Chapter 3 - THE BLUE COAT
“No.”
Claire said it again.
Louder this time.
“No.”
She backed away from Gabriel as if distance could change what was written on the photograph.
“My father had nothing to do with this family.”
Gabriel’s expression remained steady.
“He wanted it that way.”
“You don’t know him.”
“He kept me alive.”
Claire stared at him.
“My father can barely lift a coffee cup now.”
“And eleven years ago he carried me two blocks with three cracked ribs.”
That stopped her.
Dominic looked at Claire.
“We go to Patrick.”
Anthony objected immediately.
“Tonight?”
“Now.”
“Boss, whoever sabotaged the chandelier still has people inside Philadelphia.”
“Which is why I’m not leaving Patrick Donovan exposed.”
Claire swallowed.
“You think they’ll hurt him?”
Dominic met her eyes.
“I think someone already threatened him once.”
Within forty minutes, the engagement party was officially over.
Guests were driven away through two guarded exits.
The three intruders were turned over to police. Their event-company credentials were professionally printed but false.
None would say who hired them.
Camille remained at the mansion under security.
Dominic did not ask her permission.
Before dawn, two black SUVs pulled beneath the covered entrance of St. Catherine Rehabilitation Center.
Claire sat beside Dominic in the rear seat.
She hadn’t spoken during the drive.
Finally she said, “I need you to understand something.”
Dominic waited.
“If my father gets frightened, we leave.”
“Agreed.”
“You don’t interrogate him.”
“Agreed.”
“You don’t treat him like one of your employees.”
Dominic turned slightly.
“Claire.”
She looked at him.
“He saved my brother.”
His voice softened.
“He gets whatever patience he needs.”
Patrick Donovan was awake when Claire entered his room.
He sat near the window in a navy cardigan, watching morning traffic through bare November trees.
His left hand rested stiffly on a blanket.
“Dad?”
Patrick smiled.
Then he saw Dominic.
The smile vanished.
His eyes moved to Gabriel.
The monitor beside him began beeping faster.
Claire hurried forward.
“Dad, it’s okay.”
Patrick’s eyes filled instantly.
Gabriel stopped several feet away.
“Hello, Mr. Donovan.”
Patrick made a broken sound.
Not quite a word.
He lifted his right hand.
Gabriel approached.
Patrick touched the scar beside Gabriel’s temple.
Then he closed his eyes.
A tear slipped down his cheek.
Gabriel looked away.
For the first time since Claire had met him, he looked completely unguarded.
“You thought I died,” he said.
Patrick nodded.
Gabriel swallowed.
“I thought you did too.”
Claire sat beside her father.
“Dad, why didn’t you tell me?”
Patrick struggled for words.
Since the stroke, full sentences came rarely.
“Keep… you… out.”
“Out of what?”
His hand moved toward Gabriel’s watch.
Then toward Dominic.
“Ster… ling.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Richard Sterling?”
Patrick nodded.
Claire closed her eyes.
For four months she had worked around Camille Sterling.
Taken her criticism.
Reset tables.
Polished silver.
Apologized for things that weren’t wrong.
All while her father had apparently spent eleven years fearing Camille’s family.
Patrick pointed toward the bedside drawer.
Claire opened it.
Inside were photographs of her childhood, two paperback westerns, reading glasses, and a wooden rosary.
Nothing else.
Patrick shook his head.
“Home.”
“At home?”
He nodded.
“Blue.”
Claire frowned.
“Blue what?”
“Coat.”
Her expression changed.
“My old blue coat?”
Patrick shook his head.
“Mine.”
Claire remembered it.
A heavy navy work coat that had hung in the hall closet of her father’s row house for as long as she could remember.
He refused to throw it away even after the cuffs frayed.
“You hid something in it?”
Patrick nodded.
“Pocket… inside.”
Dominic looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel looked equally surprised.
Claire squeezed her father’s hand.
“What is it?”
Patrick tried to answer.
His frustration showed quickly.
Claire leaned closer.
“It’s okay.”
He took a pen from the table.
His fingers trembled badly.
Slowly, painfully, he wrote one word on a notepad.
KEY.
Then another.
PHOTO.
Gabriel inhaled sharply.
“What photograph?”
Patrick stared at him.
Then at Dominic.
Finally he wrote:
NIGHT FIRE.
Anthony had been silent near the door.
Now he moved.
Dominic noticed.
“So there’s another photograph.”
Patrick nodded.
Anthony asked, “Who took it?”
Patrick looked at him.
Recognition appeared.
Then fear.
Claire stood immediately.
“Dad?”
Patrick pointed at Anthony.
His breathing quickened.
Anthony looked stunned.
“Patrick.”
Patrick tried speaking.
“Car.”
“What car?” Claire asked.
Patrick’s pen scratched across the paper.
BLACK CAR.
Then:
ANTHONY.
The room became silent.
Gabriel stared at Anthony.
Dominic’s expression changed by almost nothing.
Which, Claire had learned, meant he was furious.
Anthony slowly removed his sidearm and placed it on a chair.
“I’m not going to insult you by pretending that means nothing.”
Dominic said, “Good.”
“But I was there that night for your father.”
“My father was at home.”
“No.”
Anthony looked at Gabriel.
“Salvatore sent me to that warehouse because he believed somebody was following Gabriel.”
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“Convenient memory.”
Anthony didn’t respond.
Patrick slapped his palm weakly against the notebook.
Everyone turned.
He wrote again.
COAT.
Claire understood.
“He wants us to get the photograph.”
Dominic nodded.
Anthony stayed behind voluntarily with two guards while Dominic, Claire, and Gabriel drove to Patrick’s narrow brick row house in South Philadelphia.
Claire hadn’t slept there in months.
The place still smelled faintly of her father’s coffee.
She opened the hall closet.
The blue work coat hung exactly where it always had.
Gabriel touched the sleeve.
“He wore that the night he found me.”
Claire searched the inside pockets.
Nothing.
Then her fingers felt uneven stitching near the lining.
She tore three old threads.
A small brass key dropped onto the floor.
So did a folded photograph.
Dominic picked it up.
The image had been taken across a parking lot at night.
A warehouse stood in the background.
Richard Sterling was beside a black sedan.
Another man faced him.
Anthony Russo.
Claire whispered, “Dad was right.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
Dominic said nothing.
Then Claire noticed something.
“There’s someone inside the car.”
She tilted the photograph.
A face was barely visible through the rear window.
Dominic took it closer to the lamp.
He knew that face.
He had grown up seeing it across Sunday dinners.
Birthday cakes.
Christmas mornings.
His father’s younger sister.
His aunt Teresa.
Dominic turned the photograph over.
Patrick had written one sentence.
ANTHONY BROUGHT TERESA TO STERLING THE NIGHT GABRIEL DISAPPEARED.
Gabriel stared at Dominic.
And for the first time since returning from the dead, he looked frightened.
“Dom…”
Dominic folded the photograph once.
May you like
“Anthony has exactly one chance to explain why.”
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