Chapter 6 - THE PRICE OF SILENCE
“The bomb wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Declan repeated Gavin’s words.
Not loudly.
That made them worse.
Gavin looked at him.
“I gave them windows.”
“Windows.”
“Times you were moving.”
“Say it properly.”
Gavin’s jaw worked.
“I sold information.”
Camille stood absolutely still.
Declan asked, “Did you give them the car rotation?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Declan hit him.
One punch.
No warning.
Gavin fell against the desk.
Tessa jumped.
Dr. Aris moved instinctively forward.
Camille caught Declan’s arm before he could strike again.
“No.”
“He put you in that car.”
“He gave them information. We still don’t know who put the bomb there.”
Declan looked down at Gavin.
“He knows.”
Gavin wiped blood from his mouth.
“I swear I didn’t know they were going to use explosives.”
“What did you think criminals buying my movements wanted?”
“I thought they wanted leverage.”
Declan laughed bitterly.
“That might be the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”
“I know.”
Gavin pushed himself upright.
Moretti had begun with small requests.
Flight times.
Hotel changes.
Which dock Declan used on Thursdays.
Then Elise’s treatments became more expensive.
When she died, the payments did not stop.
The leverage did not disappear.
Instead, Moretti showed Gavin photographs of the transfers.
Records of his betrayal.
“They owned me.”
“No,” Tessa said quietly.
Gavin looked at her.
“You let them own you.”
The young maid had eighty-six thousand dollars of her own family’s medical debt and had still refused his money.
The comparison hung between them.
Gavin looked away first.
Declan opened the empty velvet ring box.
“My father’s ring.”
Gavin’s face changed again.
“You took it.”
“Yes.”
Camille inhaled.
Declan almost struck him again.
“Why?”
“They wanted proof I could access the house.”
“So you stole a dead man’s ring?”
“I thought they wanted a photograph of it.”
“Did you get it back?”
“No.”
Camille whispered, “I saw it on the man beside the car.”
Gavin looked sick.
“I know.”
“You know?”
“After the explosion, they sent me a picture.”
“Of what?”
“The ring.”
Declan’s voice dropped.
“Why?”
“To remind me that they could make anything look like anything.”
The rival crew Declan eventually blamed had been selected carefully.
Moretti knew which explosive supplier they had used.
They knew where to plant fragments.
They knew which rumors Declan would believe.
And Gavin knew just enough to help the lie survive.
“You watched me kill people for two years.”
“I tried to slow you down.”
“You stood beside me.”
“I was afraid if I admitted what I’d done, Moretti would kill everyone connected to me.”
Camille looked disgusted.
“So instead you protected yourself.”
“Yes.”
It was the first answer Gavin gave without defending it.
Dr. Aris walked toward the medication terminal.
“There is something else.”
Declan looked at him.
Aris pulled up Camille’s clinical history.
“You believe Mrs. Walsh woke eight months ago.”
“She did.”
“Conscious communication began eight months ago.”
Camille frowned.
Aris continued.
“Her neurological recovery began earlier.”
“How much earlier?” Declan asked.
“Six months.”
Declan stared.
Aris enlarged laboratory results.
“Fourteen months ago she began showing increased cortical response. Enough that I ordered sedation reduction.”
Camille looked at him.
“You never told me.”
“You were not capable of understanding at the time.”
Declan looked at the medication data.
“Sedatives increased after that.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning whoever was altering her treatment knew she was recovering before she could speak.”
Aris nodded.
Gavin immediately said, “That wasn’t me.”
Declan turned.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I did terrible things. That wasn’t one of them.”
Aris looked at Gavin.
“Your security badge entered medical storage seventeen times during that period.”
Gavin’s face hardened.
“My credentials can be duplicated.”
“By whom?”
“That’s what I was trying to find today.”
Declan frowned.
“Someone hit you because you were investigating your own badge?”
“Yes.”
“How convenient.”
“It’s true.”
Tessa moved slowly toward the doorway.
“Wait.”
She disappeared into the service hall.
Declan started after her.
Camille stopped him.
“She knows something.”
Two minutes later, Tessa returned carrying a small plastic storage bag.
Inside was a gold bracelet.
Camille’s hand flew to her mouth.
Declan recognized it instantly.
He had bought it in Florence during their fifth anniversary trip.
A delicate gold chain with a tiny oval charm.
Camille had been wearing it the morning of the bombing.
The hospital never recovered it from the wreckage.
“Where did you get that?” Camille whispered.
“Behind the detergent shelving.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
Tessa turned the bag over.
Something else rested beside the bracelet.
A round brass token.
Stamped with a number.
Declan took it.
He recognized the old dock tokens used at one of the private warehouses south of Seattle.
The same warehouse where the Moretti meeting had collapsed earlier that afternoon.
Pier 19.
Camille looked at him.
“Your meeting today.”
Declan nodded.
May you like
Two men had died there only hours earlier.
And somehow, a bracelet missing since Camille’s bombing had returned to his house beside a token from that exact warehouse.
