Chapter 4 - THE MAN DOMINIC TRUSTED
Dominic did not raise his voice.
“Name him.”
Evelyn looked toward Gabriel.
Not at him.
Past him.
As if seeing another man from another lifetime.
“Victor Sloane.”
Gabriel swore softly.
Penelope recognized the name.
Victor Sloane was Vanguard’s chairman.
He was also one of the men Richard had been speaking with earlier that evening.
Dominic’s expression became unreadable.
“He was here tonight.”
Richard nodded.
“He left before the blackout.”
“Why was he invited?”
Celeste answered.
“Because refusing him would have warned him.”
Dominic turned.
“You invited the man who abducted our mother?”
“I didn’t know that when invitations went out.”
“But you knew six weeks ago.”
“Yes.”
“And you still let him walk into my house.”
“To see what he wanted.”
Dominic laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You decided to use my home as bait.”
“I decided not to lose Mom again.”
That stopped him.
Celeste’s eyes were wet now.
“You got to mourn her, Dominic. I didn’t.”
His face changed.
“What does that mean?”
“I was nine.”
“So was I supposed to be less devastated because I was seventeen?”
“No. But everyone let you grieve. I was told to stop asking questions because it upset you.”
Dominic stared at her.
Celeste continued.
“I remembered things nobody wanted to hear. Mom arguing with Victor. Dad burning papers. Gabriel’s father checking the west gate twice that night.”
Gabriel stiffened.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“I spent twenty-one years thinking I had imagined it.”
Evelyn reached for her daughter.
This time Celeste took her hand.
“I’m sorry.”
Celeste knelt beside the wheelchair.
“You don’t apologize for surviving.”
Dominic looked away.
Penelope understood then why Celeste had hidden the truth.
Not because she distrusted Dominic.
Because she had spent most of her life being told her instincts were dangerous.
That didn’t make her choices right.
But it made them human.
Gabriel examined the ledger.
“If Sloane knows this survived, he won’t stop.”
Richard pointed to several missing pages.
“He already has part of it.”
Someone had carefully removed a section.
Penelope examined the binding.
“These weren’t torn tonight.”
“How can you tell?” Dominic asked.
“The paper edges have oxidized.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Elias removed them.”
“Why?”
“To keep the evidence from existing in one place.”
Penelope remembered her father’s habits.
Receipts folded into books.
Important numbers hidden inside crossword puzzles.
He had always called it being organized.
Maybe it had been something else.
“Where would he put them?”
Evelyn looked at the sketchbook.
Penelope flipped through it again.
Nothing.
Then she noticed the back cover was thicker.
She ran her fingers along the cardboard.
A slit opened.
Inside was a faded ticket.
Providence Children’s Museum.
Two admissions.
Elias Hayes and Penelope Hayes.
The date was twenty-one years ago.
On the back, her father had written:
WHERE PENNY BUILT A HOUSE THAT COULDN’T FALL.
Penelope remembered.
A children’s engineering exhibit.
Foam blocks.
Wooden beams.
Her father laughing because she refused to leave until her bridge held his coffee cup.
“I remember this.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Where is the exhibit?”
“Gone. The museum renovated years ago.”
Richard exhaled.
“Then it’s useless.”
“No.”
Penelope looked again.
Her father had underlined one word.
HOUSE.
“He never wrote clues for places. He wrote clues for objects.”
She closed her eyes.
That day.
Her father bought her something in the gift shop.
A wooden model house.
She painted it green.
After he died, her mother packed his belongings away.
Penelope still had the box.
“It’s in my apartment.”
Dominic immediately said, “We’re going.”
Richard stepped forward.
“So am I.”
Penelope laughed.
“No.”
“Penny—”
“Don’t call me that.”
Richard stopped.
“You lost the right to make decisions for me tonight.”
His face tightened.
Then he nodded.
“Fair.”
That surprised her.
Dominic told Gabriel to secure Evelyn and Celeste.
Evelyn objected.
“I’m not hiding again.”
“You’re not hiding,” Dominic said. “You’re staying somewhere I can protect you.”
She looked at him sadly.
“Protection and imprisonment can look very similar from inside a locked room.”
Dominic flinched.
Then, after a long moment, he took a key from his pocket.
He placed it in her hand.
“The room won’t be locked.”
Something softened in Evelyn’s face.
It was not forgiveness.
But it was a beginning.
Twenty minutes later, Dominic and Penelope drove toward Providence with two security vehicles behind them.
For the first ten minutes, neither spoke.
Finally Penelope said, “You don’t have to pretend you’re fine.”
“I’m not pretending.”
“You’ve been gripping the steering wheel like it insulted your family.”
He loosened his hands.
She almost smiled.
Then Dominic said, “My father spent six years searching for her.”
“You believe that?”
“I watched it destroy him.”
“So maybe the access log means he found a clue.”
“Or found her.”
“And left her there?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Penelope looked out at the highway.
“My father lied to me too.”
“He was trying to protect you.”
“That doesn’t automatically make it okay.”
Dominic glanced at her.
“No.”
She appreciated that he did not argue.
At her apartment, nothing appeared disturbed.
Penelope pulled a storage carton from the bedroom closet.
Old report cards.
Her father’s flannel shirt.
A rosary belonging to her grandmother.
Then the green wooden house.
Her hands trembled as she lifted it.
Dominic crouched beside her.
“Take your time.”
She turned the house over.
One wooden panel had a tiny flower carved into it.
Three arcs.
A square.
A point.
Penelope pressed it.
The bottom released.
Inside was no ledger page.
Only a photograph.
Her father stood beside Dominic’s father.
Both men looked exhausted.
Between them was Victor Sloane.
Someone had drawn a red circle around Sloane.
On the back:
HE WILL MAKE THE BROTHERS BLAME EACH OTHER.
Dominic went completely still.
“What brothers?”
Penelope looked at him.
“You have an uncle?”
“No.”
“Your father?”
“Only child.”
She turned the photograph toward the light.
Then noticed something reflected in a window behind the three men.
Two teenage boys.
One was Dominic.
The other looked almost exactly like him.
Penelope’s pulse jumped.
“Dominic.”
He stared at the reflection.
“That’s impossible.”
“You recognize him?”
Dominic took the photograph with shaking fingers.
For the first time, Penelope heard fear in his voice.
“Yes.”
“Who is he?”
Dominic looked at her.
“My brother.”
Penelope frowned.
“You said—”
“I know what I said.”
His eyes remained on the photograph.
“My brother died when he was fourteen.”
Penelope looked again at the two boys reflected in the glass.
The photograph was dated three years after that.
May you like
Dominic whispered his brother’s name.
“Julian.”
