Chapter 2 - THE NAME MOLLY WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO HEAR
Molly forgot about the pain in her ribs.
“My father wasn’t murdered.”
Dylan said nothing.
“He died in a car accident.”
Still nothing.
“A drunk driver crossed the center line.”
Dr. Kessler quietly stepped backward.
“This sounds private.”
Dylan nodded once.
Kessler disappeared into the treatment area.
Molly stood.
The sudden movement sent pain through her side.
She ignored it.
“You said murdered.”
Dylan looked at her carefully.
“How old were you?”
“When?”
“When Patrick died.”
“Seventeen.”
“And what were you told?”
“I just told you.”
“Who told you?”
“My mother. Police. Everybody.”
Dylan walked toward a window overlooking the dark parking lot.
“Your father’s car was hit on Route Nine at 1:14 in the morning. The other driver was never found.”
“It was a hit-and-run.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you call it murder?”
“Because Patrick called me twenty-three minutes before someone ran him off the road.”
Molly stopped breathing.
Dylan turned.
“He told me someone was following him.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“He gave me the license plate.”
Molly’s mouth went dry.
“The plate belonged to a vehicle registered to a holding company controlled by my uncle.”
Silence filled the hallway.
Molly shook her head.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not going to stand there and change how my father died because of some photograph.”
“I’m telling you what happened.”
“You knew him?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Dylan’s jaw tightened.
“Patrick worked for my family.”
Molly laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“My father repaired commercial heating systems.”
“That was the job people knew about.”
“No.”
“He handled logistics for my father before I took over.”
“What does that even mean?”
Dylan didn’t soften the answer.
“He moved things that were not supposed to be found.”
Molly stared at him.
Money.
Weapons.
People.
The possibilities came too easily when Dylan Burroughs was the man saying them.
“My father hated criminals.”
“Eventually.”
The word hurt.
Molly stepped back.
“You need to explain that.”
“Patrick started working for my father when he was twenty-six. He had a wife, a baby, debt, and an extraordinary ability to remember routes after driving them once.”
Molly knew that about him.
Her father never forgot a road.
Dylan continued.
“He became one of the people my father trusted most. Patrick knew which warehouses were legitimate, which companies existed only on paper, which officers were paid, which politicians weren’t.”
Molly felt nauseated.
“But he left.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“When you were twelve.”
She remembered that year.
Her father had stopped traveling.
He had started attending every school event.
He had bought a used fishing boat they never managed to get running properly.
She had thought he had finally gotten a better job.
“Why?”
Dylan looked away.
“Because of me.”
“What?”
“I was twenty-three and stupid enough to believe violence was proof of strength.”
Molly said nothing.
“I ordered something Patrick believed crossed a line.”
“What?”
Dylan’s voice lowered.
“A man had stolen from us. I wanted his family frightened.”
Molly’s expression hardened.
Dylan didn’t defend himself.
“Patrick refused. He told me if I wanted to become my father, I could do it without him.”
“And you let him leave?”
“No.”
Molly’s eyes narrowed.
“I threatened him.”
The admission hung between them.
“You threatened my father.”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe I’m standing beside the man who killed him.”
Dylan absorbed that without moving.
“You should consider that possibility.”
The answer startled her.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because you don’t know me.”
“You expect me to trust you?”
“No.”
That, more than anything, made her listen.
Dylan continued.
“Patrick walked out anyway. Two days later I canceled the order he objected to.”
“Because you suddenly became a good man?”
“No. Because I realized he was right.”
Molly crossed her arms.
“And eleven years later he died?”
“Five.”
“What?”
“He worked for my family until you were twelve. He died when you were seventeen. Five years.”
Dylan looked at the treatment-room doors.
“In those years, he quietly collected evidence against people inside the organization.”
“Your uncle.”
“Among others.”
“Did you know?”
“Not until the night he called me.”
Molly thought of her father’s funeral.
Raymond Cole standing beside her mother.
Raymond arranging the flowers.
Raymond telling Molly that Patrick had loved her more than anything.
Raymond giving her a job at Blackwoods years later when her mother became ill and bills started swallowing everything.
Her knees weakened.
Dylan pulled a chair toward her.
She didn’t thank him.
“Why was Raymond with my father?”
“That’s what I’ve wanted to know for eleven years.”
“And you never asked him?”
“I did.”
“What did he say?”
“That Patrick had called him because his truck was having engine trouble.”
“You believed that?”
“No.”
“So why is he still alive?”
Dylan studied her.
“You think killing everyone who lies is how this works?”
“I don’t know how your world works.”
“Neither do half the people pretending they do.”
Molly looked at the security photograph again.
Raymond.
Libby.
Atlas.
The image suddenly felt impossible.
“Why would Libby hurt your dog?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were going to marry her.”
“I was.”
“You didn’t know what kind of person she was?”
The question landed.
Dylan’s face barely changed, but Molly saw it.
Shame.
“No.”
Molly looked away.
“That seems difficult to believe.”
“So does learning your father had a second life.”
She looked at him sharply.
