Chapter 9 - THE WOMAN AT PLATFORM NINE
We did not know whether Salvatore was alive.
We did know that the train ticket was real, that the paper was old, and that the person who placed it in the hall had intended for me to find it.
Dominic wanted to send a team to Milwaukee first.
I refused.
“If my mother is waiting at Platform Nine, she may run when she sees armed men.”
“She may run when she sees you.”
“Then I’ll be the one she sees.”
He stared at me.
“You’re not going alone.”
“I didn’t ask to.”
“You’re staying beside me.”
“I know.”
His gaze softened, but the fear behind it did not.
We arrived at the station ten minutes before midnight. The building was nearly empty, the air thick with the smell of rain and metal. Dominic wore a dark coat and carried no visible weapon. His men spread through the platforms as ordinary travelers.
I held the train ticket in one hand and my father’s ring in the other.
At twelve minutes past midnight, an elderly woman in a blue scarf walked down the stairs.
She stopped when she saw me.
I knew her face before she spoke.
The curve of her cheek. The gray-green eyes. The way she pressed her lips together when trying not to cry.
My mother.
“Claire,” she whispered.
The world vanished.
I crossed the platform. She reached for me, then stopped as though afraid I might disappear.
“You’re alive.”
“So are you.”
Her hands touched my face.
“What did he do to you?”
I knew immediately she was not asking about David.
She had already heard.
“How do you know?”
“Arthur told me he feared David would marry you to get close to the evidence.”
My knees weakened.
My mother pulled me against her.
She smelled like rain, soap, and a childhood I had been forced to bury.
For a while, neither of us spoke.
Then Dominic approached.
My mother looked at him sharply.
“You must be Dominic Rossi.”
“Ma’am.”
“Your father worked for Salvatore.”
“My father is dead.”
“So is mine.”
Her gaze moved between us.
“That is why I stayed away. Too many dead men leave their children unfinished business.”
She led us to a private room above the station. There, she told us the truth.
She had not been on the boat. She had boarded a train under a false name, then entered witness protection after testifying against Thomas Bell. Arthur had helped arrange it. Salvatore had helped her escape when Bell discovered the first safe location.
“Why didn’t you come back for me?” I asked.
My mother closed her eyes.
“I tried.”
“You let me believe you were dead.”
“I believed that lie would protect you.”
“It didn’t.”
Her face crumpled.
“I know.”
I wanted to be furious. I had rehearsed the anger in my dreams. But seeing her alive made the old rage impossible to hold in the same way.
“David knew you were alive,” I said.
“He found a letter from your father. He threatened to expose me unless I gave him the location of the evidence.”
“What evidence?” Dominic asked.
My mother reached inside her coat and removed a small brass key.
“Arthur hid it beneath Saint Alden’s Church.”
“The second key,” I said.
She nodded.
“The key is not metal,” she said. “The key is the person who remembers why the evidence was hidden.”
She placed the brass key in my hand.
“You.”
Dominic looked toward the door.
“We need to move.”
A train thundered past the station. The windows shook. When the sound faded, my mother’s expression had changed.
“They found us.”
The door burst open.
Two men entered with weapons raised. Dominic fired first, striking one in the shoulder. My mother grabbed my arm and dragged me toward a service corridor.
We ran through the station while Dominic covered us. Footsteps thundered behind us. A bullet struck the metal railing beside my head.
At the end of the corridor, we reached a locked gate.
My mother shoved the brass key into the lock.
It turned.
Beyond the gate was a dark maintenance tunnel.
“How do you know this place?” I asked.
“Your father used it when he was young.”
We entered.
The door slammed behind us.
A voice echoed through the tunnel.
“Margaret!”
David.
He stepped into the corridor at the far end, wearing a dark coat over prison clothes. His wrists were free. Two men stood behind him.
My mother pulled me backward.
David smiled.
“You always did make me work too hard, Claire.”
Dominic raised his gun.
May you like
David placed one hand around my mother’s throat.
“Shoot me,” he said, “and she dies first.”
