Chapter 2 - The Woman Who Had Planned to Disappear
Arthur discovered the first disaster at 4:17 that afternoon.
The second arrived 11 minutes later.
By 5:00, there were 6.
A container carrying merchandise worth nearly $3 million had been held at the harbor because nobody had renewed a customs bond.
A judge Arthur had been paying for 7 years refused to answer Gregory’s calls because Gregory had forgotten the man’s daughter was getting married that weekend.
Two legitimate Costello Logistics accounts were temporarily frozen because Arthur could not answer his own bank’s security questions.
“What was your first pet?” Gregory read from the screen.
Arthur stared at him.
“I never had a pet.”
“Apparently you did according to Clara.”
Arthur’s expression darkened.
Gregory tried another.
“Favorite childhood teacher?”
“I was expelled from 3 schools.”
“Right.”
Gregory swallowed.
Arthur looked toward the empty chair beside his desk.
He had spent years thinking Clara recorded details because she was obsessive.
He was beginning to understand she had created an entire operating system around him.
And then she had removed herself from it.
“Find her,” Arthur said.
“We’re trying.”
“Try better.”
Gregory hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
Arthur looked up.
“Moroni knows.”
Silence.
“How?”
“Someone leaked that Clara left.”
Arthur stood.
Clara knew every vulnerability in his organization. To his enemies, her disappearance would look like either betrayal or opportunity.
“Put men at every safe house.”
“Already done.”
Arthur’s gaze sharpened.
“By whose order?”
Gregory looked uncomfortable.
“Clara’s.”
Arthur said nothing.
“She scheduled the security rotation 3 weeks ago,” Gregory continued. “Apparently she wrote contingency instructions in case she became... unavailable.”
Unavailable.
Arthur almost laughed.
Even her disappearance had been organized.
Three states away, Clara Hughes sat beneath a false name in a diner outside Pittsburgh.
No makeup.
No stilettos.
No tailored pencil skirt.
She wore jeans, boots, and a gray sweater she had purchased with cash at a highway store.
For the first time in years, no firearm rested beneath her jacket.
That should have made her feel free.
Instead, she kept checking the reflection in the window.
The waitress poured more coffee.
“Long trip?”
Clara smiled faintly.
“Something like that.”
Her new passport identified her as Claire Hart, 31, born in Oregon.
She intended to reach Colorado.
After that, she had no plan.
That frightened her more than Arthur ever had.
For 5 years, every minute of every day had belonged to someone else.
At 6:12, protect Arthur.
At 7:30, brief Arthur.
At 9:00, lie for Arthur.
At midnight, clean Arthur’s wounds.
Now nobody needed her.
She should have felt relieved.
Instead, she felt hollow.
Her phone vibrated.
Not the burner she had destroyed.
A second device.
Only 1 person possessed the number.
Clara stared at the screen.
UNKNOWN: HE KNOWS YOU LEFT.
Her blood turned cold.
Another message appeared.
UNKNOWN: HE’S MOVING EARLIER.
Clara typed beneath the table.
WHO?
The answer came immediately.
VINCENT.
She closed her eyes.
Vincent Costello.
Arthur’s uncle.
The man who had helped raise him after Arthur’s father was murdered.
The man Arthur trusted more than almost anyone.
And the reason Clara had begun hiding money 3 years earlier.
She had never possessed proof.
Only patterns.
Shipments that disappeared before ambushes.
Police raids that somehow avoided Vincent’s businesses while striking Arthur’s.
A shooter who knew precisely which hospital Arthur would be taken to after the bullet wound 3 years ago.
Clara had quietly investigated.
And 6 weeks earlier, she had finally found something.
A duplicate ledger.
Payments to the Moronis.
Payments to a federal informant.
And one payment dated 3 years earlier.
$250,000.
Beside it were 3 words.
A. COSTELLO — HOSPITAL.
Someone had been paid to finish Arthur while he lay wounded.
Clara had moved him to another floor 17 minutes before the assassin arrived.
Arthur had never known why.
He had thought she was being paranoid.
Clara had let him.
Because if Vincent discovered she knew the truth, she would die.
She had planned to tell Arthur when she possessed enough evidence.
Then last night happened.
“I never loved you.”
“If you died tomorrow, I would replace you by Tuesday.”
Clara stared down at the message.
She owed him nothing now.
Nothing.
The waitress approached with her check.
Clara reached for cash.
Then she noticed the black SUV parked across the highway.
Engine running.
Two men inside.
Neither was looking toward the diner.
That was what frightened her.
Professionals never stared.
Clara dropped $20 on the table and walked toward the restroom.
She did not run.
Running told hunters they had been discovered.
She entered the women’s room, locked the door, climbed onto the sink, forced open the narrow window, and slipped outside.
Thirty seconds later, she was behind the diner.
She reached her sedan.
A hand closed around her arm.
Clara twisted violently, drove her elbow backward, and heard a man curse.
She turned.
The stranger was tall, blond, perhaps 40.
He held up both hands.
“Clara.”
She froze.
“How do you know my name?”
“Because Arthur Costello isn’t the only person who’s been looking for you.”
He reached slowly inside his coat.
Clara grabbed the small knife hidden in her boot.
The stranger produced a badge.
FBI.
“Special Agent Daniel Reeves.”
Clara stared at it.
“Bad timing.”
“Actually, your timing is excellent.”
Behind the diner, the black SUV began moving.
Reeves’s expression changed.
“We need to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Then Vincent Costello’s men will put you in that SUV.”
Clara looked toward the approaching vehicle.
“You have 5 seconds to decide.”
Clara hated him already.
But she hated dying more.
She climbed into his car.
Reeves accelerated onto the highway as the SUV turned behind them.
Back in Manhattan, Arthur entered his bedroom after midnight.
He had not been there since morning.
Something on his nightstand stopped him.
A white ceramic mug.
CLARA’S EMERGENCY KIT.
He opened the drawer beneath it.
Painkillers.
Bandages.
An extra phone charger.
Cuff links.
His preferred cigarettes, although she had spent 2 years trying to make him quit.
Everything labeled.
Everything where he needed it.
Arthur sank onto the edge of his bed.
For the first time, the silence of the house did not feel peaceful.
It felt accusing.
Gregory appeared at the doorway.
“We got something.”
Arthur stood immediately.
“A traffic camera caught her car outside Pittsburgh.”
“When?”
“About 3 hours ago.”
Arthur grabbed his coat.
Gregory did not move.
“There’s more.”
Arthur stopped.
“The Moronis have people in Pennsylvania.”
Arthur's face became still.
“They found her?”
“We don't know.”
Arthur took his gun from the drawer.
“Get the plane ready.”
“Arthur—”
“Now.”
Gregory hurried away.
Arthur looked once more at the emergency kit.
Then his eyes fell on a photograph half hidden behind the lamp.
He pulled it free.
Three years earlier.
Hospital room.
Arthur unconscious beneath white sheets.
Clara asleep in the plastic chair beside him, her head resting against the mattress, one hand still wrapped around his wrist.
Someone had taken the picture without either of them knowing.
Arthur stared at it.
And suddenly remembered something he had spent 3 years pretending not to remember.
He had not touched Clara’s wrist because of fever.
He had been awake.
May you like
He had known exactly who she was.
And he had held on because, for those few quiet minutes, she had been the only person in the world who made Arthur Costello feel safe.
