Chapter 3 - THE DOOR BEHIND THE FREEZER
3
My father was supposed to be dead.
That was the first thing I understood.
The second thing was that grown-ups could become completely silent even when there were twenty of them standing in the same room.
Mom picked up the photograph.
Her hands shook so badly that the corners fluttered.
“No.”
Lieutenant Mercer stepped closer.
“When was this taken?”
Mom stared at the date.
“Daniel died on March eighth.”
Mercer turned the photograph over.
“This says March fifteenth.”
“I can read.”
Her voice cracked.
Vincent took the photograph carefully.
“Could the date be wrong?”
Mom shook her head.
“Daniel had that scar.”
She pointed to my father's left eyebrow.
“He got it the night we moved into our first apartment. He slipped carrying a bookcase.”
Vincent looked closer.
“He had the scar before he died.”
“Yes.”
“That doesn't prove the photograph was taken later.”
Mom's eyes moved to my father's wrist.
Then she stopped breathing.
“What?”
She pointed.
“His watch.”
There was a black watch on his wrist.
Mom whispered, “I gave him that for our anniversary.”
Vincent waited.
“I gave it to him two days before he died.”
That changed everything.
Lieutenant Mercer sat down.
For the first time, he didn't look like a police officer.
He looked like a man realizing a hole had opened underneath his life.
“I don't remember Carter being there.”
Vincent looked at him.
“You're in the photograph.”
“I don't remember the photograph.”
“You don't remember a dead man standing beside you?”
Mercer slammed one hand on the table.
“He wasn't dead to me. I didn't know Daniel Carter.”
Mom stared at him.
“You were at his funeral.”
Mercer looked confused.
“No, I wasn't.”
“Yes, you were.”
She pointed at his face.
“You stood in the back. I remember because you kept looking at the door.”
Mercer's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
Vincent glanced between them.
“Someone has been editing memories with paperwork.”
“What does that mean?” Mom asked.
“It means we stop trusting dates, names, bank accounts, and official reports until we can prove them twice.”
Police supervisors arrived.
Then federal agents.
Then an ambulance for Nadia.
Sterling's Bistro filled with uniforms and evidence bags.
Vincent was asked to leave.
He refused until Mom and I had somewhere secure to go.
Lieutenant Mercer tried calling his sister Rebecca six more times.
No answer.
Her phone was eventually found in the glove compartment of her SUV in Lincoln Park.
Rebecca Sterling was missing.
David Sterling was missing.
And the basement contained enough stolen identities to fill three vans.
But none of that was what kept Vincent awake that night.
It was the photograph.
Mom and I were moved to an apartment above a private medical office owned by one of Vincent's legitimate companies.
Mom hated accepting help from him.
“I don't know what he expects in return,” she told me.
“Maybe nothing.”
“Men like Vincent Kane don't do nothing.”
“What kind of men?”
She looked at me.
“Tired ones.”
That didn't answer my question.
Two hours later, Vincent arrived.
He brought groceries.
Not fancy ones.
Milk.
Eggs.
Bread.
Chicken.
Strawberries.
Macaroni.
Mom stared at the bags.
“You didn't need to do that.”
Vincent looked at me.
“I was told dinner has become an issue.”
My cheeks got hot.
Mom did not.
“Don't use my daughter to embarrass me.”
His expression softened.
“I wasn't.”
“Then don't treat us like charity.”
Vincent nodded.
“You're right.”
He placed an envelope on the counter.
Mom didn't touch it.
“What's that?”
“Your missing wages.”
“I don't want your money.”
“It isn't mine.”
She stared at him.
“Sterling kept roughly sixty thousand dollars in the restaurant safe.”
“You stole it?”
“Recovered it.”
“That's stealing with better grammar.”
For a second, Vincent almost smiled.
Then his face turned serious.
“The money has been logged with the federal agents. I advanced the unpaid wages for everyone from one of my companies. If the court later releases Sterling's cash, it reimburses me.”
Mom crossed her arms.
“Why?”
