Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE CHAPEL
Roman reached the old property in twelve minutes.
The chapel stood beyond the garden wall, its stone steps cracked by
years of frost. Two security officers were already outside. One said the
woman had entered through a side door and refused to come out.
Roman ordered them to step back.
“Mother?” he called.
No answer.
He entered alone.
The chapel smelled of damp wood and cold stone. Moonlight fell through a
broken window, illuminating the old altar. A woman stood near the third
row of pews, her back turned.
“Roman,” she said.
He stopped.
Her voice was older, thinner, but it was the voice he remembered from
childhood.
“Is it really you?”
She turned.
Elizabeth Kane looked nothing like the woman in the photographs. Her
hair was mostly silver, her face lined, and a pale scar ran from her
temple toward her jaw. But her eyes were the same.
Roman had imagined this moment a thousand times without knowing he was
imagining it. In some versions, he ran into her arms. In others, he
shouted. In one, he simply stood and asked why.
Now he could not move.
Elizabeth took one step forward. “My son.”
He looked at her. “You were alive.”
“Yes.”
“I buried you.”
“I know.”
“You let me believe you were dead.”
Her eyes filled. “I thought I was protecting you.”
“Everyone says that.”
“I know.”
“You could have written. You could have called. You could have found
someone who wasn’t working for Silas.”
“I tried.”
“I saw the letters.”
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
“Three letters,” Roman continued. “Three times you wrote to me. They
were returned. Why didn’t you try again?”
“I did. I sent a woman to your office. She came back with a message that
you had refused to see her. I called the house. Marcus told me you were
in London. When I learned you were not, I understood someone was
controlling the information.”
“Marcus knew.”
Elizabeth’s expression changed. “Marcus helped your father arrange my
disappearance. He did not know where I went afterward.”
“He knew the letters were intercepted.”
She looked toward the chapel floor. “Then he failed you.”
Roman laughed once, without humor. “He failed both of us.”
Elizabeth moved closer but stopped when she saw that Roman had not
stepped forward.
“May I explain?”
“You have twenty-two years to explain.”
She nodded.
The first attempt on her life had happened after she found the
foundation accounts. She had confronted Silas with proof that he was
diverting money to companies linked to illegal surveillance and witness
intimidation. Silas told her the accounts were authorized by her
husband.
She did not believe him.
Two days later, her car was forced off a bridge. She survived, but the
driver of the other vehicle did not. Silas arranged for the body to be
identified as Elizabeth’s using falsified dental records. Her husband
learned the truth after the funeral had already been announced.
“Your father wanted to bring me home,” Elizabeth said. “I refused. I
believed Silas would target you if I returned. We agreed I would
disappear until the records could be secured.”
“And the box?”
“I wanted the original ledgers. Your father kept them because he did not
trust anyone else. He asked Arthur to protect them.”
“Why did you go to Arthur after the funeral?”
“To see whether the box was safe. I saw him near the chapel and told him
not to follow me. I was afraid he was being watched.”
Arthur had not known that she was alive until he saw her. Her warning
had made him believe she was still in danger.
“Why didn’t you tell him the truth?”
“Because Silas’s men were across the street.”
Roman stared at her. “You could have told him later.”
“I should have.”
“Why didn’t you?”
Elizabeth took a breath. “Because I was ashamed. I had left you with a
father who was sick and a family that was full of lies. I told myself
that one more month would become one more year, and then I was too
afraid to return.”
The honesty did not soften Roman. It made the loss more real.
“You watched me grow up from a distance?”
“Sometimes. I saw your graduation. I saw you take over the company. I
saw the photographs of you at the hospital when your father was ill.”
“You saw all that and didn’t come?”
“I thought if I appeared, Silas would know where to find the records. He
had people watching everyone who had helped me.”
Roman looked at the scar on her face. “Did he do this?”
“His men.”
“Then why is he still alive?”
“Because I never had enough evidence to prove who ordered it.”
Roman stepped back.
Elizabeth reached into her coat and removed a small envelope. “I came
tonight because I heard someone had opened your father’s box. I knew the
old records might be exposed. I wanted to get to the chapel before Silas
did.”
“What is beneath the third stone?”
“A key to a second archive.”
Roman looked toward the altar. “Why didn’t you tell me that first?”
“Because I needed to know whether you came alone.”
