THE LULLABY HE NEVER FORGOT
The moment I finished humming, the room went completely silent.
I turned around and found him standing behind me.
He wasn’t angry.
He looked terrified.
“Where did you learn that song?” he asked.
I lowered my duster.
“My grandmother used to sing it to me when I was little.”
His face changed.
“What was her name?”
I told him.
For several seconds, he didn’t move.
Then he walked toward me slowly and stared at my face as though he were trying to recognize someone from a very distant memory.
“That’s impossible,” he whispered.
“What is?”
He didn’t answer.
Instead, he reached for his desk drawer and pulled out an old photograph.
He placed it in my hands.
The picture showed a little boy standing beside a young woman.
I recognized the woman immediately.
It was my grandmother.
But the little boy beside her wasn’t someone I knew.
It was him.
Years younger.
Before the money.
Before the power.
Before Chicago knew his name.
My hands began to shake.
“How do you know my grandmother?”
He looked toward the penthouse windows.
“Because she saved my life.”
I stared at him.
Then he said something that made my blood run cold.
“She wasn’t supposed to have survived the night they came for my family.”
I couldn’t speak.
He took the photograph back and lowered his voice.
“Your grandmother wasn’t just a woman who knew me.”
“She was the last person who knew what really happened to my parents.”
Before I could ask another question, the elevator bell rang.
His entire expression changed.
He stepped between me and the elevator doors.
“Go downstairs,” he whispered.
“Why?”
“Because whoever just arrived…”
He looked directly into my eyes.
“…has been searching for you for twenty-three years.”