Chapter 6 - MY HUSBAND’S UNCLE CALLED ME THE WOMAN WHO COULD BURY THEM ALL
Nicholas Mercer did not attend our wedding.
He invited us to dinner instead.
I refused.
Then he invited me alone.
Julian refused.
I reminded both men nobody owned my calendar.
So we arranged a third option.
Neutral restaurant.
Public dining room.
Rebecca present at separate table.
Federal investigators informed.
No weapons visible.
Julian hated every part.
“I don’t like him near you.”
“I don’t like him near me either.”
“Then don’t go.”
“I need answers.”
“You need to stay alive.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
His jaw tightened.
I almost smiled.
Marriage had been four days and already we sounded absurdly domestic for two people sleeping in separate wings.
Nicholas arrived wearing navy suit.
The same polished old-world elegance I remembered from my gallery.
He kissed air beside my cheek.
Julian’s hand tightened.
I noticed.
He did nothing.
Good.
Nicholas sat.
“You resemble Marianne.”
“So people tell me.”
“She was difficult.”
“My mother called that a compliment.”
Nicholas smiled.
“Of course.”
I put recorder on table.
His smile changed.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“You think I’ll confess murder over risotto?”
“I think powerful men often talk too much when they believe younger women won’t understand.”
Julian almost laughed.
Nicholas looked at nephew.
“You married well.”
“Not why we’re here.”
Dinner began.
Nicholas claimed Thomas Calloway survived Marseille.
He said Thomas learned weapons components were being moved inside art crates under false customs declarations.
Gabriel Mercer knew money was washed through art sales.
He did not know weapons until Thomas found manifests.
Raymond Bennett did know.
Nicholas claimed he did not.
“Convenient,” I said.
“True.”
“What happened to my father?”
Nicholas drank wine.
“Thomas threatened Raymond.”
“With police?”
“With exposure.”
“Difference?”
“Police could be managed.”
My skin went cold.
“Exposure to whom?”
“Gabriel.”
I looked at Julian.
Nicholas continued.
“Your father thought Gabriel still had conscience.”
“Did he?”
“Intermittently.”
Julian’s face hardened.
Nicholas smiled.
“Don’t make him saint, nephew.”
“I don’t.”
“Good.”
Thomas arranged meeting in Marseille.
Gabriel agreed to shut routes.
Raymond discovered.
There was confrontation at warehouse near port.
Gunfire.
Nicholas claimed he arrived afterward.
Thomas wounded but alive.
Gabriel arranged escape using private medical transport to Switzerland.
Then spread death story to protect Emma and Marianne.
“So my mother knew he survived?”
Nicholas hesitated.
“At first.”
My chest tightened.
“Then why did she tell me he died?”
“Because Thomas chose not to return.”
That sentence hurt more than murder.
“What?”
Nicholas looked almost sympathetic.
“Your father believed anyone near him became target.”
“He abandoned us.”
“He hid.”
“Same result.”
“Yes.”
I stared at table.
“What happened in Zurich?”
“Thomas kept investigating.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said ask Raymond where body is.”
Nicholas’s eyes changed.
“Because Raymond claims he killed him in 2011.”
Silence.
Julian’s voice became low.
“Claims?”
“I never saw body.”
“Why would Raymond tell you?”
“Because men say terrible things when drunk and old alliances rot.”
“Where?”
“Lake Como.”
“Details?”
Nicholas looked at me.
“That is what Atlas should reveal.”
He wanted card.
Of course.
“What do you want from me?”
“Nothing.”
I laughed.
“No one with your history wants nothing.”
He smiled.
“Fine.”
He leaned closer.
“I want Julian to stop giving evidence to federal government.”
There.
“What does that have to do with me?”
“You are reason he began.”
Julian said:
“No.”
Nicholas ignored.
“Before you, Julian understood balance.”
“Meaning?”
“Legal companies on one side. Old relationships on other. No unnecessary moral panic.”
Julian’s jaw tightened.
Nicholas continued:
“Then Marianne’s daughter appears with sad eyes and bruised wrist, and suddenly my nephew believes confession is governance.”
I stared.
