Chapter 3 - The Name Buried in Cross Tower
Abby did not remember asking Julian inside.
Yet five minutes later, the billionaire was seated at their scratched kitchen table while Caleb boiled water in a dented kettle.
Julian looked absurd in the apartment.
His coat probably cost more than their refrigerator.
His watch could have cleared Caleb’s tuition balance several times over.
But none of that mattered now.
Abby sat across from him.
“Start from the beginning.”
Julian placed his phone on the table.
“Your mother worked for Cross Residential Services from April 2004 until November 2004.”
Abby frowned.
“That was before Caleb was born.”
“Yes.”
“She was a nurse.”
“According to the file, she worked nights as a private housekeeper.”
Abby’s mind moved backward.
She remembered her mother taking extra shifts.
She remembered Marianne sleeping at strange hours.
She remembered grocery envelopes filled with small bills.
But nobody had ever mentioned the Cross family.
“Where?”
Julian hesitated.
“My parents’ residence.”
Abby stared.
“Your parents?”
“Yes.”
Caleb turned from the kettle.
“So Mom cleaned your childhood home?”
Julian nodded.
Abby looked toward Pearl.
The feather duster stood by the door.
Suddenly it seemed different.
Not just old.
Not just sentimental.
Connected.
“What was she accused of stealing?”
Julian unlocked his phone.
“A diamond bracelet belonging to my mother.”
“Value?”
“Approximately eighty thousand dollars at the time.”
Abby laughed in disbelief.
“My mother wore discount-store sneakers until the soles split.”
Julian said nothing.
“She counted pennies for coupons.”
“I’m only telling you what the file says.”
“She did not steal an eighty-thousand-dollar bracelet.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
Abby stood.
“My mother used to make me walk back into stores if a cashier gave us too much change.”
Julian remained seated.
“She once drove twenty miles to return a wallet she found at a bus stop.”
“I believe you.”
“Do you?”
Her voice sharpened.
“Because apparently your family didn’t.”
Julian’s face tightened.
“I was seventeen.”
“And?”
“I was not involved in her dismissal.”
“But you copied the same system.”
That struck him.
Abby pointed toward him.
“You spent eight years leaving money around because somebody taught you poor employees couldn’t be trusted.”
Julian’s expression closed.
“That is not why I began the tests.”
“Then why?”
He looked away.
Caleb placed a mug of tea in front of Julian.
Julian seemed mildly startled.
Caleb shrugged.
“We only have one kind.”
Julian nodded.
“Thank you.”
Abby sat again.
“Why did you begin?”
Julian stared into the tea.
“Because my father was betrayed by someone he trusted.”
Abby waited.
“A financial adviser.”
“What happened?”
“He embezzled twelve million dollars.”
“That has nothing to do with housekeepers.”
“No.”
“At least you know that.”
Julian looked at her.
“Afterward, Voss told me loyalty should be verified rather than assumed.”
“And you believed him.”
“Yes.”
“Because?”
Julian’s mouth tightened.
“Because at the time, trusting people had become expensive.”
Abby almost responded.
Then she stopped.
There was something behind the words.
Something personal.
But she was not interested in healing a billionaire’s trust issues.
She wanted answers.
“Show me my mother’s file.”
Julian hesitated.
“It is company property.”
Abby stared at him.
He picked up the phone.
“I’ll have it delivered tomorrow.”
“No.”
“Abigail—”
“Tonight.”
“It’s in archived storage.”
“You own the building.”
“That does not make physical records move faster.”
“You own helicopters.”
Julian almost smiled.
“Do you want me to send a helicopter for a personnel file?”
“If that’s what rich people do.”
Caleb coughed to hide a laugh.
Julian looked at Abby for several seconds.
Then he made a call.
“Cross.”
A voice answered.
Julian spoke.
“I need archived employee file CRS-04-Mercer retrieved immediately.”
A pause.
“No.”
His eyes moved to Abby.
“Do not notify Martin Voss.”
Another pause.
“Bring it directly to my private residence.”
Julian ended the call.
Abby folded her arms.
“How long?”
“Forty minutes.”
Caleb stared.
“That was almost disappointingly efficient.”
Julian ignored him.
Abby picked up her mother’s feather duster.
The wooden handle was scratched from years of use.
A small brass cap covered the bottom.
Her mother had called it Pearl because the original feathers had once been white.
Now they were gray with age.
“Did my mother use this when she worked for your family?”
Julian studied it.
“I don’t know.”
“You would have been seventeen.”
“I did not pay attention to cleaning equipment.”
“Of course not.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You dislike me.”
“That took you this long?”
Caleb abruptly stood.
“I’m going to study.”
Abby looked at him.
“You don’t have to leave.”
“I absolutely do.”
He grabbed two textbooks.
“You two have a weird murder-mystery-divorce-attorney energy happening.”
“We are not married.”
“Thank God.”
Caleb disappeared into the bedroom.
Abby rubbed her forehead.
“He talks when he’s nervous.”
Julian looked toward the closed door.
“He is protective of you.”
“Someone has to be.”
Julian absorbed the insult.
Then his phone rang.
His expression changed as he read the screen.
He answered.
“What?”
A male voice spoke loudly enough that Abby could hear fragments.
Archive.
Access.
Destroyed.
Julian stood.
“When?”
Another pause.
“Who authorized it?”
His face hardened.
“No one touches anything else.”
He ended the call.
Abby’s stomach tightened.
“What happened?”
“The archive room holding your mother’s file has flooded.”
She stared at him.
