Chapter 2 - SOMEONE INSIDE THE MANSION USED THE NURSE’S VOICE TO ORDER A LETHAL INJECTION—THEN CLAIRE OPENED DESMOND’S SECRET ARCHIVES AND FOUND HER DEAD FATHER’S NAME
By eight in the morning, the mansion felt less like a home than a prison.
Forty-three people were inside.
Security.
Housekeeping.
Kitchen staff.
Drivers.
Accountants.
Three Gallagher relatives who had stayed after dinner.
And me.
Frankie collected phones.
Nobody was happy.
Desmond remained upstairs until the baclofen cleared.
When I entered at nine, he was already dressed.
"You transferred alone."
"Yes."
"Badly?"
"No."
I checked.
He had done it safely.
"Good."
His expression shifted.
"You sound surprised."
"I'm pleased."
"Different?"
"Very."
He rolled toward the window.
"Open the archive."
I stared.
"Me?"
"You wanted to know what's inside."
"That was before someone tried framing me for murder."
"Excellent reason to learn."
The archive room required his fingerprint, retinal scan, and a code.
Inside were no piles of cash.
No torture photographs.
Mostly filing cabinets.
Hard drives.
Ledgers.
Photographs.
"Twenty years of secrets," Desmond said.
"You collect hobbies like a psychopath."
"I had stamps once."
"You're joking."
"No."
I looked at him.
He almost smiled.
We started with the bombing.
Six people knew Desmond's route.
Frankie.
Desmond's younger brother Liam.
His cousin Connor.
His attorney Martin Weller.
His driver Patrick Doyle.
And Desmond himself.
Patrick died in the bombing.
That left four suspects.
"What about bomb access?"
"More."
"Money?"
"Everyone."
"Motivation?"
Desmond smiled without humor.
"Everyone."
"Your family sounds lovely."
"Christmas is complicated."
I opened a file.
Financial records.
Surveillance photographs.
Telephone logs.
Then I saw a name.
MORGAN, THOMAS.
My father.
I stopped breathing.
Desmond noticed.
"What?"
I pulled the file.
Thomas Morgan.
Age forty-nine.
Former mechanical engineer.
Died eight years earlier in what police called a single-vehicle accident.
My father.
"What is this?"
Desmond looked at the label.
Then at me.
"I don't know."
"Don't lie."
"I'm not."
I opened it.
Photographs showed my father entering Gallagher Maritime offices.
Meeting Patrick Doyle.
Meeting someone whose face had been obscured.
My hands shook.
"What was my father doing with your people?"
Desmond rolled closer.
"Claire—"
"No."
I turned.
"You knew my name."
"Yes."
"You investigated me before hiring."
"Security did."
"And nobody found this?"
"This archive isn't indexed by staff."
"Convenient."
His face hardened.
"You think I brought you here because of your father?"
"I don't know what to think."
I found a report.
Thomas Morgan had worked for a subcontractor maintaining armored vehicles.
Eight years earlier, he reported irregular modifications to Gallagher-owned cars.
Three days later, he died.
I sat down.
My father had supposedly fallen asleep driving.
He never drove tired.
Never.
"He knew."
My voice broke.
"He found something."
Desmond read.
His expression changed.
"Explosive cavities."
"What?"
"Hidden compartments beneath vehicle chassis."
My father had discovered cars being modified to carry contraband.
Weapons.
Cash.
Maybe explosives.
Desmond whispered:
"My father ran the organization then."
"Your father knew mine?"
"Probably."
"Did he kill him?"
"I don't know."
I stood.
"You don't know?"
"No."
"That's your answer?"
"It's the only honest one."
I wanted to hate him.
But he did not defend his family.
That mattered.
We kept reading.
Thomas Morgan had contacted someone named E.G.
He planned to turn over records.
E.G.
I thought of Evelyn Shaw.
No.
Wrong initials.
Then Frankie entered.
"Boss."
"What?"
"We found the source of the cloned voice."
A laptop.
Inside the mansion.
Registered to Liam Gallagher.
Desmond's younger brother.
Desmond became completely still.
"Where is he?"
"Missing."
Liam had left before lockdown.
Security footage showed him exiting at 2:46 a.m.
Twelve minutes before the fake call to Dr. Shaw.
Desmond whispered:
"No."
I studied him.
"You trust him."
"He's my brother."
"So?"
He looked at me.
I regretted the cruelty.
"My father raised us to compete."
Desmond stared at the archive.
"When our mother died, I became the person who protected Liam."
"How old?"
"I was sixteen. He was nine."
That changed something.
Not innocence.
Context.
"What does Liam gain if you die?"
"Everything."
There it was.
Desmond rolled away.
I followed.
"Where are you going?"
"To find him."
"No."
He turned.
"Do not start."
"I'm absolutely starting."
"This is my family."
"And that's your spinal cord."
