Chapter 3 - THE DEAD MAN
Samuel Bennett wasn't dead.
That was the conclusion Dominic reached before anyone else.
I wanted another explanation.
A brother.
A son.
A coincidence.
Dominic believed coincidences were stories people told themselves because conspiracies were uncomfortable.
Marcus investigated.
Samuel Bennett had founded a medical research company with Dominic's father, Victor Vale.
In 2004, Samuel supposedly died when his private plane crashed into the Atlantic.
No body was recovered.
My mother, Rebecca Bennett, disappeared from Boston six months later.
Officially, she died in a car accident in Vermont.
I had spent twenty-seven years believing that.
Dominic watched me read the report.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
“Most people say they're fine.”
“Most people lie.”
I looked at him.
“You don't?”
“All the time.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
He did too.
Briefly.
Then Marcus entered carrying a sealed envelope.
He placed it in front of me.
The birthday card.
You were always meant to survive.
Forensics found a partial fingerprint.
It belonged to Samuel Bennett.
The room seemed to tilt.
“My father is alive.”
“Probably,” Dominic said.
“And he tried to drug you?”
“Possibly.”
“Why use my credentials?”
“To make me distrust you.”
“Why?”
Dominic looked at me for a long moment.
“Because he knows I won't.”
I should have asked why.
I didn't.
Two days later Dominic left the ICU against medical advice.
He moved into the hospital's private rehabilitation wing.
I remained suspended, but Dominic hired me privately.
I refused.
He doubled the salary.
I refused again.
He tripled it.
“You're annoying.”
“So I've been told.”
“I don't want your money.”
“Everyone wants money.”
“I want my license cleared.”
“Done.”
I stared.
“What?”
He handed me a letter.
The hospital investigation had confirmed someone cloned my credentials.
I was reinstated.
“You did this?”
“I encouraged efficiency.”
“Threatened people?”
“Encouraged.”
I accepted the position.
Not because of the money.
Because my father was connected to Dominic's shooting, and Dominic was my only path to the truth.
Rehabilitation revealed something unexpected.
Dominic Vale hated weakness.
He hated needing help to stand.
Hated trembling hands.
Hated physical therapy.
And hated me most when I refused to let him quit.
“One more.”
“No.”
“One.”
“I own this building.”
“You own eleven percent.”
He stared.
“How do you know that?”
“I researched you.”
“That should frighten me.”
“Lift your leg.”
He did.
Slowly.
Painfully.
When he finished, sweat covered his forehead.
I handed him water.
“You're cruel.”
“Twenty-four hours ago you called yourself the most disciplined man in Boston.”
“I was delirious.”
Over the next two weeks, he learned to walk without assistance.
And I learned pieces of him nobody else saw.
His mother died when he was seventeen.
His father raised Dominic and Gabriel like successors rather than sons.
Gabriel had been the gentle one.
Dominic protected him.
Until the night he couldn't.
One evening I found Dominic alone by the window.
He held Gabriel's watch.
“I told him to come with me that night.”
“You couldn't know.”
“I knew there were threats.”
“Then why go?”
“Because if people learn they can frighten you, they'll spend the rest of your life doing it.”
I understood that more than I wanted to.
He looked at me.
“That's why you talk too much.”
“What?”
“You're afraid of silence.”
My throat tightened.
“You heard more than I thought.”
“I heard you talk about foster care.”
I looked away.
He continued softly.
“You said you used to sleep with the radio on because silence meant nobody was coming back.”
I remembered saying it.
I hadn't known anyone heard.
Dominic stepped closer.
“I heard you, Claire.”
Three words.
That was all.
But something inside me broke open.
Then the lights went out.
Total darkness.
Dominic grabbed me.
Gunfire erupted outside.
Three shots.
Screaming.
Emergency lights flashed red.
Dominic pulled me behind the bed.
“Stay down.”
The door burst open.
A masked man entered.
Dominic moved faster than someone recovering from a coma had any right to.
He struck the man's wrist.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
They crashed into a table.
I grabbed the fallen weapon and pointed it with shaking hands.
“Stop!”
The attacker froze.
Dominic ripped off his mask.
The man's face was unfamiliar.
But around his neck hung a silver pendant.
I recognized it immediately.
My mother had worn the same symbol.
The attacker smiled at me.
“Rebecca's daughter.”
Dominic slammed him against the wall.
“Who sent you?”
The man looked at me.
“Your father wants you home.”
Then he bit down.
Dominic grabbed his jaw.
Too late.
The attacker collapsed.
Poison.
Dead within seconds.
I stared.
Dominic turned to me.
“He isn't trying to kill you.”
“No.”
That somehow frightened me more.
“He's trying to bring me to him.”
Dominic nodded.
Then Marcus shouted from the hallway.
They had found something else.
A package.
Inside was a photograph taken that afternoon.
Dominic and me walking through rehabilitation.
On the back, someone had written:
May you like
CLAIRE, YOU HAVE THREE DAYS. COME HOME OR DOMINIC FINISHES WHAT HIS FATHER STARTED.
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