Chapter 4 - THE UNCLE WHO SHOULD HAVE BEEN DEAD
Vincent listened to the recording twice.
Then he called his uncle.
Dominic answered on the third ring.
“Vincent.”
The voice sounded exactly as it always had.
Smooth.
Older.
Mildly irritated.
“You’re awake late.”
Vincent stared at the recorder.
“Where are you?”
“Home.”
“Which home?”
A pause.
“My place in Connecticut.”
Vincent looked at Marcus.
Dominic continued.
“What is this about?”
“Nothing.”
Vincent ended the call.
Claire stared at him.
“That was him?”
“Yes.”
“Or someone pretending to be him.”
Vincent hated the possibility.
Dominic had withdrawn socially eighteen months earlier after claiming a heart condition.
Meetings became calls.
Calls became encrypted messages.
He had stopped attending family dinners.
Vincent had visited once.
Dominic looked thinner.
Paler.
He wore tinted glasses because, he claimed, medication caused migraines.
At the time Vincent thought nothing of it.
Now every detail felt wrong.
Marcus spoke.
“We go to Connecticut.”
“No warning.”
Claire started to follow.
Vincent shook his head.
“This time, absolutely not.”
“Daniel may be there.”
“And Emma is being watched.”
That stopped her.
Vincent lowered his voice.
“She needs one parent safe tonight.”
Claire looked away.
He was right, and she hated him for being right.
“I’ll stay with Emma.”
Vincent nodded.
“Marcus assigns four men.”
“Two.”
“Four.”
“Three.”
He stared.
“Three.”
Claire pointed at him.
“And if you find Daniel, you call me before you do anything heroic.”
“I’m rarely heroic.”
“Good.”
Vincent left for Connecticut before sunrise.
The estate sat behind twelve-foot iron gates.
No guards answered.
Marcus cut power to the security system.
They entered through the rear.
The house looked lived in.
Fresh food.
Warm coffee.
But no Dominic.
Upstairs, Vincent found the bedroom.
Empty.
The closet contained clothes in Dominic’s size.
The bathroom contained prescription bottles.
All under a different name.
Marcus held one up.
“Benjamin Ross.”
Vincent frowned.
They found the hidden basement by accident.
A wine rack moved when one of Marcus’s men leaned against it.
Behind it was a narrow stairwell.
The room below contained photographs.
Hundreds.
Vincent.
Rachel.
Claire.
Emma.
Daniel Bennett.
And Dominic himself.
Vincent approached a photograph dated nineteen months earlier.
Dominic lay unconscious in what appeared to be a hospital bed.
Another showed him being moved on a stretcher.
Then came a death certificate.
Real.
Dominic Calder had died of cardiac arrest eighteen months ago.
Vincent stared.
“Who replaced him?”
Marcus opened a file drawer.
“Someone named Adrian Vale.”
Vincent knew the name.
Former Calder accountant.
Fired twelve years earlier.
The same year Daniel first warned Vincent about stolen money.
“Vale.”
Marcus nodded.
A photograph showed Vale before extensive facial surgery.
Same height as Dominic.
Similar build.
The transformation had taken years.
Not perfect.
But enough for limited appearances.
Enough for telephone calls.
Enough for a family that increasingly avoided each other.
Vincent felt sick.
“We let a stranger sit inside the organization for eighteen months.”
Marcus corrected him.
“Not a stranger.”
Vincent looked over.
“Vale was Dominic’s financial lieutenant for fifteen years.”
Which meant Vale knew everything.
Passwords.
Accounts.
Secrets.
Voice patterns.
Family history.
Claire called.
Vincent answered.
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“You found something.”
“Yes.”
“Daniel?”
“No.”
She was silent.
Vincent continued.
“Dominic is dead.”
“What?”
“The recording was true.”
“Then who have you been talking to?”
“Adrian Vale.”
Claire inhaled sharply.
“Does that name mean something?”
“Daniel accused Vale of stealing from us eight years ago.”
“And you believed Dominic instead.”
“Yes.”
Claire went quiet.
Vincent hated how often he was being forced to confront versions of himself he no longer respected.
“What does Vale want?”
“Control.”
“Of your business?”
“Maybe.”
Vincent looked at Emma’s photograph.
“Or something Daniel had.”
A noise came through Claire’s phone.
Glass breaking.
Vincent straightened.
“Claire?”
Silence.
Then shouting.
“CLAIRE!”
Her voice returned.
“Someone’s downstairs.”
Vincent was already running.
“Take Emma and lock yourself in the bedroom.”
“We’re not at home.”
He stopped.
“Where are you?”
“At your restaurant apartment.”
The line went dead.
Vincent had never been more frightened.
Not during shootings.
Not during his father’s murder.
Not while inheriting an organization at twenty-three.
The drive back to Manhattan took forty-three minutes.
It felt endless.
When Vincent arrived, police vehicles surrounded Marlowe’s.
The front window was shattered.
Owen sat on the curb with blood on his forehead.
Vincent grabbed him.
“Claire?”
“Upstairs.”
“Emma?”
“Upstairs.”
Vincent ran.
He found Claire sitting on the apartment floor with Emma in her arms.
Three Calder guards stood nearby.
A fourth man lay handcuffed near the door.
Vincent stopped.
Claire looked up.
“We’re okay.”
Only then did he breathe.
Emma ran toward him.
“Vincent!”
He crouched automatically.
She threw her arms around his neck.
He held her.
For several seconds, he forgot anyone else existed.
Then Emma whispered:
“I did what you said.”
“What?”
“I didn’t try to make Mommy happy by putting myself in danger.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
“Good.”
“I hid.”
“Very good.”
Claire watched him.
Something shifted in her expression.
Marcus entered.
“The attacker had a phone.”
Vincent stood.
“Anything useful?”
“One message.”
Marcus showed him.
TAKE THE GIRL. BENNETT WILL COME OUT FOR HER.
Claire went pale.
“Daniel.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
Vale wanted Emma because Daniel was still alive.
And Daniel had something valuable enough that Adrian Vale had spent eight years trying to retrieve it.
Emma tugged Vincent’s sleeve.
“There’s something else.”
Everyone looked at her.
“What?”
“The bad man said Daddy’s name.”
Claire knelt.
“What exactly did he say?”
Emma thought carefully.
“He said, ‘Daniel should have stayed in Philadelphia.’”
Marcus and Vincent exchanged a look.
Claire’s breath caught.
“Philadelphia?”
Marcus was already moving.
Vincent grabbed his coat.
Claire stood.
“I’m coming.”
Vincent looked at her.
This time he did not argue.
May you like
“Then we find your husband.”
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