Chapter 6 - Nobody by Accident
The first thing Claire thought was ridiculous.
I never picked up my knives.
Smoke filled the storage corridor.
Roman grabbed her arm.
“Down.”
Mason kicked the locker-room door.
Locked from outside.
Celeste coughed.
“What is that?”
Mason smelled the air.
“Not fire.”
Roman’s expression changed.
“Gas?”
“Could be.”
Claire’s vision began blurring.
Roman pulled his shirt over his nose.
“Vent.”
Mason fired twice into the upper metal panel.
Air rushed through the holes.
Claire crouched.
“There’s another exit.”
Roman looked at her.
“How?”
She pointed to a faded emergency diagram on the wall.
“Kitchen brain. We read evacuation maps because ovens enjoy setting themselves on fire.”
Mason found the maintenance door behind two storage racks.
It opened into an old service tunnel.
They stumbled outside six minutes later.
Police sirens approached in the distance.
Roman didn’t look relieved.
He looked furious.
“They knew we were here.”
Mason nodded.
“Someone tracked us.”
Claire immediately checked the borrowed coat.
Roman did the same.
Nothing.
Then Celeste removed her phone.
“No.”
Roman looked at her.
Celeste’s hands shook.
“My father gave me this phone.”
Mason smashed it beneath his boot.
“You didn’t think that mattered?”
“He gives everyone in the family phones.”
“Exactly.”
Roman paced once.
Then looked at Claire.
“Marshall.”
“My chef.”
“Former chef.”
“This seems like a poor moment to emphasize unemployment.”
“He’s connected to Andrew.”
“Apparently.”
“And he wanted you to remain nobody.”
Claire hugged her arms.
“That’s flattering.”
Roman didn’t smile.
“Why you?”
“I have no idea.”
Celeste stared at Claire.
“What was your mother’s maiden name?”
Claire frowned.
“What?”
“Your mother.”
“Dalton.”
Celeste shook her head.
“Grandmother?”
“I don’t know. Bennett, I think.”
Roman looked at her.
“You don’t know?”
“My mother grew up in foster care.”
Everyone went silent.
Claire hated it.
“What?”
Celeste stepped closer.
“How old is your mother?”
“Sixty-one.”
“Where was she born?”
“Chicago.”
“Claire.”
Roman’s voice changed.
“Call your sister.”
“Why?”
“Do it.”
Her younger sister, Sophie, answered on the fourth ring.
“Claire? It’s five in the morning.”
“I know. I need you to check Mom’s documents.”
“What?”
“Birth certificate. Adoption papers. Anything.”
A pause.
“Are you okay?”
“Long story.”
“Are you with the scary hotel guy?”
Claire looked at Roman.
“How do you know that?”
“You’re on TikTok.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Of course.
The tea shop photograph had gone public.
Sophie continued.
“People think you’re secretly dating him.”
“I met him yesterday.”
“Comments are divided.”
“I do not care.”
“One woman says you have chemistry.”
“Sophie.”
“Fine. Mom’s papers are in the blue file.”
Claire heard drawers opening.
Then silence.
“Sophie?”
“This is weird.”
“What?”
“Mom’s birth certificate is a replacement.”
“Meaning?”
“I don’t know. Issued when she was fifteen.”
Claire’s stomach tightened.
“Parents?”
“Father blank.”
“And mother?”
Sophie hesitated.
“Eleanor Devereux.”
Celeste made a choking sound.
Roman turned slowly toward her.
Claire whispered, “Who is Eleanor Devereux?”
Celeste’s eyes filled with shock.
“My aunt.”
The parking lot seemed to tilt.
Claire laughed nervously.
“No.”
“Eleanor disappeared when she was twenty.”
“No.”
“Harrison told the family she ran away.”
“No.”
Roman stepped closer.
“Claire.”
She backed away.
“I am not secretly related to your dead wife.”
Celeste did the math.
“Your mother would be Amelia’s first cousin.”
Claire stared.
“That’s not better.”
Roman looked almost as stunned as she felt.
Suddenly the photograph at the tea shop made more sense.
Harrison’s reaction.
His immediate interest in her.
Marshall saying she was supposed to remain nobody.
Claire’s mother wasn’t random.
Neither, apparently, was Claire.
