Chapter 6 - The Girl in the Green Coat
The security cameras showed Lily leaving school through a side gate in a green coat Claire had never seen before. She walked beside a woman with a red scarf.
Roman watched the footage twice. “She was taken.”
Claire shook her head. “Look at Lily’s hands.”
He paused the image. Lily’s left hand was closed around something. Her right hand held the woman’s arm, not the other way around.
“She went willingly,” Claire said.
Roman’s expression became frighteningly calm. “That does not mean she is safe.”
Susan entered the room with a photograph. “The woman is Nora Vale. She worked for Mara.”
“Why would Lily meet her?” Claire asked.
Susan did not answer.
Roman turned on her. “What did you keep from me?”
“Mara left instructions for Lily.”
“When?”
“Before she died.”
Claire felt the old pattern closing around them. Every person in the Duke house possessed one more secret than they admitted.
She went to the kitchen and opened Lily’s blue notebook. The pages contained homework, sketches, and recipes copied from Claire’s bakery. In the margins, Lily had drawn small green coats beside certain numbers.
“She used the notebook to mark dates,” Claire said. “The key isn’t a key. It’s a schedule.”
Susan took the notebook. “Mara taught her the cipher.”
“Why?”
“Because Mara believed the family would eventually turn on Roman.”
Roman looked at the marked numbers. “Where is Nora taking her?”
Claire recognized one location from the recipe code: the old incline station near Mount Washington, closed for renovation but overlooking the city.
Roman reached for his coat. Claire stopped him. “You need a plan that doesn’t begin with kicking down doors.”
“She is my niece.”
“She is also a person who made a choice. If you storm in, she may panic.”
His eyes flashed. “You think I should wait?”
“I think you should listen.”
They went to the station with Ellis and Mateo, leaving Susan behind to contact a lawyer. Rain blew across the empty platform. Below them, the Monongahela moved darkly between the hills.
Nora stood near the railing. Lily was beside her, unharmed but pale.
Roman started forward.
Lily raised a hand. “Don’t.”
He stopped.
Nora looked at Claire. “Daniel’s daughter.”
“You know my father?”
“I helped Mara get him out of the warehouse.”
Roman’s voice was hard. “Mara was there?”
“Your sister discovered what Dominic was doing. She tried to expose him.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
Nora looked at him with pity. “Because she thought you had already become him.”
Roman flinched as if struck.
Lily stepped closer to Claire. “Nora says my mother left something for me.”
Nora handed Lily a small envelope. The paper was creased and stained. Lily opened it with shaking fingers.
Inside was a photograph of Mara, Daniel, and Susan standing outside a bakery that no longer existed. On the back, Mara had written: Find the woman who knows when the dough is ready.
Claire stared. “That’s me.”
“Your father believed you would inherit his patience,” Nora said. “He left the final piece with someone who understood recipes.”
“Who?”
Before Nora could answer, headlights swept across the platform. A vehicle screeched to a stop below. Two figures ran up the stairs.
Ellis moved to intercept them. Mateo pulled Lily behind a concrete pillar. Roman grabbed Claire’s arm, then released it when she stiffened.
“Sorry,” he said immediately.
The attackers did not fire. They threw a metal case over the railing and fled down the opposite stairs.
Roman opened the case. Inside was a stack of photographs, each showing members of the Duke family meeting people connected to Dominic’s old network.
At the bottom lay a newer photograph.
It showed Claire and Roman outside the bakery, Roman’s hand hovering near her back.
Across Claire’s face, someone had drawn a red X.
Lily whispered, “They’re not trying to scare you anymore.”
Claire looked at Roman. “No. They’re trying to make you choose between me and your family.”
Roman closed the case. “Then they have misunderstood both of us.”
May you like
But when they returned to the mansion, Susan was waiting with terrible news.
Nora Vale had been shot in the parking lot.