He stiffened. “You don’t trust me?”
“I trust you. I don’t know who is listening to you.”
Roman wanted to be angry, but he understood the distinction.
He called Reeves and asked him to bring Eleanor. They examined the third
stone and found a small metal compartment. Inside was a key, a
photograph, and a folded document bearing the seal of the Kane
Foundation.
The photograph showed Elizabeth standing with a younger Silas Mercer
outside a warehouse. On the back, a date had been written: the day
before the bridge accident.
The document was a transfer authorization for the foundation’s largest
property portfolio. Elizabeth’s signature appeared at the bottom.
“I never signed this,” she said.
Eleanor examined the page. “It looks like a signature, but we’ll need an
expert.”
Elizabeth looked at Roman. “Silas used my name to transfer the
properties. When I discovered it, he tried to kill me.”
Reeves photographed the evidence. “We need to move you somewhere safe.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I won’t disappear again.”
Roman looked at her. “You don’t get to decide that alone.”
She met his eyes. “Neither do you.”
For a moment, the two of them were simply mother and son, each
frightened, each stubborn, each carrying years of pain.
Then the chapel lights went out.
A sharp crack sounded from the broken window.
Reeves pushed Roman to the floor. A second crack followed, and glass
scattered across the aisle.
“Everyone down!” he shouted.
Security officers rushed through the side entrance. Elizabeth was pulled
behind the stone altar. Roman crawled toward her.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Outside, an engine roared to life.
By the time the officers reached the road, the vehicle was gone.
On the chapel floor, a small black device blinked beside the window. It
was not a bullet casing. It was a listening device, taped beneath the
sill.
Someone had been monitoring the chapel.
Someone knew Elizabeth would return.
And someone had been waiting for Roman to find her.
The officers searched the chapel after the attack and found no weapon,
only the listening device and fresh marks on the outer wall. Reeves
believed the shot-like cracks had come from a small device designed to
shatter the window, not from a firearm. The purpose may have been
intimidation rather than an attempt to kill, but nobody was willing to
take that risk.
At the protected residence, a doctor examined Elizabeth and confirmed
that she had not been injured. She refused sedation and asked for tea.
Roman sat across from her while Eleanor documented the evidence.
“Who knew you were coming to the chapel?” he asked.
“Only Nora knew I was thinking about it.”
“Did you tell her?”
“I sent a message. I didn’t give her the time.”
“Could Silas have access to her phone?”
“I don’t know.”
Roman stood and paced once across the room. “We need to assume every old
contact could be compromised.”
Elizabeth looked at him. “That is what Silas wanted. He wanted us to
trust no one.”
“Then how do we know who to trust?”
“We ask for proof. We verify. We don’t confuse loyalty with obedience.”
The words seemed to surprise him. His mother had always been the person
who challenged his father’s decisions. He remembered her telling him
that a person who never disagreed with you was not necessarily loyal.
Eleanor asked Elizabeth to identify the photograph from the chapel. She
confirmed that the man beside Silas was a bank officer who had managed
the foundation’s property accounts. His name was Gordon Pike. He had
retired shortly after the bridge accident and moved to Arizona.
“Could he have kept a copy of the transfer records?” Reeves asked.
“He would have seen the original documents,” Elizabeth said. “Whether he
kept them, I don’t know.”
Eleanor wrote down the name.
Before Roman left, Elizabeth asked to speak to Lily. Roman hesitated,
then called her. Lily arrived with a small bag of groceries and stopped
at the doorway when she saw Elizabeth.
“Mrs. Kane.”
Elizabeth stood. “You look like Rose.”
Lily’s eyes filled. “I never met you, but my grandmother spoke about
you.”
“She was one of the bravest people in that house.”
Lily looked uncomfortable with the praise. “She was just a housekeeper.”
“No,” Elizabeth said gently. “She was a person who knew when something
was wrong and kept asking questions.”
Lily placed the groceries on the table. She had brought soup, bread, and
fruit, the same practical food she had carried to the motel.
Elizabeth smiled at the sight. “You are feeding everyone.”
“Someone has to.”
For the first time that day, Roman heard his mother laugh.
It was a small sound, almost unfamiliar. He wanted to keep it, but he
knew he could not ask her to become the woman she had been before the
May you like
accident. She had survived years he knew nothing about. He would have to
meet the person she was now.
