Chapter 2 - The Widow Who Arrived Too Soon
Dante woke in a private hospital room shortly before dawn.
His first question was not about his injuries.
“Where is Cara?”
His security chief, Marcus Reed, stood beside the window.
“Downstairs.”
“Why?”
“Police are interviewing her.”
Dante tried sitting up.
Pain tore through his ribs.
“Stay down,” Marcus said. “Two fractured ribs, concussion, twenty-three stitches.”
“My wife?”
Marcus hesitated.
That hesitation answered the question.
“Where is Vanessa?”
“She arrived forty minutes ago.”
“How did she know?”
Marcus said nothing.
Dante slowly looked at him.
The accident had never been publicly reported.
The police had not contacted Vanessa.
Neither had Marcus.
Yet she had arrived at the hospital before Dante’s lawyers.
“Bring Cara upstairs.”
Twenty minutes later, Cara entered wearing borrowed hospital scrubs. A bandage covered her forearm.
“You’re hurt,” Dante said.
“So are you.”
“You climbed down a cliff.”
“You were busy falling off one.”
Despite everything, Dante almost smiled.
Then the door opened.
Vanessa entered.
Her expensive coat was wet from rain. Her blonde hair was perfectly arranged.
“Dante!”
She rushed toward the bed.
Cara instinctively stepped backward.
Vanessa stopped when she saw her.
Recognition appeared instantly.
“You.”
Dante noticed.
“You know Cara?”
“She works at Bellini’s.”
“No,” Dante said. “You recognized her before you had time to remember that.”
Vanessa’s expression hardened.
“What exactly is happening?”
“You tell me.”
Dante watched her carefully.
“What happened to my brakes?”
Silence.
Then Vanessa laughed once.
“You’re concussed.”
“Answer me.”
“I have no idea.”
Cara spoke.
“I heard you.”
Vanessa turned.
“You heard nothing.”
“You said the brake line had been weakened.”
Vanessa’s face remained composed.
“You’re a waitress who abandoned her job and chased my husband through a storm. Do you understand how insane that sounds?”
Cara’s cheeks reddened.
Dante interrupted.
“She saved my life.”
Vanessa looked at him.
Something cold entered her eyes.
Only briefly.
But he saw it.
“Leave us,” she said to Cara.
“No,” Dante answered.
“Excuse me?”
“She stays.”
Vanessa stared at her husband.
For eleven years, Dante had trusted Vanessa more than almost anyone.
Now a waitress he barely knew stood between them.
And somehow he trusted the waitress more.
Marcus entered carrying a plastic evidence bag.
“Police recovered this from the road.”
Inside was a small mechanical component.
“The brake line was deliberately cut,” Marcus said.
Vanessa went pale.
“That proves nothing about me.”
“No,” Dante replied. “But this might.”
He held up his phone.
The anonymous warning.
Vanessa read it.
Her breathing changed.
Dante saw it.
“You know who sent this.”
“No.”
“Who were you meeting at Bellini’s?”
“I was alone.”
Cara shook her head.
“No, you weren’t.”
Vanessa snapped toward her.
“You don’t know what you heard.”
“I heard a man.”
“What did he look like?”
“I never saw him.”
Vanessa smiled.
“Convenient.”
Dante’s gaze remained on his wife.
“Who knew my route?”
Vanessa didn’t answer.
“Who knew I was driving myself?”
Still nothing.
“Who had access to the garage?”
“Hundreds of employees.”
“Not to my private garage.”
Vanessa moved closer.
“Dante, you’re injured and frightened. Someone tried to hurt you, and this woman is exploiting the situation.”
Cara stared at her.
“I nearly fell off a cliff.”
“For what? Money?”
Cara’s expression changed.
She quietly removed something from her pocket.
Her Bellini’s name tag.
She placed it on Dante’s bedside table.
“I don’t want anything.”
Then she walked toward the door.
Dante called after her.
“Cara.”
She stopped.
“Stay.”
“I think your wife would prefer I didn’t.”
“I’m not asking my wife.”
Vanessa’s face tightened.
Before anyone could speak again, Marcus’s phone rang.
He answered.
His expression changed immediately.
“What?”
Dante watched him.
Marcus ended the call.
“The sedan has been recovered.”
“And?”
“There was something in the trunk.”
Vanessa suddenly gripped the back of a chair.
Marcus looked directly at Dante.
“A body.”
Silence swallowed the room.
“A man?” Dante asked.
Marcus nodded.
“Identification says his name is Samuel Cross.”
Vanessa’s knees nearly buckled.
Dante saw it.
“You know him.”
She whispered, “No.”
But Cara remembered something.
The voice behind the partition.
The man with Vanessa had called her by a nickname.
Vee.
Cara looked at Vanessa.
Then at Dante.
“I heard the man say something else.”
“What?”
“He told her, ‘Cross won’t be a problem anymore.’”
Dante’s expression became stone.
Marcus slowly reached for his phone.
Vanessa backed toward the door.
And suddenly everyone understood the accident had never been designed to kill only Dante.
Someone had placed a dead man inside his car.
If the vehicle had reached the bottom of the canyon, the evidence would have vanished with him.
May you like
But now Dante was alive.
And the conspiracy had just become murder.
