Chapter 2 - MRS. GABLE’S SECOND JOB
Nobody moved.
Mrs. Gable closed the door behind her.
Carmine stepped between her and me.
She looked offended.
“After thirty-two years?”
“You just admitted you arranged Faith’s job,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Move away from the boss.”
She glared.
“He still has a name.”
“Move.”
She did.
Faith stood near the window clutching the strap of her bag.
I looked at Mrs. Gable.
“Start.”
She sighed.
“I own Harbor Home Care.”
“Why?”
“My sister started it fifteen years ago. She died. I kept the company.”
“Why did you never tell me?”
“Because you do not ask about my life unless something breaks in yours.”
That landed.
I let it.
“Why Faith?”
Mrs. Gable looked at her.
“Because I knew Caleb Willis.”
Faith froze.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
I stared.
Faith’s father had been dead three years.
Heart attack.
Construction worker.
At least that was the story.
“What did he do for you?” Faith asked.
Mrs. Gable’s face softened.
“He worked for your mother.”
Faith went completely still.
“My mother left when I was sixteen.”
“No.”
Faith stared.
“What?”
“She disappeared.”
The room changed.
Faith shook her head.
“No.”
“She left a note.”
“I know.”
“She did not write it.”
Faith stopped breathing.
Carmine looked at me.
I felt every secret in the room rearranging itself.
“Who was her mother?” I asked.
Mrs. Gable looked at Faith.
“You deserve to say her name.”
Faith’s voice came out small.
“Elena Willis.”
Carmine swore.
I knew the name.
Not personally.
From my father’s old records.
Elena Willis had been an accountant at Mason Freight twelve years earlier.
She disappeared after an internal embezzlement investigation.
Officially suspected of stealing $1.8 million.
Never found.
My father had hated her.
At least according to the file.
Faith saw recognition in my face.
“You know her.”
“I know the file.”
“What file?”
“Elena Willis was accused of theft from Mason Freight.”
Faith laughed.
“No.”
Mrs. Gable closed her eyes.
“No.”
I turned to her.
“You know differently.”
“Yes.”
“Then talk.”
She sat.
For the first time since I was a child, I saw Mrs. Gable look old.
Not sixty-eight.
Older.
Weighted.
“Elena did not steal money.”
“Then who did?”
“She found it moving.”
“What does that mean?”
“She was reconciling freight accounts and found cash being shifted through dormant routes.”
Carmine leaned against the wall.
“Same warehouse?”
Mrs. Gable nodded.
“The one Jonah guarded.”
I felt cold.
“This started twelve years ago.”
“Earlier.”
“How much earlier?”
“Before your father died.”
My hands tightened.
My father, Michael Carter, had been shot in a restaurant parking lot twelve years ago.
Officially a gang retaliation.
Unsolved.
I took over the organization at twenty.
I never found the shooter.
I built everything afterward around the certainty that weakness killed him.
“What did Elena find?”
“Weapons moving through Mason Freight.”
Faith whispered, “Like Jonah.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Mrs. Gable looked at me.
“Your uncle.”
I almost laughed.
“I do not have an uncle.”
“You did.”
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“My father was an only child.”
“That is what he told you.”
Silence.
Mrs. Gable continued.
“Michael had a half brother. Gabriel Carter.”
Carmine’s face changed.
He knew something.
I saw it.
“You know the name.”
He looked at me.
“Old street name. Gabe Carver.”
I stared.
“Carver.”
“Yes.”
I knew that name too.
Everybody did.
Gabriel Carver ran distribution for a South Side weapons network before disappearing eleven years ago.
My father’s brother.
No.
“Why was this hidden?”
Mrs. Gable laughed bitterly.
“Because respectable crime families still care about family embarrassment.”
“Do not joke.”
“I am not.”
Faith stood frozen.
“My mother found Gabriel.”
“She found his money.”
“What happened?”
“Michael told her to stop looking.”
My chest tightened.
“My father knew.”
“Yes.”
