old enough. Then men came looking. Your mother was pregnant with you, Claire. I was afraid.”
“My mother?” Claire whispered. “What does my mother have to do with this?”
Edith reached beneath her blanket and pulled out a worn leather pouch.
Inside was a second key.
Not brass.
Silver.
A key to a private vault.
Before Vincent could take it, the church lights flickered once.
Luke appeared in the doorway, gun drawn but pointed low.
“We need to move,” he said.
From somewhere beneath the church, a door slammed.
May you like
Edith gripped Claire's hand.
“They found the vault before we did.”
