Chapter 4 - DOMINIC DISCOVERED SOMEONE HAD BEEN WATCHING MARCUS BEFORE THE “BUG” WAS EVER FOUND
The safe house was not a house.
It was a penthouse above a private medical-office building in Westchester.
No Cray name.
No visible guards.
No marble.
No chandeliers.
Two bedrooms.
A small kitchen.
A living room with ordinary furniture.
Marcus loved it instantly because there was a basket of toy cars in the closet.
I hated it because nothing about a safe house feels safe when you know why you need one.
Marco stayed downstairs.
Dominic stayed in New York with his doctors.
For forty-eight hours, nobody contacted us except through a secure phone.
I did not sleep.
Every sound became a warning.
Elevator.
Plumbing.
Footsteps.
A truck reversing outside.
Marcus slept perfectly.
Children are unfair that way.
On the second morning, he found pancake mix.
“Mommy.”
“No.”
“Pancakes.”
“We don’t know whose food this is.”
“Dom’s.”
I stared.
“When did Dominic become Dom?”
Marcus shrugged.
“Name long.”
Absolutely not.
At noon, Marco called.
“Dominic wants to speak.”
“Video?”
“No.”
“In person.”
I looked at Marcus.
“Is Victor found?”
“No.”
“Vale?”
“No.”
“Then why would I bring Marcus anywhere?”
“You wouldn’t.”
Marco paused.
“Dominic is coming to you.”
I did not like that either.
He arrived an hour later wearing a dark coat, no tie, and a small hearing device behind his right ear.
He looked exhausted.
Marcus ran toward him.
“Dom!”
Dominic stopped.
He looked at me.
“No.”
I said.
“I did not teach him that.”
Marcus hugged Dominic’s leg.
Dominic’s expression softened before he could hide it.
“Hello, Marcus.”
“Ear good?”
“Improving.”
“Bug gone.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
Marcus returned to his cars.
Dominic sat across from me.
He placed a folder on the coffee table.
“What?”
I asked.
“The photograph of Marcus was taken before the night at the mansion.”
“How long before?”
“Fourteen days.”
My stomach turned.
“Why?”
“We found more.”
He opened the folder.
Photographs.
Me entering the subway.
Marcus at daycare.
Our apartment building.
A grocery store.
My hands began shaking.
“Who took these?”
“Private contractor.”
“Name?”
“Leo Mercer.”
“No relation to you.”
I almost laughed at the absurdity.
“What does he say?”
“He says Victor hired him.”
My throat tightened.
“For what?”
“To monitor staff members Victor considered security concerns.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I know.”
I flipped through photographs.
Only me.
Only Marcus.
“Why us?”
Dominic’s voice lowered.
“Because of Marcus’s father.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“What?”
Dominic watched my face.
“His father was Evan Reed?”
I had not heard that name spoken in years.
“Yes.”
“He disappeared when Marcus was eleven months old.”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever work in medical supply?”
I stared.
“No.”
Then memory moved.
Wait.
“He drove deliveries.”
“For who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hospital suppliers.”
“Private clinics.”
“He changed companies constantly.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“Did he know Adrian Vale?”
My heart began pounding.
“I don’t know.”
“Grace.”
“I really don’t know.”
I stood and walked toward the window.
Evan.
Funny.
Restless.
Too many plans.
Too little responsibility.
He loved Marcus for almost a year.
Then one morning he left.
A text.
I’m sorry. I can’t do this.
Phone disconnected two days later.
I spent years being angry.
It was easier than wondering whether he was dead.
Dominic placed another document down.
“Evan worked for Meridian Surgical Logistics.”
The name meant nothing.
“Meridian supplied private medical equipment to Vale’s practice.”
My throat tightened.
“And?”
“Three years ago, Meridian also supplied specialty surveillance hardware to a security company secretly controlled by Victor.”
I turned.
“Surveillance hardware.”
“The object removed from my ear appears consistent with one of those products.”
The room tilted.
“You think Evan knew?”
“We found his name on a delivery manifest.”
“What delivery?”
Dominic looked at me.
“Medical inserts.”
“One week after my warehouse injury.”
I sat.
Marcus drove a toy car across the carpet.
Perfectly unaware.
“Where is Evan?”