“Flooded.”
“Yes.”
“Forty minutes after you asked for the file.”
“Apparently a sprinkler main ruptured.”
Abby laughed once.
“That is the worst coincidence I have ever heard.”
Julian was already dialing another number.
“No one knew about the request except my records manager.”
“And whoever she told.”
Julian stopped.
His eyes changed.
He made the call.
“Elaine.”
The person answered.
Julian’s voice was cold.
“Who did you notify after I requested the Mercer archive?”
A pause.
Another.
Then Julian’s face became still.
“Why?”
He listened.
“Do not leave your desk.”
He ended the call.
Abby waited.
“She called Voss.”
“Of course she did.”
“She believed the request involved the theft investigation.”
“So twenty minutes later the room flooded.”
Julian looked furious now.
Not the detached billionaire anger Abby expected.
This was something colder.
More dangerous.
Abby placed Pearl on the table.
“Maybe there’s another copy.”
“Personnel records from that era were largely physical.”
“Payroll?”
“Yes.”
“Security reports?”
Julian nodded slowly.
“My father maintained private security files.”
“Where?”
“Cross Tower.”
“Can Voss access them?”
“Yes.”
Abby stood.
“Then what are we doing here?”
Julian looked at her worn sweater.
“You want to enter Cross Tower tonight?”
“I want to know why someone destroyed my dead mother’s personnel file.”
“It could be unrelated.”
Abby stared.
Julian corrected himself.
“It probably is not unrelated.”
“Better.”
He picked up his coat.
Abby grabbed Pearl.
Julian looked at it.
“You are bringing the feather duster?”
“She has seniority.”
They left ten minutes later.
A black sedan waited around the corner.
Abby stopped.
“You said you came alone.”
“I said nothing of the kind.”
“You didn’t correct me.”
“You did not ask.”
She rolled her eyes.
The driver opened the rear door.
Abby climbed inside.
Julian sat beside her.
For the first ten minutes, neither spoke.
Manhattan lights passed across the windows.
Abby finally said.
“Did you know my mother?”
Julian looked at her.
“Not personally.”
“Did you ever see her?”
“I probably did.”
The answer hurt more than she expected.
Her mother had been part of Julian’s world.
Yet to him she had been invisible.
A person who cleaned around furniture.
A name buried in storage.
Julian seemed to understand.
“I wish I remembered.”
Abby looked away.
“No, you don’t.”
“I do.”
“You wish you remembered now.”
That distinction silenced him.
Cross Tower rose above Midtown like a monument to people who never worried about leaking roofs.
They entered through the underground garage.
Julian used a private elevator.
Abby expected the building to be empty.
It was not.
Employees still moved between glass offices.
Security officers stood at every elevator bank.
When they saw Julian, everyone straightened.
When they saw Abby carrying an old feather duster, confusion followed.
They reached the executive archive floor.
A records manager named Elaine was waiting.
She looked terrified.
“Mr. Cross.”
“Where are my father’s private files?”
“In vault C.”
“Take us there.”
Elaine’s eyes moved to Abby.
Julian noticed.
“She comes with me.”
“Yes, sir.”
The vault required two access codes.
Julian entered one.
Elaine entered the other.
A steel door opened.
Inside were rows of numbered storage cabinets.
Julian found the section marked 2004.
He pulled open a drawer.
Empty.
His expression changed.
Elaine whispered.
“That should not be empty.”
Abby stepped closer.
“What should be there?”
“Residential security incident reports.”
Julian opened the next drawer.
Empty.
Then the next.
Also empty.
Somebody had removed the entire year.
Abby felt a chill.
Julian looked at Elaine.
“Who accessed this vault?”
“I can check the log.”
“Do it.”
Elaine hurried to the terminal.
Seconds later, she froze.
Julian moved beside her.
“What?”
“The logs have been deleted.”
“Can you recover them?”
“I don’t know.”
Abby wandered toward the shelving.
Something bothered her.
An old memory.
Her mother sitting at their tiny kitchen table.
A phrase Marianne had repeated whenever Abby misplaced something.
If the obvious place is empty, look where nobody sensible would put it.
Abby scanned the labels.
2001.
2002.
2003.
2004.
She crouched.
At the bottom of the 2005 cabinet, one folder was wedged sideways behind the drawer.
“Julian.”
He joined her.
She pulled it free.
Dust coated the cover.
The handwritten label read:
M. MERCER / PRIVATE / G.C.
Julian stared.
“G.C.”
Abby looked at him.
“Your father?”
“Gideon Cross.”
Her fingers trembled as she opened the file.
Inside was a photograph.
Abby stopped breathing.
Her mother stood in the Cross family kitchen.
Younger.
Smiling.
Alive.
Beside her stood seventeen-year-old Julian.
He was holding what appeared to be a birthday cake.
Abby slowly turned toward him.
“You said you didn’t remember her.”
Julian stared at the photograph.
His face drained of color.
“I didn’t.”
Abby looked back at the picture.
On the rear of the photograph, Marianne had written a sentence.
Abby recognized her handwriting immediately.
If anything happens to me, ask Julian what he saw in the library.
Abby lifted her eyes.
Julian looked genuinely shaken.
“I don’t know what she means.”
Abby’s voice was quiet.
“You better remember.”
He stared at the seventeen-year-old version of himself.
Then something changed in his expression.
A memory.
Small.
Distant.
Terrible.
Julian whispered.
“The bracelet.”
Abby gripped the folder.
“What?”
He looked at her.
May you like
“I saw who took it.”
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