Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN EWAN MARRIED
Delia waited until the door was completely closed.
Then she looked at me and said the sentence that changed the shape of my family.
“Ewan was my husband.”
I stared at her.
Not boyfriend.
Not lover.
Husband.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
Her voice shook, but her eyes didn’t.
“It was secret.”
I pulled the chair closer to her hospital bed.
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“That would mean—”
“A year before Pier 44.”
She reached carefully toward the drawer beside her bed.
Her injured fingers made the movement painful.
I opened it for her.
Inside her purse was a photograph folded twice through the middle.
She handed it to me.
Ewan stood outside a courthouse wearing a dark jacket I remembered.
He looked younger than he had in the last photographs taken before the fire.
Delia stood beside him in a simple white dress.
Ewan’s arm was around her waist.
They were laughing.
On the back, written in my brother’s handwriting, were four words.
Best secret I ever kept.
I read them twice.
“You married my brother and never told me?”
“Ewan didn’t want anyone to know.”
“Why?”
“Because he had started asking questions.”
“About what?”
She swallowed.
“Pier 44.”
That made no sense.
The fire had happened later.
Delia saw my confusion.
“The fire wasn’t the beginning.”
She looked toward the hallway.
“It was the cleanup.”
I felt something cold settle in my chest.
“Cleanup of what?”
“Money.”
“What money?”
“Vandermark money.”
I stopped moving.
Celeste’s last name suddenly seemed louder than everything else in the room.
Delia continued.
“Ewan discovered that Leonard Vandermark was moving money through three shipping companies connected to your father.”
“My father has been dead five years.”
“I know.”
“Then choose your next words carefully.”
“I have been choosing them carefully for six years.”
That silenced me.
Delia leaned back against the pillow.
“Ewan found duplicate manifests.”
“From Pier 44?”
“And two other docks.”
“What did they show?”
“Cargo that officially never arrived.”
She paused.
“Money that officially never existed.”
“And you expect me to believe Celeste knows about this?”
“I know she does.”
“How?”
“Because three nights ago she came into your mother’s room while she thought I was downstairs.”
Delia’s breathing became shallow.
“She stood beside your mother’s bed and said, ‘Once he signs it, none of this matters anymore.’”
My jaw tightened.
“Signs what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said she dragged you toward the cellar because you knew something.”
“I know something else.”
Delia looked directly at me.
“Something Ewan told me the night Pier 44 burned.”
“What?”
Her face lost what little color remained.
“He didn’t die in that fire.”
I stood so quickly the chair legs scraped across the floor.
“Don’t.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
“I buried him.”
“You buried a coffin.”
“I saw the report.”
“You saw paperwork.”
“I saw his ring.”
“Because they wanted you to.”
Every instinct I had was telling me to leave.
Every memory I had was telling me to call her a liar.
But Delia reached for my wrist.
“Ewan got out.”
My eyes went to her hand.
“He was burned.”
Her voice broke.
“He was terrified.”
She released me.
“And before sunrise, someone from your own family took him away.”
I said nothing.
Delia whispered the rest.
May you like
“Your mother knows where.”
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