Chapter 2 - A Name That Was Never Buried
Marcus stepped between me and the guards. "Let me handle her, Mr. Whitcomb," he said. "She'll be off the premises in five minutes."
Graham Whitcomb. That was the old man's name, the one stamped across the new ownership announcement taped to the break-room door. Three days earlier he had purchased our warehouse through a holding company. Now he was ordering me removed for recognizing him in a family photograph.
"Don't touch me," I told Marcus when he grabbed my elbow.
"Then walk. You're making this worse."
I walked because fighting in front of two armed security officers would get me nowhere. In the loading bay, Marcus pushed the emergency exit open and waited until we were outside, beneath a gray morning sky.
"Give me the photo," he said.
"Why?"
"Because you want to go home alive."
The words were quiet, almost gentle. That made them worse.
I backed toward my battered Honda. "You know something about my mother."
"I know your mother was a good person."
"Was?"
He swallowed. "Elena, I swear, I never wanted you involved."
"Then tell me what happened."
A dark SUV rounded the far corner of the lot. Marcus noticed it and his shoulders tightened. "Drive. Now. Don't stop at your apartment."
I ran for my car. The SUV accelerated as I slammed the door, and I barely cleared the parking spot before it swung around toward me. Tires squealed. I shot through the employee gate while the security arm was still rising, hearing the plastic crack against my roof.
I drove until the warehouse was a distant gray block in my rearview mirror. Then I pulled into a gas station and looked at the photograph again. On its reverse, written in my mother's familiar slanting handwriting, were six words.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS, FIND THE BLUE ROOM.
Underneath was a date: October 12, 2004. The day before the accident.
My mother had been working at Bellwether back then. She told me the warehouse smelled like cardboard, coffee, and rain. She told me one day she'd save enough money to take us to the ocean. She never mentioned a blue room.
My phone rang. Unknown caller.
I answered without speaking.
A woman's voice, hoarse with age and panic, said, "Elena? This is Ruth Mercer. I was your mother's best friend. If you found the picture, you have exactly one day before Graham realizes what else she left behind."
"Where are you?"
May you like
"At the place where they told you she died."
Then a sharp noise cracked through the call. Ruth gasped, and the line went dead.
