Chapter 2 - THE ROSARY IN THE LINING
My ceramic coffee mug shattered against the kitchen tile.
Cold dark roast splashed across the hem of my beige cardigan, soaking into the wool, but I couldn't feel the dampness. My eyes were locked on my glowing phone screen.
June 12, 1996.
St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital in Joliet.
That was the rainy Wednesday afternoon the obstetrician walked into my recovery room, took off his wire-rimmed glasses, and told me my baby boy’s lungs had failed two hours after an emergency cesarean. Grant had held my hand and wept into my hospital blanket. He had told me he arranged a rapid cremation so I wouldn't have to bear the trauma of a tiny coffin.
I had grieved an empty crib for thirty years. I had planted a white lilac bush in our backyard for a child who never had a name.
“Maggie?” Ruth’s voice crackled through the speakerphone lying on the counter. “Maggie, talk to me. Are you breathing?”
“Where are you?” My voice didn't sound like mine. It sounded like rusted iron.
“In the freight elevator behind the Bellamy banquet kitchen,” Ruth said quickly. “Daniel helped me slip out the back with the ledger before Grant’s security realized what was in the binding. Listen to me, honey. The young man with the acquisition folder—the one standing behind Grant on the stage—he just got into a black Lincoln Town Car with Celeste.”
“Who is he, Ruth?”
“The seating chart listed him as Julian Vance. Junior partner at Vanguard Hospitality.” Ruth paused, the rattle of the old elevator echoing behind her. “Maggie, there’s more inside the leather flap of this ledger. Evelyn didn't just leave the hospital band. Come to the loading dock on Wabash Avenue. Do not let Grant come home and find you alone.”
I didn't stop to wipe the floor. I grabbed my trench coat, my car keys, and the heavy mahogany cigar box from the back of Grant’s closet—the one where I had stored my mother-in-law Evelyn’s personal belongings after she passed away three years ago.
Thirty minutes later, I pulled my Buick into the rain-slicked alley behind the Bellamy Hotel.
Ruth was waiting under a flickering yellow security lamp, her navy dress covered by a kitchen dishwasher’s heavy canvas apron to keep out the October chill. Daniel, the young waiter, stood watch at the corner of the brick alley.
Ruth climbed into my passenger seat and immediately pulled a plastic sandwich bag from her purse. Inside lay the yellowed plastic hospital clasp—BOY HENDERSON, 6 LBS 11 OZ—and a tiny, tarnished silver rosary missing its crucifix.
“Evelyn sewed these behind the calfskin spine with butcher’s twine,” Ruth said, her breath fogging the windshield. “The glue finally dried out tonight when Grant slammed the book on the table.”
My fingers trembled as I held the silver beads. “This was Evelyn’s mother’s rosary. When I was taking care of her before she died, when the strokes stole her speech, she used to tap my wrist and point toward the restaurant office. I thought she was confused. I thought she was asking about the prayers.”
“She wasn't confused,” Ruth said grimly. “Look at the back of the photograph.”
I turned over the glossy snapshot of the young man from the gala. He had my husband’s thick dark hair and high cheekbones, but the shape of his jaw—and the slight cleft in his chin—belonged to my father.
Written across the back in Evelyn’s shaky, pre-stroke script was a single line: Paid to Arthur Vance. $100,000. Forgive me, Maggie. I only learned the truth when the ledger flooded.
Arthur Vance.
The name hit me like a physical blow. Arthur Vance wasn't a stranger. He was the ruthless Chicago zoning commissioner who had miraculously fast-tracked the liquor licenses and riverfront permits for Grant’s very first steakhouse in the summer of 1996.
A man whose wife, I vaguely remembered from twenty-year-old society columns, had suffered four stillbirths before suddenly adopting a newborn boy out of state.
“Wait,” I whispered, my stomach dropping. “If Arthur Vance adopted our son… why was Evelyn writing about a hundred thousand dollars? Grant and I didn't have two nickels to rub together in 1996. That’s why I was working double shifts at the Bluebird Diner.”
“Grant didn't pay Arthur Vance,” Ruth said quietly, pulling a folded pink carbon-copy slip from the ledger’s inner pocket. “Look at the deposit receipt Evelyn hid with the bracelet.”
I angled the slip toward the dashboard light.
It was a wire receipt dated June 14, 1996—two days after I gave birth.
The money hadn't gone to Arthur Vance.
It had come from Arthur Vance’s private holding company, deposited directly into the escrow account that purchased our flagship steakhouse.
My husband hadn't paid to hide a baby.
He had sold our newborn son to buy his first restaurant.
Before the horror could fully register in my chest, a shadow fell across the passenger window. Rapid fingernails rapped against the wet glass.
I gasped, nearly dropping the rosary.
Standing in the pouring rain beside my car was Celeste. Her four-thousand-dollar red silk gown was soaked at the hem, her mascara streaked down her pale cheeks, and she was clutching the leather acquisition folder Julian had been holding onstage.
May you like
She yanked the back door open and threw herself inside before I could hit the locks.
“Don't call the police,” Celeste panted, shivering violently as she pressed the leather folder against my headrest. “Please, Maggie. You think Grant was using me to replace you. He wasn't. Look inside this folder—Grant didn't bring Julian here tonight to promote him.”
