Chapter 4 - THREE DAYS AFTER THE FUNERAL
Dominic did not hit Victor.
Claire knew how difficult that restraint was.
His hands remained at his sides.
His voice became softer.
“Say it again.”
Victor swallowed.
“Anna survived the crash.”
Lily looked up sharply.
“Mommy lived?”
Dominic turned immediately.
He had been so focused on Victor that he had forgotten the words were reaching his daughter too.
He crouched.
“Sweetheart, we don’t know everything yet.”
“But he said—”
“I know.”
Dominic took her hands.
“We’re going to find the truth before anyone makes you believe something that may hurt you.”
Victor looked away.
That one sentence condemned every adult who had handled Lily differently.
Dominic stood again.
“Library. Now.”
Claire stayed with Lily near the fireplace while Dominic, Victor, Evelyn and Marcus gathered around the walnut box.
Pike was missing.
Marcus had checked every interior camera.
“He was last seen near the catering corridor.”
“Gates?”
“Still locked.”
“So he’s on the property.”
“Yes.”
Dominic looked at Victor.
“You moved Anna to Baltimore.”
Victor nodded.
“Why?”
“The crash wasn’t an accident.”
“We know that.”
“No. You suspect it.”
Victor pointed to Salvatore’s watch.
“Anna knew.”
He explained slowly.
Anna had discovered that Salvatore Russo had been moving money through several legitimate Russo businesses to pay people outside the organization.
Not bribes.
Settlements.
For nearly twenty-five years.
“What kind of settlements?” Dominic asked.
“Families.”
Victor’s voice tightened.
“Families of men who disappeared.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
His father had always described those disappearances as rival-family business.
Victor said some of them were not.
Salvatore had ordered innocent employees removed because they discovered financial crimes that could have brought down the Russo empire.
Anna found the records.
She confronted Salvatore.
“And Pike?” Dominic asked.
“Pike wasn’t merely Lily’s psychologist. He counseled your father for years. Quietly.”
Dominic looked at Evelyn.
She had gone pale.
Victor continued.
“Raymond understood Salvatore’s paranoia better than anyone. He also knew which medications he took, what frightened him, what made him reckless.”
“You’re saying Pike controlled him.”
“No.”
Victor shook his head.
“Salvatore was responsible for his own choices. Pike simply learned how to profit from them.”
That mattered to Dominic.
He would not accept a convenient excuse that made his father an innocent puppet.
“What happened the night Anna crashed?”
Victor rubbed his forehead.
“She called me.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“My wife called the uncle I believed had been dead for twenty-one years.”
“Yes.”
“And never told me you were alive.”
“She didn’t trust what you might do.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
Victor continued before he could interrupt.
“She thought you would confront your father before she had enough evidence.”
“She knew me well.”
“Yes.”
That hurt because it was true.
Anna had loved Dominic.
She had also understood his temper where family was concerned.
“She was driving to meet me when another vehicle forced her off the highway.”
“Who was driving it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect nothing from you.”
Victor pulled up his sleeve.
An old burn scar covered his forearm.
“I reached her before police did. The car had rolled into a drainage ravine. Anna was conscious. Hurt badly, but alive.”
Dominic stared at him.
“Then whose body did I bury?”
Victor shook his head.
“No body.”
Dominic frowned.
The coffin had remained closed because police claimed the fire had made identification traumatic.
His father had handled everything.
Dominic felt nauseated.
Victor continued.
“Salvatore told you there was a body. He arranged the paperwork through people who owed him favors.”
Claire watched Dominic absorb the betrayal.
Not merely Anna’s survival.
His father had let him bury an empty coffin.
Lily had cried beside it.
“So you took her to Baltimore.”
“To a private clinic.”
“With Pike?”
Victor hesitated.
That hesitation answered first.
“Yes.”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“You trusted him.”
“I made the same mistake Evelyn made.”
Evelyn looked at Victor for the first time without hostility.
Pike had played them both.
“When did Anna disappear from the clinic?” Dominic asked.
“Four days later.”
“Disappear?”
“I arrived that morning. Her room was empty.”
“You didn’t search?”
“For two years.”