Vincent looked toward the window.
“Because your husband once tried to stop what my brother started.”
Mom went still.
“What?”
Vincent placed another file on the counter.
“Anthony Kane founded Lakefront Employment Services in 2014.”
He explained that it was supposed to be a staffing company.
Restaurants, construction firms, hotels, warehouses.
Temporary workers got placed.
Employers paid Lakefront.
Lakefront paid workers.
Simple.
Except money began disappearing.
Payroll taxes were withheld but never submitted.
Employees discovered credit cards opened in their names.
Some received medical bills for treatment they never had.
Daniel Carter had been an accountant for a supplier connected to Lakefront.
He noticed payments moving through shell companies.
“He came to me,” Vincent said.
Mom whispered, “You knew Daniel?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you ever tell me?”
“Because he asked me not to.”
My mother laughed once.
It had no humor in it.
“My husband has been dead for nearly five years, and the most feared man in Chicago walks into my apartment to tell me they were friends?”
“We weren't friends.”
“What were you?”
Vincent looked uncomfortable.
“Two men trying to keep Anthony from destroying everyone around him.”
Mom's anger broke.
“What happened to Daniel?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Vincent took out the photograph.
“I expect you to help me find out.”
Mom stared at my father's face.
I climbed onto the chair beside her.
“Is Daddy alive?”
She closed her eyes.
Nobody answered.
Then Vincent's phone rang.
Salvatore.
He put it on speaker.
“We found something.”
“Where?”
“At the restaurant.”
“The federal agents have the basement.”
“Not this part.”
“What part?”
“Behind the freezer.”
There had been a huge industrial freezer along the basement wall.
When investigators removed it, they discovered tracks in the floor.
The entire freezer rolled sideways.
Behind it was another door.
No handle.
No visible lock.
Only a keypad.
Federal technicians opened it shortly after midnight.
Inside wasn't another storage room.
It was an office.
A secret one.
There were no windows.
One desk.
One chair.
Three monitors.
A shredder.
A safe embedded in concrete.
And an enormous map of Chicago covering one wall.
Colored pins marked dozens of addresses.
Mom's apartment was one of them.
So was Lieutenant Mercer's house.
Vincent's office.
Nadia's apartment.
Sixteen employee homes.
A courthouse.
A hospital.
A cemetery.
And an elementary school.
I stared at the picture Salvatore sent.
“What school is that?”
Vincent zoomed in.
Mom made a sound that scared me.
Because the pin was placed at Little Pines Preschool.
My school.
Vincent called Salvatore.
“Get the federal agents back in that room.”
“They're already here.”
“Check the safe.”
“They're drilling it now.”
Ten minutes later, Salvatore called again.
His voice had changed.
“We opened it.”
Vincent put him on speaker.
“What was inside?”
“Passports.”
“Whose?”
“Some employees. Some names we don't recognize.”
“What else?”
“A handgun.”
Mom covered my ears.
I moved her hands away.
“And?”
Salvatore took a breath.
“A stack of death certificates.”
Vincent's eyes went cold.
“How many?”
“Twenty-three.”
Mom whispered, “Why would Sterling have death certificates?”
Salvatore didn't answer immediately.
Then he said, “Because three of the people on these certificates are alive.”
Vincent stared at the phone.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“There is a certificate for Daniel Carter.”
Mom grabbed the counter.
I looked at her.
“But we already have Daddy's death certificate.”
She nodded slowly.
Salvatore said, “This one isn't the same.”
Vincent's voice dropped.
“How?”
“The first says Daniel died in a traffic accident on March eighth.”
Mom stopped breathing.
“And this one?”
Salvatore replied.
“It says Daniel Carter died on March twenty-first.”
Thirteen days later.
And the cause of death wasn't a traffic accident.
It was gunshot trauma.
Then Salvatore added the detail that changed the way my mother looked at every door for the rest of the night.
“The certificate was never filed.”
May you like
It was blank where the doctor's signature should have been.
Which meant someone had prepared it before Daniel Carter was actually dead.
