Chapter 4 - THE PHOTOGRAPH LIED
Anthony did not deny the photograph.
That frightened Dominic more than a denial would have.
They returned to the mansion shortly after seven.
Anthony waited in Dominic’s study without a weapon.
Camille sat across the room.
Gabriel remained standing.
Claire stayed near the fireplace, Patrick’s photograph held carefully between two fingers.
Dominic placed it on the desk.
“Explain.”
Anthony looked at it.
“I drove Teresa to the warehouse.”
Gabriel moved instantly.
Dominic blocked him with one arm.
“Let him finish.”
Anthony met Gabriel’s stare.
“Your father asked me to.”
“Why?”
“Because Teresa had found payments from Sterling Development to a safety-inspection company that didn’t exist.”
Camille’s face changed.
“What?”
Anthony looked at her.
“Your father was moving money through shell vendors eleven years ago.”
Camille shook her head.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Dominic tapped the photograph.
“Why meet Richard?”
“Salvatore wanted him to think Teresa was willing to sell him the records.”
Gabriel stared.
“A trap?”
“Yes.”
“Then why was I at that warehouse?”
Anthony hesitated.
“Because you followed her.”
Gabriel’s anger faltered.
He remembered.
Not everything.
But enough.
Teresa leaving dinner early.
Gabriel seeing Richard Sterling’s car two blocks away.
Following it.
Entering the warehouse through the side door.
Then metal screaming above him.
“I wasn’t supposed to be there,” Gabriel said.
“No.”
Anthony’s voice lowered.
“And that mistake nearly got you killed.”
Dominic looked toward the window.
Eleven years of grief rearranged themselves inside him.
Not erased.
Rearranged.
“What happened after the collapse?”
Anthony answered carefully.
“I ran inside. Smoke was already spreading. I found blood and Gabriel’s watch near the loading platform.”
Gabriel touched his wrist unconsciously.
“I woke up without it.”
Anthony nodded.
“I gave it to the paramedics because I thought they had Gabriel.”
Dominic’s gaze sharpened.
“They identified the body with the watch.”
“Yes.”
“So someone moved the watch.”
“Yes.”
“And whoever did it had only minutes.”
Anthony looked toward Camille.
“Someone with people already inside.”
Camille stood.
“Stop looking at me like I was part of this. I was twenty-three.”
Anthony said quietly, “Nobody said you were.”
That hurt her more.
Claire watched the family fracture in real time.
Then she noticed something on Patrick’s photograph.
“Wait.”
Everyone turned.
She held the image beneath the desk lamp.
“The date.”
“What about it?” Gabriel asked.
“The picture was printed later.”
Dominic came closer.
Claire pointed to the white border.
“My father used these cameras for job sites. He printed the date manually on the back whenever he developed them.”
She showed them the handwritten date.
“November seventh.”
Anthony frowned.
“The warehouse fire happened November ninth.”
Claire nodded.
“This isn’t the night Gabriel disappeared.”
Silence.
Dominic looked again.
Patrick’s message said it was.
But the date said otherwise.
Claire whispered, “My father remembered it wrong.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Or the message means something else.”
Anthony stared at the photograph.
Then he saw it.
“The black car.”
Dominic looked at him.
“What?”
“That wasn’t my car on November ninth.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Salvatore made me change vehicles after this meeting.”
Anthony pointed toward the photograph.
“This was two days before the fire.”
Dominic understood first.
“So Patrick photographed Richard meeting you and Teresa before Gabriel ever followed anyone.”
Anthony nodded.
Gabriel looked at the photo again.
“Then Patrick didn’t see you helping Sterling.”
“No.”
“I saw you in the parking lot that night.”
“You saw the same car.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
Anthony continued.
“Richard knew what vehicle I used. Someone drove an identical one the night of the fire.”
A planted image.
A familiar car.
A watch placed on the wrong body.
Someone had spent considerable effort directing suspicion toward specific people.
Dominic looked at Claire.
“Your father wasn’t only protecting evidence.”
“He was trying to remember which evidence he could trust.”
The realization hurt.
Patrick’s stroke had damaged language and memory.
Whoever had frightened him years ago had counted on time doing the rest.
Camille suddenly spoke.
“My father knew about Claire before the engagement.”
Everyone turned.
She looked sick.
Dominic’s voice became cold.
“How?”
Camille reached into her evening bag.
She removed a photograph.
Claire recognized it immediately.
She stood outside St. Catherine Rehabilitation Center carrying two coffees.
The image had been taken from across the street.
Claire whispered, “That was outside my room.”
“No,” Camille said.
Claire looked at her.
“What?”
Camille handed her the photograph.
“The ones outside your room were copies.”
Dominic stared at his fiancée.
“You had the originals.”
“Some of them.”
“How long?”
Camille’s voice cracked.
“Before Claire started working here.”
Claire felt something inside her drop.
“You knew I was being followed.”
“I knew my father had people watching Patrick Donovan’s daughter.”
“And you said nothing?”
“I didn’t know why.”
“That makes it better?”
“No.”
Camille’s answer came quickly.
“No, Claire. It doesn’t.”
She looked at Dominic.
“My father told me Patrick stole something from Sterling Development years ago. He said Claire might have it.”
Gabriel stepped forward.
“So you got her hired.”
Camille’s silence answered.
Claire stared at her.
Four months.
Every correction.
Every insult.
Every humiliating little order.
None of it had started randomly.
“You brought me into this house.”
Camille looked down.
“I moved your application to the top.”
“Why?”
“To see whether you had what my father wanted.”
Claire’s face burned.
Dominic asked, “What did Richard think Patrick stole?”
“He never told me.”
Claire laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“And when you didn’t find anything?”
Camille’s eyes filled.
“I became cruel.”
“You were already cruel.”
Camille accepted that.
“Yes.”
For several seconds nobody spoke.
Then Camille reached for the photograph Claire held.
“Turn it over.”
Claire did.
Written on the back were seven words.
DONOVAN GIRL FIRST. VESCARI BROTHERS SECOND.
Below them was a date.
Claire’s first day working at the estate.
Dominic slowly lifted his eyes toward Camille.
“What does ‘first’ mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Gabriel looked toward the brass key Claire had placed beside Patrick’s photograph.
“Maybe Patrick did.”
Claire picked it up.
A number had been stamped into the key.
314.
Dominic recognized the old logo beneath it.
“Thirty-Third Street Station.”
Anthony nodded.
“Storage lockers.”
Camille stared at the key.
Then something in her face changed.
“My father asked me about a station locker three months ago.”
Claire froze.
“What did you tell him?”
“That I didn’t know what he was talking about.”
Camille looked at the key in Claire’s palm.
May you like
“But apparently Patrick did.”
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