Victor’s voice cracked.
“I searched.”
That changed the shape of the story.
Victor had hidden Anna.
But he had not necessarily known where she went afterward.
Dominic picked up the Baltimore ticket.
“This was from the clinic?”
“No.”
Victor frowned.
“I’ve never seen that ticket.”
Another reversal.
Someone had placed it inside Anna’s box later.
Claire looked at the date.
“Who had access to the box?”
Victor thought.
“Anna. Me. Salvatore.”
Evelyn whispered, “And Pike?”
Victor looked at her.
“Yes.”
Dominic walked toward the window.
Outside, rain streaked the glass.
“Marcus.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Find Pike.”
Marcus left.
Lily had been sitting silently.
Now she climbed down from the couch.
She walked to the walnut box.
“Daddy.”
Dominic turned.
She held the child’s drawing.
Anna’s childhood drawing.
“Why did Mommy draw Grandpa?”
Dominic approached.
“That isn’t Grandpa.”
Lily pointed at the man marked with the black line over one eyebrow.
“Not him.”
Her finger moved to the figure beside the house.
A large man wearing a square watch.
Claire looked closer.
The watch had been drawn disproportionately big.
Like children did when an object mattered.
Dominic compared it to Salvatore’s pocket watch.
Same square engraving on the cover.
Anna had known Salvatore when she was twelve.
But Dominic had met Anna when she was twenty-four.
She had always told him she first encountered his family as an adult.
Victor saw the realization.
“Now you understand.”
“No.”
Dominic faced him.
“I understand she knew my father. I don’t understand why.”
Victor sat slowly.
“Anna’s father worked for Salvatore.”
“Doing what?”
“Accounting.”
Dominic felt his stomach turn.
Victor continued.
“When Anna was twelve, her father discovered the settlement payments.”
“What happened to him?”
Victor did not answer.
He did not need to.
Anna’s father had supposedly abandoned his wife and daughter.
Anna had spent her entire adult life believing it.
Claire looked toward the drawing again.
“Anna knew he didn’t leave.”
Victor nodded.
“She saw Salvatore take him.”
Dominic went motionless.
“And you?”
“I helped her hide.”
There was the origin.
The reason twelve-year-old Anna had drawn Victor.
The reason he had said he was supposed to protect her.
Dominic stared at his uncle.
“You knew my father murdered Anna’s father.”
“I knew Salvatore took him. I never saw what happened after.”
“And twenty-three years later, Anna married Salvatore’s son.”
Victor’s eyes met Dominic’s.
“She didn’t know who you were when she met you.”
“Later she did.”
“Yes.”
“And stayed.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Victor looked toward Lily.
“Because she loved you.”
The room fell silent.
That answer was not dramatic.
It was worse.
Anna had carried a history with Dominic’s family that she could never safely explain, and she had still built a life with him.
Dominic touched the pocket watch.
Something rattled.
He frowned.
Opened the back plate.
Nothing.
Then Claire noticed the second hand was not moving.
“May I?”
Dominic handed it to her.
Claire’s father had collected old watches before his stroke.
She knew just enough to see the back plate sat unevenly.
“This has another compartment.”
Marcus returned before she could open it.
“Found Pike’s coat in the kitchen.”
Dominic looked up.
“And Pike?”
“Not yet.”
Marcus placed something on the desk.
A rosary.
Dark wooden beads.
A silver crucifix.
Victor’s face changed.
“That belonged to Anna’s mother.”
Dominic looked at Marcus.
“Where did you find it?”
“In Pike’s coat.”
Claire opened the hidden back of the watch.
A tiny photograph slid into her palm.
It showed Raymond Pike standing outside the Baltimore clinic.
Beside him was Anna.
The date on the back was five days after Victor claimed she vanished.
And Anna was not alone.
Her hand rested protectively on the shoulder of a little girl.
About six years old.
Dominic stared at the photograph.
Claire whispered, “Who is the child?”
Victor took one look.
Every trace of color left his face.
“Oh, God.”
Dominic turned on him.
“You know her?”
Victor nodded.
May you like
And when he finally spoke, his voice was barely audible.
“That’s Evelyn.”
