Chapter 4 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Vanessa Caldwell arrived at the Moretti headquarters the next morning with three attorneys.
Vincent refused to see her.
Her father, however, was harder to ignore.
Richard Caldwell controlled enough financing to cripple the Westhaven development and enough political relationships to make the collapse painful.
At noon he called Vincent personally.
“You embarrassed my daughter.”
“She assaulted someone.”
“She made a mistake.”
“She made a choice.”
Richard's tone cooled.
“Do you really want to destroy a twenty-year partnership over a housekeeper?”
Claire heard the conversation from across Vincent's office.
His gaze found hers.
“This conversation isn't about Claire.”
“Everything became about Claire the moment your mother saw that scar.”
Vincent's posture changed.
“How do you know about the scar?”
Silence.
Only half a second.
But enough.
Richard recovered.
“Vanessa told me.”
Vincent ended the call.
Claire stared at him.
“He knows.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“We find out.”
Arthur traced the photograph from locker L-17.
The background showed a diner in Wisconsin.
The diner still existed.
Its former owner remembered Lucia.
Except she hadn't called herself Lucia.
She had used the name Lucy Bennett.
Claire nearly dropped the phone.
“My last name?”
Arthur nodded.
“She worked there for six months.”
“Why use my name?”
Vincent understood before Claire did.
“Because whoever was searching for Lucia Moretti wouldn't search for Lucy Bennett.”
Records led them north.
A driver's license.
A rental agreement.
Then nothing.
Until a hospital birth record surfaced.
Lucia Moretti had given birth seventeen years earlier.
A daughter.
Sophie.
Eleanor cried when she heard.
“I have a granddaughter?”
Maybe.
No one knew where either woman was now.
The trail ended when Lucia entered a domestic violence shelter under another identity.
That night, Claire found Vincent alone on the estate terrace.
“You haven't slept.”
“Neither have you.”
“I don't own a multibillion-dollar company people are currently threatening to dismantle.”
He glanced at her.
“Westhaven can collapse.”
“You don't mean that.”
“I do.”
Claire studied him.
“You spent six years building it.”
“Buildings can be rebuilt.”
He looked toward the dark gardens.
“My sister can't.”
Something inside Claire softened.
For months she had known Vincent only as the distant employer whose suits probably cost more than her car.
Now she saw a brother who had spent twenty years believing his sister had abandoned him.
“I used to be angry at her,” he admitted.
“For leaving?”
“For not calling.”
He gave a humorless laugh.
“I thought I must have failed her somehow.”
“You were twenty-five.”
“I was her brother.”
Claire leaned against the stone railing.
“Those aren't mutually exclusive.”
He looked at her.
She smiled faintly.
“You can love somebody and still fail to understand what they're afraid of.”
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Vincent said, “You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Say something devastating like you're discussing laundry.”
Claire laughed.
The sound surprised both of them.
It was the first uncomplicated moment they'd shared.
Then a light flashed from beyond the hedge.
Vincent moved instantly.
He pulled Claire down.
A second later the terrace window shattered.
Security alarms erupted.
Arthur's men rushed outside.
Vincent shielded Claire with his body.
“Stay down.”
Claire's heart hammered.
It wasn't a gunshot.
A brick had come through the window.
Wrapped around it was paper.
Arthur retrieved it.
The message contained six words.
THE FIRE SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU TOO.
Vincent read it twice.
Then his face became frighteningly calm.
Claire stared at the broken glass.
“They know I'm helping you.”
“Yes.”
“Then we're close.”
Vincent turned toward her.
“This isn't a game.”
“I know.”
“You could have been hurt.”
“I've been hurt before.”
“That doesn't mean I intend to let it happen again.”
The intensity of his voice silenced her.
Arthur interrupted.
“We found the car.”
“Who?”
“Stolen plates. Driver abandoned it.”
Then Arthur held up a phone recovered from the vehicle.
One outgoing call had been made minutes before the attack.
To Caldwell Capital.
Vincent looked toward the driveway.
Claire expected rage.
Instead, he said:
“Good.”
She blinked.
“Good?”
“They just made their first mistake.”
The following afternoon federal investigators quietly reopened questions surrounding the original fire.
Vincent provided Lucia's letter.
Claire gave a statement.
And Eleanor surrendered financial records she had hidden for almost two decades.
One payment stood out.
Three days before the fire, Carlo Moretti transferred $250,000 to a security contractor.
The contractor's owner?
Richard Caldwell.
But there was another signature authorizing the payment.
Eleanor stared at it.
“That isn't Carlo's.”
Vincent leaned closer.
Claire saw his expression change.
“Whose is it?”
He didn't answer immediately.
When he finally did, his voice was almost inaudible.
“My uncle.”
Salvatore Moretti.
Carlo's younger brother.
A man who had supposedly died fifteen years earlier.
Claire looked at Vincent.
“What if Lucia didn't disappear because she was running from the Caldwells?”
May you like
Vincent understood.
“What if she was running from a Moretti?”
