Chapter 4 - The Boss Who Called the Police
Dominic replayed Ava’s final sentence three times.
Send the police.
Five years earlier he would have considered it an insult.
Three years earlier he might have considered it weakness.
That morning, with Nora asleep upstairs and Lily eating cereal beside her, it sounded like the most difficult instruction anyone had ever given him.
Sheriff Nolan stood at the kitchen island.
“You want my help?”
“Yes.”
“Officially?”
“Yes.”
“With warrants?”
“Yes.”
Nolan stared.
Marco entered carrying coffee.
“He does know other words.”
Nolan ignored him.
“If I take the evidence, I follow it wherever it goes.”
“I understand.”
“Even if it goes into your companies.”
“I understand.”
“Even if it puts your people in handcuffs.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Sheriff, if you need me to repeat it a fourth time, I’ll start charging.”
Nolan finally nodded.
The investigation moved fast once Ava’s files were authenticated.
Reece’s network was larger than anyone expected.
He had spent years feeding false intelligence between rival organizations, private contractors, and corrupt city officials. Every conflict made someone pay him for protection, information, or cleanup.
Chaos had been his business model.
Dominic’s reputation had been one of his best tools.
The more people feared Moretti retaliation, the easier it was for Reece to manufacture stories about what Dominic supposedly ordered.
Victor admitted he learned part of the truth six months earlier.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” Dominic asked.
They sat in the library with Nolan present.
Victor looked exhausted.
“Because I found a message from Reece saying he had Nora.”
“And?”
“And I knew what you’d do.”
Dominic leaned back.
“What would I do?”
Victor’s silence answered.
Marco stood near the window.
Nobody in the room looked comfortable.
Victor finally said, “You would have burned every door between here and Nora.”
Dominic remembered Reece’s skill.
A man who made money from panic would have wanted exactly that.
“And you thought you were smarter.”
“I thought I could get her out quietly.”
“You hid her in three houses.”
“Four.”
Dominic stared.
Victor lowered his head.
“Four.”
“And Ava?”
“I never had her location. We communicated through drops.”
“Why the farmhouse?”
“Reece’s people stopped watching it because it was condemned. I thought it was invisible.”
“The flood made it visible.”
“Yes.”
“And Lily saw her.”
Victor gave a humorless laugh.
“Your daughter did in thirty seconds what I couldn’t do in six months.”
Dominic looked toward the ceiling.
That sounded exactly like Lily.
A search began for Ava.
Police traced locations from the flash drive. Claire contacted shelters and hospitals through legitimate channels. Dominic provided transportation records and properties Reece might know.
But he did not send armed crews.
That decision angered several old captains.
One came to see him.
Salvatore D’Angelo had worked for Dominic’s father.
“You’re handing family business to badges.”
“I’m handing crimes to investigators.”
Salvatore’s face hardened.
“You sound embarrassed by us.”
Dominic glanced toward the hallway.
Lily had left a paper crown on a side table.
“I’m embarrassed by some things.”
“You built your name on fear.”
“I know.”
“And now?”
“Now I have a daughter who saw another child trapped in a flood because adults were too afraid to tell the truth.”
Salvatore shook his head.
“That’s sentimental.”
“No. It’s expensive.”
“What?”
“Fear is expensive. Eventually everyone lies to you.”
That ended the meeting.
Nora slowly began speaking more.
She ate only toast for breakfast because Reece’s people used to bring cereal in boxes with prizes, and she believed prizes meant they were moving again.
She hated closed curtains.
She slept with shoes beside the bed.
Lily adapted without being asked.
She left the curtains open.
She put both rabbits on the windowsill.
She stopped complaining when Nora wanted the hall light on.
One afternoon, Dominic found the girls building a blanket fort in the library.
“Why here?”
Lily looked up.
“Because this room is boring.”
“It has first editions.”
“That means old books.”
Nora giggled.
Dominic watched her.
The sound was new.
Then Nora pointed toward a framed photograph on his shelf.
“Mommy.”
Dominic turned.
The photograph showed a charity gala from six years earlier.
Claire stood at the center.
Dominic beside her.
Several staff and donors crowded behind them.
Ava Bell was at the edge.
And next to Ava stood Gavin Reece.
Dominic took the frame down.
Nora pointed.
“That’s Mr. Gray.”
Lily frowned.
“He doesn’t look gray.”
“He wears gray coats.”
Dominic’s phone was in his hand immediately.
Nolan answered.
“We have an image of Reece with Ava six years ago.”
“We already know they worked together.”
“There’s more.”
He zoomed in.
Reece wore a lapel pin.
Small.
Gold.
The emblem of the Ashmont Relief Foundation.
Claire’s foundation.
She entered and saw the picture.
Her face changed.
“He was on the advisory board.”
“For how long?”
“Two years.”
“Did he have access to hospital donations?”
“Yes.”
Dominic looked at the rabbits on the windowsill.
Identical.
White.
Blue stitching.
The same charity batches.
Reece had not merely shown Nora photographs of Lily.
He had known enough about Lily’s routines, toys, school events, and family life to build an entire believable story around her.
He had used Claire’s charity to monitor both families.
Nora suddenly stood.
“My bunny.”
Everyone looked at her.
She grabbed Moon and turned it over.
“Mommy said never cut the blue heart.”
Dominic stared.
Moon had a small blue heart stitched beneath one ear.
So did Snowball.
Claire covered her mouth.
“Those were repair marks from one specific volunteer batch.”
Dominic crouched.
“Nora, did your mom put something there?”
Nora nodded.
“She said Mr. Gray thinks grown-ups hide things in safes.”
Lily hugged Snowball.
“But kids hide things in toys.”
Nora looked at her.
Then both girls looked at Dominic.
He took a seam ripper from Claire.
Inside Moon’s ear was a rolled strip of waterproof paper.
One address.
One date.
Tomorrow.
And beneath it:
COME ALONE, D.
Before Nolan left that afternoon, he found Dominic alone beside the mudroom.
“You know what people are going to say,” the sheriff said.
Dominic glanced at him. “People have never struggled to say things about me.”
“They’ll say this cooperation is strategy. That you’re cleaning house because Reece embarrassed you.”
“Some of them will be right about the first part. It is strategy.”
Nolan looked surprised.
Dominic continued. “Good strategy and doing the right thing are not enemies. I should have learned that earlier.”
The sheriff studied him for a moment.
“What happens if the evidence points somewhere you don’t want it to?”
“Then I go there anyway.”
Nolan nodded.
“That answer is going in my notes.”
May you like
“Please make my grammar better.”
For the first time since the flood began, Nolan laughed.
