Chapter 3
Malcolm wanted the key.
I could see it in his eyes.
Not curiosity.
Recognition.
Fear.
“Shawn gave it to Cody,” I said.
Behind me, Cody whispered, “Mom.”
Malcolm's jaw tightened.
“When?”
“Two days before he died.”
The terrace door opened again.
Patrick stepped outside.
“What is going on?”
Malcolm extended his hand.
“Give me the key.”
“No.”
The word surprised even me.
Malcolm stared.
Patrick looked between us.
“What key?”
I showed him.
His face changed.
He knew it too.
That frightened me more than Malcolm's reaction.
“Patrick?”
He ran a hand across his mouth.
“Where did Shawn get that?”
“You tell me.”
Malcolm's voice sharpened.
“Patrick.”
But Patrick ignored him.
He looked at Cody.
“Did Shawn say what it opens?”
“No.”
Malcolm stepped closer.
“Then it means nothing.”
“Good,” I said. “Then you don't need it.”
Dean appeared in the doorway.
Malcolm looked toward him.
That glance lasted less than a second.
I still saw it.
And I understood.
We were leaving.
“Patrick.”
I grabbed his arm.
“We're going home.”
Malcolm spoke behind us.
“Cody stays.”
I turned.
“No.”
“This concerns him.”
“He's sixteen.”
“He is a Bannon.”
“He is my child.”
Malcolm's expression became almost pitying.
“You married into this family, Jillian.”
“And Cody chose me.”
Silence.
Cody moved beside me.
Patrick finally stepped between Malcolm and us.
“My wife is right.”
Relief hit me so hard I nearly cried.
“We're going home.”
Malcolm's face hardened.
“If you walk out that door with the key, Patrick, don't pretend you don't know what you're choosing.”
Patrick stared at his father.
Then he opened the door.
“I choose my family.”
We left.
For the first twenty minutes home, nobody spoke.
Then Cody asked from the back seat, “Dad, what does it open?”
Patrick gripped the steering wheel.
“I don't know.”
I knew my husband.
He was lying.
Later that night, after Cody went upstairs, I confronted him.
“You recognized that key.”
Patrick stood at the kitchen sink with both hands against the counter.
“My mother had one.”
“Had one?”
“She died when I was nineteen.”
“I know.”
“She kept it around her neck.”
My pulse quickened.
“What did it open?”
“I never knew.”
“Patrick.”
He turned toward me.
“My mother hated Bannon Logistics.”
I stared.
That made no sense.
Malcolm always spoke about Eleanor Bannon as if she had built the company beside him.
“She wanted Dad to sell,” Patrick continued. “She said the business was changing him. Shawn thought she was exaggerating.”
“And you?”
“I was thirteen when most of it happened.”
He looked exhausted.
“One night I heard them screaming. Mom kept saying, ‘You don't own people.’ Dad told her she didn't understand how families survived.”
A chill crawled over my skin.
“What happened to her key?”
“After she died, it disappeared.”
“And now Shawn had it.”
Patrick nodded.
We locked the brass key in our bedroom safe.
The next morning it was gone.
No broken window.
No damaged lock.
Nothing missing except the key.
Cody stood in our doorway, white-faced.
“Grandpa.”
“We don't know that,” Patrick said.
“Yes, we do.”
Patrick snapped, “Cody.”
Our son flinched.
Patrick immediately regretted it.
But fear had entered our home.
And fear changed people.
I called the police.
Patrick stopped me before I finished dialing.
“What are you doing?”
“Someone entered our house.”
“We don't know that.”
“The key vanished.”
“Maybe Cody moved it.”
“I didn't!” Cody shouted.
Patrick rubbed his temples.
“Everybody calm down.”
That sentence made me furious.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“No, Patrick. Somebody got into our bedroom while we were sleeping.”
“We have no proof.”
I stared at him.
“You're protecting them.”
“I'm protecting us.”
“From what?”
He couldn't answer.
That afternoon Cody came home from school early.
The office secretary called me.
“He says he's sick.”
He wasn't sick.
He was terrified.
A black sedan had followed his school bus for six blocks.
Patrick finally agreed we needed to leave for a few days.
His mother-in-law—Laura's mother, Ruth—lived outside Scranton.
She adored Cody.
We decided Cody would stay there while Patrick and I figured out what Malcolm wanted.
We told nobody.
Not Malcolm.
Not Maureen.
Not Dean.
Cody packed one backpack.
Before getting into my car, he hesitated.
“Mom?”
“What?”
“The key wasn't the only thing Uncle Shawn gave me.”
My stomach dropped.
He pulled out one of his sketchbooks.
From inside the cardboard backing, he removed a tiny memory card.
“He told me never to put it in a computer connected to the internet.”
I stared at it.
“What is on it?”
“I don't know.”
“Why didn't you tell us?”
“Because Dad keeps telling Grandpa everything.”
The words hurt because they were true.
I drove Cody to Pennsylvania myself.
Ruth met us at the door.
I told her only enough to scare her.
“No visitors.”
She nodded immediately.
“You have my word.”
Before I left, Cody hugged me.
He usually hated long hugs.
That day he wouldn't let go.
“Come back for me.”
“I will.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
When I returned home, Patrick was sitting in darkness.
“Dad knows Cody isn't here.”
My heart stopped.
“How?”
“I don't know.”
Then his phone rang.
Malcolm.
Patrick stared at it.
I grabbed his wrist.
“Don't answer.”
He answered.
Malcolm's voice came through clearly.
“Bring my grandson home.”
Patrick said nothing.
Malcolm continued.
“Tomorrow. Six o'clock.”
“Dad—”
“And bring Jillian.”
The call ended.
I should have refused.
Instead, the next evening I walked into Malcolm's house because I thought answers might protect Cody.
I was wrong.
Within twenty minutes, Dean had taken my phone.
Within thirty, Malcolm had locked the gates.
And when Patrick left after being told Cody had been seen near our house, I realized they had separated us deliberately.
Malcolm sat across from me.
“Where is he?”
“I don't know.”
He smiled.
“You're a terrible liar.”
For three hours they questioned me.
Nobody touched me.
Nobody threatened me.
They simply blocked every exit.
Finally, when Dean turned away to answer a call, I grabbed my phone from the side table.
Then I ran.
Out the terrace.
Across the lawn.
Down the gravel drive.
Toward the first car I saw.
Toward Emmett Carbone.
Now, inside his Navigator, Emmett listened to everything.
When I finished, he was silent for a long time.
Then he said, “Shawn called me the night before he died.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“He said Malcolm was trying to resurrect an agreement our fathers buried thirty years ago.”
“What agreement?”
Emmett looked directly at me.
“One that required a Bannon heir.”
My hands went cold.
“And Shawn?”
“Shawn refused.”
The Navigator turned onto a private road.
I whispered, “Where are you taking me?”
Emmett's expression didn't change.
“To somewhere Malcolm cannot reach you.”
Then my dead phone suddenly vibrated.
One percent battery.
A text appeared from an unknown number.
May you like
MOM, DON'T COME TO GRANDMA'S.
THEY FOUND ME.