“Point taken.”
The doors opened.
Kessler approached.
“Atlas is responding to treatment.”
Molly stood.
“Can we see him?”
“In a minute.”
Kessler looked at Dylan.
“I also found a puncture site.”
“Injection?”
“Most likely. Inner thigh. Someone wanted the sedative in him quickly.”
Molly felt sick.
“He fought them.”
“Based on the abrasions and bruising, yes.”
Dylan’s hand closed around the evidence bag containing the red leather.
“Could this have come from a shoe?”
“Possibly. It’s treated calfskin.”
Molly looked at Dylan.
Libby wore custom-made red calfskin heels.
The restaurant staff had heard about them all week because Libby had demanded the roses match.
Dylan’s phone buzzed.
Another message.
Security footage.
This one was video.
They watched.
Three nights earlier.
2:07 a.m.
Raymond opened Blackwoods’ rear service entrance.
A black SUV pulled into the alley.
A man stepped out first.
Then Libby.
Atlas was inside the vehicle.
Even on grainy footage, the dog looked weak.
Two men dragged him out.
Molly covered her mouth.
Libby said something.
Raymond looked nervous.
One of the men removed Atlas’s collar.
Then Libby did something nobody expected.
She crouched.
Atlas snapped at her.
Libby stumbled backward.
Her shoe came off.
The mastiff lunged again.
She kicked him.
The footage had no sound.
It didn’t need any.
Molly saw the heel strike Atlas’s shoulder.
Dylan didn’t move.
Libby picked up the shoe.
A piece of the leather appeared to tear.
The exact fragment Kessler had removed from Atlas’s paw.
Then Raymond opened the service door.
The men dragged Atlas inside.
The video jumped.
Four minutes disappeared.
When it returned, the alley was empty.
Molly frowned.
“What happened to the footage?”
Dylan replayed it.
Four missing minutes.
“Someone edited it.”
“Raymond?”
“Maybe.”
Molly’s mind raced.
“If they brought Atlas into Blackwoods three nights ago, where was he until tonight?”
Dylan looked at her.
“That’s the question.”
Blackwoods had storage rooms.
Wine cellars.
Basement refrigeration.
An unused banquet section.
Molly suddenly remembered something.
“Wait.”
“What?”
“The old coal corridor.”
Dylan frowned.
“Explain.”
“The building is almost a hundred years old. There’s a service corridor under the east wing nobody uses because it floods. Raymond keeps it locked.”
“Where does it exit?”
Molly’s heart began pounding.
“Two blocks away.”
Dylan immediately called his security chief.
“Take six men. Search the basement. There’s an old coal corridor.”
He hung up.
“You think they kept Atlas there?”
“Maybe.”
“Why would he return tonight?”
Molly thought.
“Maybe he didn’t return.”
Dylan stared.
“What?”
“Maybe he escaped.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Dylan’s phone rang again.
His security chief sounded different this time.
Dylan put the call on speaker.
“We found the corridor.”
“And?”
“Blood. Empty syringes. Dog hair.”
Molly closed her eyes.
Atlas.
“But there’s something else.”
Dylan’s posture changed.
“What?”
“A room behind the old boiler wall.”
Molly had worked at Blackwoods three years.
She had never heard of a room.
“What’s inside?” Dylan asked.
There was a pause.
“Files.”
“What kind?”
“Old ones.”
Another pause.
“And photographs.”
Dylan’s expression hardened.
“Of what?”
This time the security chief hesitated.
“Of Molly.”
She froze.
Dylan looked at her.
The man continued.
“Hundreds of them.”
Molly’s skin turned cold.
“From when?”
“Some are recent.”
“How recent?”
“One was taken yesterday.”
Molly backed into the chair.
Someone had been watching her.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Paper rustled through the phone.
“There’s a photograph of Patrick Lane.”
Dylan became completely still.
“Describe it.”
“It looks like it was taken shortly before he died.”
Molly could hear her own heartbeat.
“Who’s with him?” Dylan asked.
A longer silence followed.
Then the answer came.
“Raymond Cole.”
Molly shut her eyes.
“And Conrad Burroughs.”
Dylan’s uncle.
The man whose vehicle had allegedly forced Patrick Lane off the road.
Dylan’s voice became ice.
“Stay there. Touch nothing.”
He ended the call.
Molly looked at him.
“You knew your uncle might have killed my father.”
“Yes.”
“And you were going to marry a woman who was secretly working with the man who helped him?”
“I didn’t know Libby was involved.”
“You don’t seem to know much about the people closest to you.”
Dylan flinched.
Good.
She wanted him to.
But before either could speak again, Atlas began barking from the treatment room.
Not weakly.
Violently.
Kessler shouted.
Something shattered.
Dylan reached inside his jacket.
The hallway lights went out.
Molly heard a door open behind her.
Then footsteps.
Running.
A hand grabbed her arm.
And a voice she had known since childhood whispered into the darkness.
“Don’t scream, Molly.”
May you like
Raymond Cole tightened his grip.
“Your father made that mistake too.”