“You think Julian changed because he wants to sleep with me.”
Nicholas laughed.
“I think men have burned cities for less.”
Julian’s voice went quiet.
“Enough.”
I touched table.
“Let him.”
Julian stopped.
Nicholas smiled.
I said:
“Maybe he did begin because of me.”
Julian looked.
“Emma.”
“I’m not done.”
I turned back.
“But if your family’s empire survives only when nobody tells truth, then I didn’t break it.”
A pause.
“I just arrived when cracks were already there.”
Nicholas’s smile disappeared.
Good.
Then he said something dangerous.
“Tyler told me you were like this.”
My blood cooled.
“You spoke to Tyler?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Yesterday.”
Julian’s chair shifted.
Nicholas looked amused.
“He asked for help.”
“With what?”
“Getting his girlfriend back.”
“I am not—”
“I know.”
Nicholas waved.
“I told him his timing was poor.”
“Where is he?”
“Boston.”
“Doing what?”
“Searching your mother’s storage unit.”
My heart stopped.
I stood.
“Which?”
Nicholas smiled.
“Now that was worth dinner.”
Julian stood too.
“What unit?”
Nicholas shrugged.
“Tyler thinks Marianne hid paper copies somewhere in Cambridge.”
My mother had one storage unit.
I closed it after death.
Or thought I did.
There had been a second small studio storage registered through her old restoration company.
I suddenly remembered overdue notice among estate mail.
I had assumed clerical.
“Cambridge.”
Julian looked.
“We call police.”
“Yes.”
Nicholas almost looked disappointed.
He expected men.
Guns.
Private war.
Instead we called Massachusetts authorities and storage manager.
Too late.
The unit had been broken into the previous night.
Contents missing.
But camera showed Tyler.
Clear.
He entered with two men.
Left carrying three boxes and a rolled canvas.
Police issued warrant connected to stalking, burglary, computer fraud, and investigation of coordinated offenses.
Finally.
Tyler was no longer just angry boyfriend.
He was suspect running.
Nicholas finished wine.
“You should leave before dessert.”
I stared.
“Why?”
“Because Raymond knows I’m speaking to you.”
Julian’s eyes sharpened.
“What did you do?”
Nicholas looked toward window.
A black sedan had stopped across street.
Then another.
He smiled without humor.
“I chose family.”
“Which family?” Julian asked.
Nicholas looked at nephew.
“For the first time in thirty years, apparently yours.”
Gunfire exploded outside.
Windows cracked but held.
Restaurant screamed.
Security moved.
Julian grabbed my shoulder automatically.
I looked.
He released immediately.
“Can I?”
“Yes!”
He pulled me behind stone column.
Rebecca crawled toward us.
Nicholas remained frighteningly calm.
“This is Raymond.”
“How know?” Julian shouted.
“Because I told him I had Atlas copy.”
“You don’t.”
“He doesn’t know.”
A diversion.
Nicholas had made himself target to draw Raymond out.
I stared.
“You used this dinner as bait?”
“Yes.”
Rage flooded.
“You arrogant—”
Another shot hit glass.
Nicholas said:
“Marianne used stronger words.”
Of course.
Police arrived quickly because they had been warned of meeting.
The shooters fled.
One vehicle crashed.
Driver arrested.
Registered to Bennett Maritime subcontractor.
Raymond could no longer pretend distance.
Nicholas was taken into protective federal interview.
Julian and I moved to secure location.
In car, I shook with anger.
Julian said nothing.
Finally:
“You knew he might do this?”
“No.”
“Would you have come if you knew?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He looked.
“I would have tried to stop you.”
“I know.”
“Probably badly.”
“Yes.”
Then his phone rang.
Rebecca.
Police had recovered something from crashed sedan.
One of my mother’s storage boxes.
Inside:
A VHS tape.
A passport.
And an envelope addressed in my father’s handwriting.
FOR EMMA, WHEN SHE IS OLD ENOUGH TO HATE ME.
My father had known I might someday learn he survived.
He had also known I might never forgive him.
May you like
For the first time, I understood my mother was not the only dead person who had left me a letter.
And I no longer knew whether Thomas Calloway was dead at all.
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