Chapter 5 - The Price of Staying
Richard stopped visiting Simone.
Not because the threat worked.
Because his children came first.
He took Olivia and Oliver to his grandmother's sister in Vermont for several days while police investigated.
Simone offered private security.
This time Richard accepted.
Pride became irrelevant when someone knew his daughter's birthday.
The separation changed Simone more than she expected.
For twenty-eight nights she had listened for Richard's footsteps without being able to open her eyes.
Now she could walk.
Speak.
Call anyone she wanted.
And the absence of those footsteps felt unbearable.
Sophia noticed.
“You miss him.”
Simone looked away from the window.
“He has children to protect.”
“That wasn't what I said.”
Simone gave her daughter a look.
Sophia sat down.
“You like him.”
“He was kind to me.”
“Mom.”
Simone sighed.
“Yes.”
Sophia seemed oddly pleased.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Sophia.”
“I've just never seen you look at a person the way you look at a quarterly earnings report.”
“That comparison is horrifying.”
“It's progress.”
Their laughter lasted only seconds.
But afterward, neither looked away.
Sophia finally said, “I hated you.”
Simone became still.
“I know.”
“No. You know I was angry. That's different.”
Simone waited.
“After Dad died, I kept thinking you'd come into my room.”
Sophia's voice weakened.
“I'd leave the door open.”
Simone covered her mouth.
“I thought if I waited long enough, you'd come sit beside me.”
“I didn't know.”
“You never asked.”
Tears appeared in Simone's eyes.
“I was afraid.”
Sophia frowned.
“You?”
“I didn't know how to survive losing your father.”
Simone looked down.
“So I worked. Because numbers didn't die. Hospitals didn't leave. Meetings didn't ask me how I was feeling.”
Sophia's eyes filled.
“And I looked like him.”
“Yes.”
The answer broke something open.
Simone whispered, “Sometimes looking at you hurt so much I couldn't breathe.”
Sophia wiped her cheek.
“So you sent me away.”
“No.”
“You let me go.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought you were happier without me.”
Sophia shook her head.
“I was waiting for you to fight for me.”
Simone's face crumpled.
“I should have.”
There was no dramatic reconciliation.
No immediate hug.
Some wounds were too old for that.
But Sophia moved from the chair by the window to the chair beside her mother.
Their shoulders touched.
For now, that was enough.
Meanwhile, Richard was discovering that danger did not respect state lines.
The first night in Vermont, Oliver woke screaming.
Richard ran into the bedroom.
“Buddy.”
Oliver pointed at the window.
“A man.”
Richard rushed outside.
Security searched the property.
No one.
But footprints crossed the snow.
Someone had been there.
Richard called Simone.
“I'm coming back.”
“No.”
“They're following us anyway.”
“Richard—”
“Running isn't protecting them.”
He returned to Boston the following morning.
Simone had arranged a secure apartment owned by the hospital for Richard's family.
This time he didn't argue.
That afternoon, police finally located Thomas Avery.
Alive.
He had been hiding under his brother's name in Maine.
He agreed to return only after learning Simone had survived.
Thomas entered the hospital through a private loading dock.
He looked exhausted.
And terrified.
When he saw Simone, he began crying.
“I thought they killed you.”
“Who?”
Thomas looked around.
“Grant wasn't working alone.”
“Who was?”
Thomas hesitated.
“I never knew the top person.”
Simone's patience disappeared.
“Then tell me what you do know.”
“Northstar was laundering money through hospital vendors. But the money wasn't the main thing.”
“The merger.”
Thomas nodded.
“Apex needs your board to approve it.”
“Why?”
“Because Sinclair owns something Apex desperately needs.”
Simone frowned.
“What?”
“Your rural hospital network.”
The merger would give Apex control over emergency-care contracts across large sections of New England.
Billions in future revenue.
But there was another problem.
“Grant discovered something else,” Thomas said.
“What?”
“Your father's trust.”
Simone stared.
Her father had founded the company.
After his death, a special voting trust retained twelve percent of Sinclair shares.
Simone believed those shares automatically belonged to her.
Thomas shook his head.
“The trust transfers under a condition.”
“What condition?”
Thomas looked at Sophia.
“When Sophia turns twenty-one.”
Sophia blinked.
“Me?”
“You become co-trustee.”
Simone looked stunned.
Thomas continued.
“Until then, if Simone dies or is medically declared permanently incapacitated, control passes temporarily to the board chairman.”
Everyone looked at Malcolm.
He swore under his breath.
“That's why they didn't need Simone dead,” Richard said.
Thomas nodded.
“They needed her unable to vote.”
A coma was better than murder.
Less scrutiny.
More control.
Richard suddenly understood.
“Someone expected her never to wake up.”
“Yes.”
Simone's face hardened.
“But I did.”
Thomas looked toward Richard.
“Because of him, apparently.”
Richard shook his head.
“Doctors woke her.”
Thomas gave him a strange look.
“Maybe.”
Then Thomas reached into his coat.
Security reacted immediately.
“Easy.”
He slowly removed an envelope.
“I kept this because I didn't know who to trust.”
Inside was a photograph.
Grant Holloway meeting someone in a Boston restaurant.
The second person had his back to the camera.
But Simone recognized the watch.
A rare silver Patek Philippe.
She had given it as a gift twelve years earlier.
Her eyes lifted.
“No.”
Sophia looked at her.
“Who?”
Simone couldn't answer.
Richard took the photograph.
“Simone?”
Her voice was barely audible.
“That watch belonged to my husband.”
Sophia went pale.
“Dad?”
“He died eight years ago.”
Thomas shook his head.
“The photograph was taken three months ago.”
Sophia stared at her mother.
“That isn't possible.”
Richard examined the man's profile.
Only part of the face was visible.
A jaw.
Gray hair.
A scar near the ear.
Simone sat down.
Her hands trembled violently.
Richard knelt beside her.
“Who is he?”
She whispered the name.
“Adrian Sinclair.”
Sophia's dead father.
May you like
Then Thomas said the words none of them expected.
“I don't think Adrian Sinclair died eight years ago.”