“We don’t know.”
“Is he alive?”
“We don’t know.”
“Was he watching us?”
“No.”
“Then why photograph Marcus?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“Victor may have feared Evan left evidence with you.”
“I had nothing.”
“He may not have known that.”
I laughed bitterly.
“So Victor watched my child because his father delivered something three years ago.”
“Possibly.”
“Again.”
Dominic said.
“Facts.”
I glared.
“Stop saying that.”
He stopped.
Good.
I stood.
“My son’s father vanished.”
“I spent three years thinking he abandoned us.”
“Now you walk in here saying he might be connected to a device hidden in your ear.”
“Yes.”
“I need more than possibly.”
“I know.”
“Then find him.”
Dominic stared at me.
I heard my own words.
Orders.
To Dominic Cray.
Marco would probably faint.
Dominic did not.
“I will.”
Marcus looked up.
“Find Daddy?”
I froze.
He had heard.
Of course he had.
Three-year-olds hear everything except instructions.
I crouched.
“Baby—”
“Daddy coming?”
My throat closed.
He barely remembered Evan.
Only from photographs.
“No.”
I said carefully.
“We don’t know.”
Marcus thought.
“Okay.”
Then returned to his car.
Dominic watched him.
“Children accept uncertainty better than adults.”
“They don’t understand the cost.”
“Maybe that helps.”
That afternoon, investigators searched old Meridian records.
Most of the company had dissolved.
The owner claimed insolvency.
Warehouses closed.
Records scattered.
But one former dispatcher remembered Evan.
“He was scared near the end.”
she told investigators.
“He said a delivery was wrong.”
“He asked too many questions.”
Three days later, he stopped showing up.
Dominic called me that night.
“Grace.”
“What?”
“We found Evan’s car.”
My heart stopped.
“Where?”
“Storage facility in Newark.”
“Stored under another name.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
I could barely breathe.
“What was inside?”
“Clothes.”
“Old phone.”
“A notebook.”
“And?”
Dominic’s silence terrified me.
“Dominic.”
“There was blood.”
I closed my eyes.
“How much?”
“Enough that police are testing it.”
My knees weakened.
Marcus was asleep.
I sat on the edge of the sofa.
“I hated him.”
Dominic said nothing.
“I hated him for leaving.”
“You had the information you had.”
“That sounds like something a lawyer says.”
“It’s something I’m learning to say to myself.”
I looked at the secure phone.
Dominic continued.
“The notebook has several names.”
“Vale.”
“Victor.”
“Meridian.”
“And mine.”
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
“One page says…”
He paused.
“What?”
“**Cray was supposed to recover. They’re keeping him dependent.**”
I stopped breathing.
Evan knew.
Before he disappeared.
Dominic said:
“He also wrote one sentence beside your name.”
I gripped the phone.
“What?”
“**Grace knows nothing. Keep her out.**”
Tears filled my eyes before I could stop them.
For three years, I thought Evan left because being our family felt like too much work.
Maybe he had left to protect us.
Or maybe that was a romantic explanation I desperately wanted.
Facts.
I suddenly understood why Dominic kept using the word.
Facts protected people from stories they built when pain became unbearable.
“What else?”
I asked.
“There’s a storage-unit number.”
“Police are opening it now.”
We waited on the phone.
Neither spoke.
Ten minutes later, Dominic’s other line rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then went completely silent.
“What?”
I asked.
“Dominic?”
His voice came back changed.
“Grace.”
“Yes?”
“They found video files.”
“What kind?”
“Evan recorded Victor meeting Vale.”
My heart slammed.
“When?”
“Two weeks after my blast.”
“And?”
Dominic breathed slowly.
“He recorded them discussing my hearing.”
I covered my mouth.
Then:
“He also recorded Victor saying your name.”
My blood went cold.
“Why?”
Dominic answered:
“Because Victor told Vale Evan had become a problem.”
I could barely whisper.
“And what did Vale say?”
Dominic’s voice hardened.
“Vale said…”
A pause.
“**Then make sure his girlfriend and the baby never know why he disappeared.**”
For three years, I thought I had been abandoned.
Now I knew something far worse.
Evan Reed had not simply vanished.
May you like
Someone had made sure he could not come home.
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