Chapter 3 - The Woman Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
The bank employee’s name was Jason Kline.
He lasted seven minutes before talking.
Dante did not threaten him.
He did not need to.
Marco placed the burner phone on the table.
Jason stared at it.
Then at Bruno.
Then at Dante.
“I only sent messages.”
“To whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bad answer.”
“I swear.”
Dante leaned back.
Jason’s fear looked real.
That did not make him innocent.
“How long?”
“Three years.”
“You’ve been watching Room 317 for three years?”
Jason nodded.
“They paid me five hundred a month just to send a text if anyone opened it.”
“Who hired you?”
“A woman.”
“What woman?”
Jason swallowed.
“Red hair. Maybe forty. Expensive clothes. She never gave me a name.”
Dante looked at Marco.
“What did she say?”
“Only that Room 317 belonged to someone dangerous.”
“Did she mention Michael Vale?”
Jason shook his head.
“Claire Bennett?”
Nothing.
“Victor Sloane?”
Jason’s face twitched.
Dante saw it.
“You know that name.”
“I’ve heard it.”
“Where?”
Jason looked toward the door.
“Two months ago the woman met somebody in the parking garage. I was coming in for work.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t see his face. But she called him Mr. Sloane.”
That was enough.
Back at the estate, Ellie was asleep on a sofa with her head on Bruno’s side.
The teddy bear rested under one arm.
At 4:26 p.m., the estate’s perimeter alarm sounded.
A black sedan had stopped outside Gate One.
The driver stepped out, placed something on the pavement and drove away.
The package was a white cardboard box.
Inside was a woman’s wedding ring and a photograph.
Claire.
Alive.
She was sitting on a concrete floor, one wrist tied to a pipe.
A newspaper lay beside her.
That morning’s date.
On the back, someone had written:
FULTON. MIDNIGHT. DRIVE FOR WOMAN.
Ellie came into the room before Dante could hide the photograph.
She saw her mother.
Her face drained.
“Mom.”
Dante crouched quickly.
“She’s alive.”
“Why is she tied?”
“Because bad people want something.”
“Are they going to hurt her?”
He did not answer fast enough.
Ellie’s eyes filled.
“You said you’d bring her home.”
“I will.”
“Promise?”
Dante had stopped making promises at twenty-two.
But Ellie stood there clutching her father’s old photograph in one hand and her mother’s picture in the other.
“I promise.”
At midnight Dante entered Fulton warehouse alone.
Or appeared to.
Marco’s teams were positioned nearby.
Dante carried a duplicate drive.
Victor stood beneath a hanging industrial light.
“Where is Claire?”
Victor spread his hands.
“You came angry.”
“My patience isn’t what it used to be.”
“Michael had none at all.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
Victor smiled.
“That was his problem.”
“You killed him.”
Victor did not deny it.
A side door opened.
Two men dragged Claire into the light.
Dante felt relief.
Then Claire looked directly at him and shouted:
“That’s not Victor’s operation!”
Gunfire exploded from the upper level.
Darkness swallowed the warehouse.
Marco’s team entered.
When emergency lights flickered on, Victor was gone.
Claire was gone.
Near a stairwell, one shooter lay wounded.
Dante recognized him.
The scar across his face made that impossible to miss.
Owen Rusk.
Michael’s former driver.
A man officially listed as dead seven years earlier.
Dante crouched.
“You were at Michael’s crash.”
“Yes.”
“Did Victor order it?”
Owen laughed weakly.
“Victor didn’t kill Michael.”
“Who did?”
Owen’s eyes began to close.
Dante grabbed his jacket.
“Who?”
May you like
Owen whispered one word.
“Claire.”