“Why would Harrison care about my mother?” Claire asked.
Celeste whispered, “Inheritance.”
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
“What inheritance?”
“My grandfather divided the Devereux family trust by bloodline. Harrison controlled it because Eleanor disappeared before she could claim her share.”
Claire’s pulse raced.
“How much?”
Celeste looked embarrassed.
“Potentially hundreds of millions.”
Claire laughed.
It came out strangely.
“I had seventeen dollars in cash yesterday.”
Roman almost smiled.
She pointed at him.
“Don’t.”
His face went serious.
Celeste continued.
“If Eleanor had a child, that line still exists.”
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
“And me.”
“Yes.”
Claire sat down hard on a concrete parking barrier.
All her mother’s bills.
Sophie’s tuition.
Years of working sixty-hour weeks.
Meanwhile some family trust might have existed.
Roman crouched in front of her.
“Breathe.”
“Do not tell me to breathe.”
“Fair.”
“Harrison knew?”
“If Marshall called that quickly, yes.”
Claire looked at Celeste.
“Why didn’t he find us before?”
“Maybe Eleanor hid your mother.”
“Or someone helped her.”
Mason’s phone rang.
He answered.
Then his face changed.
“Claire.”
Her heart stopped.
“What?”
“Your apartment.”
Roman stood.
“What happened?”
“Broken into.”
Claire’s blood went cold.
“My sister?”
“She’s at the hospital with your mother.”
Claire was already moving.
Roman caught her arm.
“We’re going.”
They arrived twenty minutes later.
The apartment was destroyed.
Cabinets emptied.
Mattress cut open.
Photographs scattered.
Claire stepped over broken glass.
Nothing valuable had been stolen.
Not the laptop.
Not the television.
Not the emergency cash hidden in flour.
They were looking for something.
Sophie arrived soon afterward, furious and frightened.
“What is happening?”
Claire hugged her.
“I wish I knew.”
Roman’s men searched the apartment.
Sophie stared at Roman.
“So you are the scary hotel guy.”
Roman blinked.
Claire covered her face.
“Sophie.”
“What? He is.”
Then Sophie saw Celeste.
Her expression changed.
“Why does she look like Mom?”
Claire turned.
She hadn’t noticed.
Not fully.
But Sophie was right.
Celeste had their mother’s eyes.
Roman looked at the sisters.
Then at Celeste.
The family resemblance was unmistakable.
Sophie slowly opened her purse.
“Mom told me to bring this.”
She removed an old jewelry box.
“She said if anyone ever asked about Eleanor Devereux, we were supposed to give you this.”
Claire stared.
“When did Mom say that?”
“Ten minutes ago.”
“You told her?”
“I asked about the birth certificate.”
Inside the box was a locket.
A key.
And a photograph.
Two young women stood in front of Devereux House.
One was Eleanor.
The other was unmistakably Claire’s mother at perhaps sixteen.
On the back were six handwritten words.
HARRISON KNOWS WHAT HE DID TO ELEANOR.
Roman read it twice.
Then his phone rang.
Harrison Devereux.
Roman answered.
Claire grabbed the phone first.
“Harrison?”
Silence.
Then an old man’s voice.
“So.”
Claire’s skin crawled.
“You sound like her.”
“Like who?”
“My sister.”
Eleanor.
Claire’s grandmother.
“Where is she?”
A long silence.
Then Harrison said, “Dead.”
Claire’s knees weakened.
“How?”
“You should ask your mother.”
The call ended.
Claire immediately looked at Sophie.
“Hospital.”
They raced there.
But when they reached their mother’s room, the bed was empty.
The IV line lay on the floor.
A nurse rushed toward them.
“Ms. Bennett?”
“Where is my mother?”
The nurse’s face was pale.
“A man came twenty minutes ago.”
“What man?”
“He said he was her brother.”
Claire’s entire body went cold.
“My mother doesn’t have a brother.”
Roman looked toward Mason.
“Cameras.”
Mason ran.
The nurse swallowed.
“He signed her out against medical advice.”
“What name?”
The nurse checked the chart.
“Andrew Dalton.”
Celeste went white.
Roman whispered, “Andrew.”
Claire understood.
Andrew Devereux had not disappeared.
May you like
He had been hiding.
And now he had Claire’s mother.