“Did he protect Gabriel?”
“At first.”
“Why?”
“Blood.”
Of course.
The word that destroys logic more effectively than money.
“What changed?”
“Elena discovered Gabriel was selling weapons to crews planning to hit Carter businesses.”
“So he was funding both sides.”
“Yes.”
“And my father?”
“Finally decided to expose him.”
“What happened?”
Mrs. Gable looked at me.
“Three days later, Michael died.”
The room went silent.
I heard rain against the window.
Chicago gray beyond the glass.
Faith sat down.
“My mother knew who killed Dominic’s father.”
“Maybe.”
“Did she tell you?”
“She told me Gabriel was involved.”
“What happened to her?”
Mrs. Gable’s voice broke.
“Your father, Caleb, tried to get her out.”
Faith frowned.
“You said he worked for my mother.”
“He loved her.”
“He was my dad.”
“Yes.”
“He was married to her.”
“Yes.”
“So?”
Mrs. Gable wiped her eyes.
“He was not a construction worker.”
Faith laughed once.
Everything she knew about her family was falling apart in front of us.
“What was he?”
“Carter security.”
I stared.
“Mine?”
“Your father’s.”
My father had trusted a man named Caleb Willis.
I remembered.
Not the face.
The name on payroll sheets.
A security driver who resigned after Michael died.
“Caleb Willis was on my father’s team.”
“Yes.”
“Why did the file say construction?”
“Because I changed it.”
Carmine stared.
“You altered records?”
“Yes.”
“For them.”
“Yes.”
Faith looked sick.
“You helped my parents disappear.”
“I tried.”
“Tried?”
Mrs. Gable closed her eyes.
“Elena never made it out.”
Faith stopped breathing.
“What?”
“Caleb got you and Jonah to Indiana. He came back for Elena.”
Faith’s hand covered her mouth.
“He told us Mom chose not to come.”
“He lied to keep you alive.”
“Where is she?”
Mrs. Gable cried.
“I do not know.”
Faith stood.
“No.”
“I don’t.”
“You just said she never made it out.”
“She vanished between the warehouse and the safe house.”
“Dead?”
“I don’t know.”
Faith’s voice cracked.
“My father died three years ago believing what?”
Mrs. Gable looked at her.
“That Elena might still be alive.”
Faith sat down again.
I looked at Mrs. Gable.
“How does this connect to my attack?”
She turned to me.
“Caleb contacted me four years ago.”
“Why?”
“He had found Elena’s old notebook.”
“What notebook?”
“Accounts. Routes. Names.”
“Gabriel?”
“Yes.”
“Where is it?”
Mrs. Gable looked at Faith.
Faith went pale.
“No.”
“What?” I asked.
Faith reached inside her coat again.
This time she pulled out a photograph.
Old.
Creased.
Her parents standing beside a lake.
On the back, handwritten numbers.
Seven columns.
Dates.
Amounts.
Warehouse codes.
Mrs. Gable stared.
“He gave that to you?”
“Before he died.”
“That is not the notebook.”
“No.”
“Then?”
“He said it was the map to find it.”
I took the photograph.
One code repeated.
C-17.
Carmine frowned.
“Storage?”
Mrs. Gable whispered, “Cold room.”
“What?”
“At Mason Freight. Old meat-storage room converted to archives.”
“The warehouse Jonah guarded.”
“Yes.”
Everything narrowed.
“My attack happened after Jonah saw weapons moved through C-17.”
Faith nodded.
“Then someone shot him.”
“Yes.”
“Why did he not tell police?”
“He said one officer at the scene knew his name before he gave it.”
Corruption.
Of course.
Carmine asked, “Who arrested Jonah?”
Faith’s face hardened.
“Detective Roland Pike.”
I knew Pike.
Organized crime task force.
He had investigated me for years.
Never enough evidence.
Always close.
Mrs. Gable went pale.
“Pike worked security for Gabriel before he became a cop.”
Carmine swore.
There it was.
A network spanning decades.
