Chapter 2 - THE TICKET
The black town car felt less like a vehicle and more like a vault.
As we pulled away from the Vale estate, the heavy silence inside the cabin pressed against my chest. Roman Vale sat beside me, his jaw clenched so tightly a muscle feathered beneath his skin. He hadn't spoken since he ordered his driver to take us to Resurrection Cemetery.
I kept my hands folded in my lap, trying to hide their trembling.
Just an hour ago, I was worried about being fired. I was worried about how I would pay for Josie’s winter boots. Now, I was riding in the back of a bulletproof sedan with the most dangerous man in Chicago, all because of a game my mother used to play with my fingers.
"How long?" Roman's voice was quiet, but it commanded the air in the car.
I looked at him. "Sir?"
"How long has Evelyn been gone?"
"She died last November," I said softly. "It was sudden. Her heart."
Roman turned his head, looking out the tinted window at the gray Chicago skyline. The rain had started to fall, smearing the city lights into pale streaks of gold and silver.
"My sister," Roman said, his voice completely devoid of emotion, "was taken from her crib twenty-nine years ago. I was five. The nanny disappeared the same night."
The air in my lungs turned to ice.
"Mr. Vale, I'm twenty-nine."
"I know."
"My mother was Evelyn Brooks. She was a waitress. We lived in South Side. She wasn't a kidnapper." My voice cracked, betraying the sudden, violent panic rising in my throat. "She was a good person. She worked double shifts just to buy my school supplies."
Roman finally looked at me. His dark eyes were impossible to read. "People can be two things at once, Miss Brooks. They can be a loving mother. And they can be a thief."
"She didn't steal me."
"Then why did my mother call you by my sister’s name?"
I didn't have an answer. I pressed my back against the leather seat, my mind racing through every memory of my childhood. Evelyn brushing my hair. Evelyn holding me when I was sick. Evelyn, always looking over her shoulder when we walked home in the dark.
I had always thought she was just an anxious woman.
Was she running?
The car slowed as we passed through the wrought-iron gates of Resurrection Cemetery. The sprawling grounds were empty, slick with November rain. The driver navigated the narrow, winding paths with practiced precision.
"Stop here," I whispered.
The car idled near a cluster of modest headstones beneath a massive, weeping willow. I stepped out into the cold rain. I didn't have an umbrella, and the thrift-store coat I wore offered little protection against the wind.
Roman stepped out beside me. An enormous black umbrella bloomed over my head. He held it steadily, his shoulder brushing mine as we walked through the wet grass.
I led him to a small, flat granite marker.
Evelyn Brooks. Beloved Mother. 1965 – 2025.
I stared at the stone, feeling the familiar ache of grief. But today, the grief was tainted with something sharp and terrifying. Doubt.
Roman stood in silence, looking down at the grave. Then, without a word, he handed me the umbrella.
He knelt in the mud. The charcoal fabric of his expensive trousers soaked through instantly, but he didn't seem to care. He reached out and touched the edge of the granite marker.
"Mr. Vale, what are you doing?"
He didn't answer. His fingers traced the seam where the granite met the concrete base. He pressed hard against the corner.
"My father," Roman said quietly, his hands working at the dirt around the stone, "had a very specific way of doing things. When he wanted something hidden, he didn't put it in a vault. He put it where people were too afraid to look."
"My mother bought this plot ten years ago," I said, my voice shaking. "She paid it off in installments."
"Did she?" Roman pulled a silver pocket knife from his coat. He wedged the blade into a tiny, nearly invisible groove at the base of the stone.
He pushed.
There was a dull click. A small, rectangular section of the concrete base slid backward, revealing a hollow cavity beneath the stone.
I dropped the umbrella. It tumbled away in the wind, but neither of us moved to catch it.
Roman reached into the dark cavity. When he pulled his hand back out, he was holding a small, rusted tin box. The kind that used to hold mints.
My heart hammered against my ribs. "What is that?"
Roman wiped the mud from the lid with his thumb. He pried it open.
Inside, wrapped in a piece of faded yellow plastic, was a single, crumpled object. Roman unwrapped it slowly. The rain fell against his hands as he smoothed out the paper.
It was a train ticket.
Union Station to Montreal. Dated October 14th, 1997.
The exact day I was born.
But that wasn't what made the breath leave my lungs. On the back of the ticket, written in my mother's familiar, elegant handwriting, were three lines of text.
Roman read them aloud, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper.
"I didn't take her to hurt you. I took her to save her. Do not look for us. He will kill her too."
I stared at the ticket, the world tilting violently on its axis. "He? Who is he?"
Roman didn't answer. He turned the ticket over in his hands, his eyes narrowing as he felt the texture of the paper. He rubbed his thumb over the edge.
Then, he reached into the tin box again.
There was a false bottom.
Roman pulled it up. Beneath the plastic lining lay something that made my blood run entirely cold.
It was a hospital bracelet. The tiny, plastic band they put on newborns. But it didn't say Brooks.
It said Vale, Elena.
And wrapped around the tiny plastic band was a lock of dark hair, stained stiff with something that looked terribly like dried blood.
"She didn't steal you," Roman whispered, staring at the blood. "She ran with you. Because someone tried to murder you in your crib."
Before I could process the words, my phone rang.
The shrill sound cut through the cemetery silence like a siren. I fumbled in my pocket, my numb fingers struggling with the screen. It was Josie’s school.
"Hello?" I answered breathlessly.
"Ms. Brooks?" It was the school secretary. "I'm calling about Josie."
Panic seized my chest. "Is she okay? Is she hurt?"
"She's fine, but she's quite upset. A man just tried to pick her up from the playground."
Roman’s head snapped up. His eyes locked onto mine, dark and lethal.
May you like
"A man?" I choked out. "Who?"
"He said he was her uncle," the secretary replied. "He told her to give you a message. He said, 'Tell your mother that the coming-home song is over.'"
