Chapter 2
The hallway smelled of cedar wood and expensive cigar smoke.
Damian Costello walked with heavy, deliberate strides.
Clara followed three steps behind him, her sneakers silent against the Persian rug.
Her heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird.
Twenty years of hiding in Albany had led to this exact corridor.
The gold-framed portraits of aging mob bosses stared down from the walls.
Damian stopped in front of heavy mahogany double doors.
He pushed them open without turning around.
His private study was dark, illuminated only by the amber glow of city lights through floor-to-ceiling windows.
He did not sit behind his imposing oak desk.
Instead, he turned to face her directly.
“Lock the door,” he said.
Clara hesitated for a fraction of a second.
Her hand reached out and clicked the brass lock into place.
“How old are you?” Damian asked, his voice flat and devoid of emotion.
“Twenty-six,” Clara answered, keeping her chin up.
“And you came here looking for what?”
“Answers,” she said. “My mother didn’t steal from your father.”
Damian’s jaw tightened visibly.
A muscle twitched near his left cheek.
“Joanne Hughes was a thief,” Damian whispered, stepping closer. “She took forty thousand dollars from my father’s safe on the night she disappeared.”
“She was honest to a fault,” Clara shot back, her voice shaking with suppressed fury. “She wouldn’t steal a penny.”
Damian reached into his breast pocket.
He pulled out a folded, yellowed piece of paper.
He dropped it onto the coffee table between them.
It was Joanne Hughes’s handwriting, neat and slanted.
At the bottom was a signature in red ink.
“Recognize it?” Damian asked softly.
Clara stepped forward and looked down at the paper.
It wasn't a confession of theft.
It was a transfer order for something far more dangerous than money.
May you like
Before Clara could read another line, a gunshot shattered the front courtyard silence.
Glass exploded inward from the study window.