Family.
Police.
Warehouses.
My father’s death.
Faith’s mother.
My attack.
Nothing random.
I looked at Faith.
“Your brother is in jail because Pike put him there.”
“Yes.”
“And Pike may be protecting the people who shot him.”
“Yes.”
“Why did Jonah plead not guilty but refuse to talk?”
Faith swallowed.
“Because they threatened me.”
Of course.
“Who?”
“He never said.”
“Then why take this job?”
She looked at me.
“Because three days after the threat, Mrs. Gable called.”
I turned.
“You contacted her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Caleb made me promise something before he died.”
Mrs. Gable’s face changed.
“What?”
“He said if either of his children ever got close to Mason Freight again, I had to put them near the one person Gabriel feared.”
Faith looked at me.
“Dominic.”
I almost laughed.
“Gabriel fears me?”
Mrs. Gable nodded.
“Not because you are stronger.”
“Then why?”
“Because Michael named you sole heir to something Gabriel believes belongs to him.”
My attention sharpened.
“What?”
Mrs. Gable looked toward the floor.
“The original Carter ledger.”
Carmine went still.
I had heard stories.
A handwritten ledger from the early days.
Debts.
Payments.
Names.
Judges.
Police.
Businessmen.
A history of every compromise that built my father’s empire.
Supposedly burned after his death.
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then why would Gabriel think I do?”
“Because your father told him you had it.”
I stared.
“I was twenty.”
“He trusted you.”
“He lied to him.”
“Probably.”
Faith looked between us.
“What is in it?”
“Enough to ruin people who built careers on pretending they never knew my family.”
Carmine’s face tightened.
“And enough to prove who killed Michael?”
“Maybe.”
Mrs. Gable nodded.
“Elena believed so.”
Faith stood.
“Then we go to C-17.”
“No.”
My answer came immediately.
She glared.
“Why?”
“Because the warehouse is tied to gun trafficking, corrupt police, your brother’s arrest, and my attempted murder.”
“Exactly.”
“You are not going.”
Her face hardened.
“There he is.”
“Who?”
“The man who thinks fear is a reason to own everybody’s decisions.”
Anger flashed.
“That is not what this is.”
“What is it?”
“Keeping you alive.”
“By shutting me out of the only thing that might tell me whether my mother is alive?”
Silence.
She had me.
I hated it.
Carmine looked away to hide a smile.
Faith stepped closer.
“I am not asking you to save me.”
“I know.”
“I am asking you not to stop me.”
I looked at her.
The woman who had refused to fear me.
The woman whose entire life had just been exposed as a lie built to protect her.
I understood that more than I wanted.
“Fine.”
She blinked.
“Fine?”
“We go together.”
Mrs. Gable immediately objected.
“No.”
I looked at her.
“You are no longer winning votes in this room.”
She glared.
Carmine’s phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“County jail.”
Faith went white.
“Jonah?”
Carmine nodded.
“He was attacked in his cell.”
Faith stopped breathing.
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
“Stab wound. They’re moving him to Stroger.”
Faith grabbed her coat.
I wheeled toward the door.
“Car.”
Carmine nodded.
Mrs. Gable stood.
“Dominic.”
I looked back.
She was crying.
“This is exactly how Michael died.”
“Chasing truth?”
“No.”
Her voice broke.
“Believing he had to reach it before everyone else.”
That stopped me.
For one second.
Then Faith touched the back of my chair.
Not pushing.
Just there.
“We don’t have to go alone.”
I looked at her.
She had learned something from me.
Or maybe I had finally learned it from her.
“Call federal agents,” I told Carmine.
He stared.
“What?”
“Not Pike. Not Chicago organized crime. Federal public corruption.”
Mrs. Gable closed her eyes.
Relief.
Carmine smiled faintly.
“You’re breaking a rule.”
“Yes.”
“What rule?”
I looked at Faith.
“Family handles family.”
May you like
Then I turned toward the door.
“Apparently that rule has killed enough people.”
