Chapter 6 - The Lie That Kept Fern Alive
Stellan moved us before breakfast.
Not asked.
Moved.
Three armored SUVs. Six men with earpieces. A medic. A second car carrying Mrs. Thornbury and Mercer.
I stood in the mansion driveway holding Fern and said, “I’m not getting in.”
Stellan stopped beside the rear door.
“Someone photographed you outside your apartment.”
“I understand that.”
“They threatened Fern.”
“I understand that too.”
“Then get in.”
“No.”
His security men looked deeply interested in the pavement.
I pointed at Stellan.
“You do not get to become the father at 6:12 in the morning and start giving orders at 6:13.”
For half a second, his mouth twitched.
“This isn’t funny.”
“I know. That’s why I’m angry.”
He lowered his voice.
“What do you need?”
The question stopped me.
“I need to know where we’re going.”
“A secure house near Lake Geneva.”
“Who knows about it?”
“Me. Darius. Two drivers.”
“Mrs. Thornbury?”
“No.”
“Your family?”
“No.”
“Your father?”
Stellan’s face changed.
“My father has been in a private rehabilitation facility for eight months.”
I stared at him.
“What happened?”
“Stroke.”
“Can he talk?”
“Barely.”
I looked at the threat again.
FINISH WHAT GIDEON CROSS STARTED.
“If he can barely talk, who’s giving orders in his name?”
Stellan looked toward his head of security, Darius Cole.
Darius was tall, broad-shouldered, calm in a way that suggested calm was something he practiced around violence.
“We’re finding out,” he said.
I got in the SUV.
The safe house was less a house than a fortress pretending to be a lake home.
Fern liked the kitchen floor.
That was the first normal thing all day.
She crawled after a wooden spoon while Stellan stood at the island going through files with Darius.
I sat nearby with Mrs. Thornbury.
“Tell me the whole reason you created Ava Cross.”
Mrs. Thornbury folded her hands.
“Gideon believed someone inside the Cross organization was selling family information.”
“So he hid Fern.”
“For seven hours.”
“Then why leave the fake identity active?”
“He didn’t.”
I frowned.
“We closed it before dawn.”
“Then somebody reopened it.”
“Yes.”
“And used it to fake Fern’s death for Stellan.”
“Yes.”
I looked at him across the room.
He was reading a document with his jaw clenched.
“What did the lie accomplish?”
Mrs. Thornbury’s eyes followed mine.
“It kept Stellan away from you.”
“Why would that keep us alive?”
“Because after Ava’s ‘death,’ Stellan did something nobody expected.”
“What?”
“He came back to Chicago.”
Stellan heard her.
He turned.
“I came back because I thought running had killed my child.”
Mrs. Thornbury nodded.
“And the moment you came back, the attempts on Selene stopped.”
I felt cold.
“Attempts?”
She looked at me.
“The drugged drink at the gala was not random.”
My throat tightened.
Stellan came closer.
“I told you someone was watching you before sunrise.”
“You knew I had been targeted?”
“I knew after I left.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I thought staying away was the warning.”
“That is not how warnings work.”
“No.” His voice softened. “It isn’t.”
Darius’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, then looked at Stellan.
“We pulled the financials on Ava Cross.”
Stellan frowned.
“What financials?”
Darius turned the tablet.
An account had been opened in the name of the dead infant eleven months earlier.
Not a small account.
Thirty-eight million dollars had moved through it.
Stellan stared.
“From where?”
Darius’s answer changed the room.
“Cross Holdings.”
I looked at Fern playing with the wooden spoon.
Someone had not only created a fake death around my daughter.
They had been using her grave as a bank account.
---
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