His face went cold.
"Don't use my disability to control me."
I stopped.
He was right.
"I'm sorry."
That apology surprised him.
I continued.
"I'm not saying you can't go because you use a wheelchair. I'm saying someone already bombed your car and tried to poison you twelve hours ago."
"Better."
"But still don't go alone."
"Fair."
We found Liam before evening.
He wasn't hiding.
He was unconscious inside a motel.
Overdose.
Not recreational.
Drugged.
His laptop had been stolen.
When he woke in hospital, he looked at Desmond and cried.
"I didn't do it."
Desmond believed him.
I wasn't sure.
Then Liam saw me.
His face changed.
"Morgan?"
"Yes."
"Thomas Morgan's daughter?"
I stepped forward.
"You knew my father?"
Liam whispered:
"He saved my life."
The room went silent.
Eight years earlier, Liam had been nineteen.
Reckless.
Addicted.
Desmond's father, Seamus Gallagher, used him to transport cash.
Thomas Morgan discovered that one modified vehicle had a defective fuel line beside an illegal compartment.
He stopped Liam from driving it.
Hours later, the car caught fire.
Thomas threatened to expose everything.
Seamus had him followed.
Liam never knew what happened afterward.
"I thought he ran."
"He died."
Liam stared.
"No."
"Car accident."
His face collapsed.
"I'm sorry."
Desmond looked sick.
"Our father."
Liam whispered:
"Probably."
Desmond turned away.
I saw something inside him fracture.
The man who had taught him power.
Built the empire.
Made him feared.
May have murdered my father.
That night I sat outside on the terrace.
Desmond found me.
His wheelchair moved quietly.
"I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing for crimes you don't know you committed."
"My family—"
"Isn't you."
He looked at me.
"That's generous."
"No."
I wiped my eyes.
"It's practical."
I thought of my father.
"If we inherit everyone's guilt, none of us gets to choose anything."
Desmond became quiet.
Then:
"Your father may have left evidence."
"Where?"
"The initials E.G."
"What about them?"
"My mother's name."
I looked at him.
"Eleanor Gallagher."
"Your mother died?"
"Ten years ago."
"Two years before my father."
"Yes."
"Could they have known each other?"
Desmond's eyes met mine.
"Apparently."
We returned to the archive.
Eleanor's private files were stored in the third locked room.
Desmond had never opened them.
"Why?"
"My father told me they contained personal things."
"Your father told you not to open evidence, and you obeyed?"
"I was twenty-eight."
"Still embarrassing."
He almost smiled.
The lock required a key.
We found it inside an old jewelry box.
The room smelled of cedar.
Photographs covered one wall.
Eleanor Gallagher.
My father.
Patrick Doyle.
Others.
They had been building a case.
Against Seamus Gallagher.
But another photograph changed everything.
It showed Eleanor standing beside a younger Frankie.
And written behind it:
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO ME, FRANKIE KNOWS WHERE THE ORIGINAL LEDGER IS.
Desmond and I looked at each other.
Frankie.
The man guarding us.
The man who had searched my bag.
The man who controlled the mansion's security.
Desmond called him.
No answer.
Then alarms began.
Fire.
Not in the mansion.
In the archive room behind us.
Smoke poured beneath the door.
Someone had locked us inside.
I ran to Desmond.
The electronic controls on his wheelchair were dead.
"Battery's been disabled."
He looked toward the flames.
"Claire, go."
"Shut up."
"The service vent—"
"You're not dying in an archive."
The chair weighed hundreds of pounds.
I couldn't carry it.
But I could carry him.
Maybe.
I locked his arms around my shoulders.
"Don't you dare drop me."
"Excellent motivational technique."
I pulled.
He helped with everything he had.
We hit the floor.
Smoke thickened.
I dragged him.
Inches.
Feet.
Toward the emergency maintenance hatch.
My lungs burned.
Desmond tried pushing with his arms.
"Claire."
"Move."
"Leave me."
"Say that again and I'll kill you myself."
He laughed once.
Coughed.
We reached the hatch.
I opened it.
Fresh air.
Then Desmond saw something through the smoke.
A man standing outside the glass door.
Frankie.
Watching.
Desmond's expression died.
"Frankie."
The bodyguard raised a gun.
Then another figure hit him from behind.
Frankie collapsed.
The door opened.
Liam stood there holding a fire extinguisher.
"Move!"
He dragged Desmond.
I crawled.
Sprinklers finally activated.
We escaped.
Frankie disappeared before security arrived.
On the floor where he had stood, he left one object.
A photograph.
My father and Eleanor Gallagher.
On the back:
THE BOMB WAS NEVER MEANT TO KILL DESMOND.
IT WAS MEANT TO MAKE HIM DEPENDENT.
May you like
And underneath:
ASK HIM WHO BENEFITED FROM HIS PARALYSIS.
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