Chapter 2 - The Apartment With No Family Photographs)
Richard’s security director, David Mercer, traced the telephone number within minutes.
It belonged to Thomas Reed, a former Hale Industries safety engineer who had resigned seven years earlier and disappeared from corporate records.
David looked at Richard across the private room the Beaumont manager had given them.
“Reed lives outside Albany.”
“Get him.”
“I already sent someone.”
Richard looked toward Lucy.
Maria had found her a clean sweater from the restaurant lost-and-found box. Lucy sat at the end of the table holding a glass of milk with both hands.
She had barely spoken since hearing the call.
Richard lowered his voice.
“Before anything else, we find Amelia.”
David nodded.
“Where does she live?”
Maria gave them the address.
Richard expected a modest apartment.
He was not prepared for what he found.
Anna Parker lived with Lucy on the third floor of an aging brick building above a laundromat.
The hallway smelled of detergent and old paint.
Richard stopped outside Apartment 3C.
Lucy unlocked the door.
“Mom?”
Silence.
Lucy entered.
Richard followed slowly.
There were two rooms.
A tiny kitchen.
A secondhand couch.
A table covered with bills.
A pair of women’s shoes beside the door.
Nothing about the apartment belonged to the Amelia Hale he remembered.
His daughter had grown up in houses with libraries larger than this entire home.
She had attended private schools.
She had ridden horses.
She had complained when the family jet’s internet connection was slow.
Richard hated himself for remembering that.
Because there was something painfully dignified about this small apartment.
It was clean.
Carefully maintained.
And almost completely absent of luxury.
On the refrigerator were Lucy’s school drawings.
One showed Lucy and her mother holding hands beneath a crooked yellow sun.
Another showed three people.
Lucy.
Anna.
And a tall gray-haired man with a question mark instead of a face.
Richard stared at it.
Lucy noticed.
“That’s my grandfather.”
His throat tightened.
“You’ve never met him?”
“No.”
“Why did you draw him?”
“Mom said he used to love her.”
Richard looked away.
Used to.
That single phrase hurt more than any accusation.
David entered from the bedroom.
“No sign of forced entry.”
Maria checked the kitchen.
“Her purse is gone.”
Lucy ran toward the bedroom.
“She took her blue coat.”
Richard followed.
The room contained one bed.
A stack of library books.
A sewing kit.
A photograph turned facedown on the dresser.
Richard picked it up.
It was Amelia.
Older.
Thinner.
Her hair darker than he remembered.
She stood beside Lucy at a county fair.
Richard sat on the edge of the bed.
His daughter was alive.
He had been grieving a living woman for eight years.
Lucy opened a drawer.
“Mom keeps important things here.”
Inside were medical receipts.
Rent notices.
A stack of envelopes.
Richard saw the hospital name repeated several times.
St. Matthew’s Cardiology Center.
“What is this?”
Lucy looked down.
“Mom’s heart gets tired.”
Maria closed her eyes.
“She was diagnosed last year.”
Richard looked through the invoices.
The numbers were small compared with his world.
To Amelia they must have been enormous.
Past due.
Past due.
Final notice.
One prescription had been delayed twice.
Richard felt sick.
His daughter had been struggling to pay for heart medication while his name appeared every year on lists of the richest men in the country.
David spoke quietly.
“We need to check hospitals.”
Richard nodded.
Lucy pulled something else from the drawer.
A photograph.
Richard recognized himself.
It had been cut from a magazine.
His face was circled in blue ink.
On the back, Amelia had written a date.
Three months earlier.
Underneath were four words.
I almost told him.
Richard had to sit down again.
Lucy looked at him.
“Are you really my grandfather?”
There were a hundred things Richard wanted to say.
He wanted to say yes.
He wanted to tell her he would fix everything.
He wanted to promise that she would never have to worry about rent or medicine again.
But he had already failed a child he loved by believing documents instead of searching hard enough.
He would not make another careless promise.
“I believe I am.”
Lucy studied him.
“Mom said my grandfather was stubborn.”
Despite everything, Maria smiled.
Richard almost did.
“That sounds accurate.”
Lucy looked at the photograph.
“She also said you hated her.”
The smile disappeared.
“I never hated Amelia.”
“Then why didn’t you find us?”
Richard had no answer that an eight-year-old should have to hear.
David’s phone rang.
He walked toward the window.
“Yes?”
His expression changed.
Richard stood.
“What?”
David covered the phone.
“They found a woman matching Anna Parker’s description.”
Lucy jumped up.
“Where?”
David looked at Richard.
“St. Matthew’s.”
Richard moved toward the door.
David stopped him.
“There’s more.”
Richard waited.
“She was brought in last night after being found unconscious beside her car.”
Lucy’s face crumpled.
Richard took her hand instinctively.
David continued.
“The doctors think she may have been struck by another vehicle.”
Richard felt Lucy’s fingers tighten around his.
May you like
Then David said the part that made the room cold.
“Someone had removed every piece of identification from her purse.”
