Chapter Ten. The Face Behind The Message

The elevator was making this humming noise. It was really loud. Nobody in the room moved. My mother was sitting there with her hands clasped tight in her lap. Her knuckles were pale which meant she was really scared. Ethan was standing by his desk watching everything that was happening. I was holding the edge of the desk. I could not make myself let go of it.

Then the humming noise stopped. A soft chime sound. The elevator doors slid open. The elevator was empty which was a relief. I let out a breath of air slowly. It felt like I had been holding it for days. My grip on the desk. I heard my mother let out a breath too.

Ethan took one step toward the corridor. Then a hand appeared between the closing doors. The doors slid back open. Someone stepped out of the elevator. I knew the face immediately. I had known it my whole life. I had known the way she walked, like someone who did not think rushing was important. I had known the way she tilted her head when she was about to say something she had been thinking about for a time.

She was older than the time I had seen her. Her eyes were exactly the same, sharp and careful carrying something that she had never once put down. My mother made a sound, not a word, a sound like the air had been knocked clean out of her. "Hello Margaret, " the woman said quietly. My mothers voice, when it came out, was above a whisper. "Grace."

I looked between them. There was something in that exchange in the way my mother said that name that told me this was not a simple meeting. There was history here, the kind that does not fit neatly into one conversation. "You know each other, " I said. Neither of them answered immediately. Grace looked at me then really looked at me the way someone looks when they have been watching from a distance for a time and are finally standing close to see properly.

"You look like your father, " she said. "Who are you?" I said. She walked fully into the office. Ethan had not moved. His eyes tracked her every step. He knew who she was. I could see it in the way he watched her not with suspicion but with something like relief.

"My name is Grace Adler, " she said. "I worked for your fathers company for eleven years. I left four years ago when I found out what was being done from the inside. I have been collecting evidence since waiting for the moment to bring it forward." "You are the one who has been sending me messages, " I said. "Yes, " she said.

"Why didn't you just come to me directly? Why all the secrecy?" "Because the person behind this has eyes, Sofia, " she said. "If I had come to you soon they would have known immediately. Everything I spent four years building would have been destroyed in a single day." I looked at Ethan. "You knew she was coming, " I said. "I knew someone was, " he said. "Grace contacted me two days ago. I did not tell you because I needed to verify she was who she said she was first."

Another secret he had kept. I filed it away and said nothing. Grace set a drive on Ethan's desk. "Everything is here, " she said. "Four years of transactions, communications, shell companies and forged documents. Everything that connects back to the person running this." Ethan picked it up and turned it over once in his hand. "This is enough, " he said quietly. "It is more than enough, " Grace said.

I looked at my mother. She had not taken her eyes off Grace since she stepped out of that elevator. There was something between them, something unresolved and far too heavy for this room. "Mum, " I said. "How do you know her?" My mother opened her mouth. Grace spoke first. "Your mother and I grew up together, " she said. "We were very close once before everything changed."

"What changed?" I said. Grace looked at my mother. My mother looked at the floor. The silence that followed was the thing in the room. "Grace, " Ethan said. "Do they know you are here yet?" "Not yet, " she said. "They will soon. They always find out. We do not have time." "Then say what you came to say, " Ethan said.

Grace looked at him at my mother then at me. "Sofia, " she said. "There is something I have to tell you. Something about why you were chosen. Why it was always you and not someone else in your family?" "What do you mean chosen?" I said. She took a breath. My mother stood up. "Grace don't " she said.

"She deserves to know, Margaret, " Grace said. Her voice was still quiet. Something strong ran through it. "We have been waiting for this time for twenty years. There is no time. There is now." My mother stood with her hand outstretched her face tight with something that looked like fear, the kind that only comes when something buried for a time is about to surface.

"Mum, " I said slowly. "What does she mean? What have you been keeping from me?" My mother closed her eyes and Grace said: "The man behind all of this is not a stranger to your family Sofia. He has been waiting for you specifically because of who you're because of what you're owed." "What am I owed?" I said.

Grace looked at my mother one time. My mother did not open her eyes. Then Grace looked at me. "Half of everything, " she said. "Because your father is not who you think he is. And the man trying to destroy your family is your fathers brother." The name Ethan had said out minutes ago came back to me. I had heard it felt nothing because it meant nothing to me then. Now it meant everything now it had a face, a history, a motive that went back twenty years before I was even born.