Chapter 7 - THE WOMAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD
Dr. Lena Hart worked out of a private clinic disguised as a coastal veterinary practice.
She accepted Elias’s wounded accountant without asking questions. She also locked Gabriel’s gun inside a cabinet and threatened to sedate him if he interfered.
Dominic survived surgery.
Barely.
While they waited, Elias sat beside a window overlooking the dark harbor. He had not spoken since Dominic’s claim about his mother.
Margaret stood across the room.
Clara watched them both.
Finally, Elias said, “Tell me.”
Margaret’s face tightened.
“I buried your mother.”
“Did you see her body?”
“Yes.”
“Her face?”
Margaret looked away.
Elias’s hands closed around the wheels.
“Did you see her face?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“The coffin was closed.”
“You told me the accident damaged her beyond recognition.”
“That is what Gabriel told us.”
Both turned toward him.
Gabriel stood near the clinic door.
“I saw the vehicle,” he said. “It burned for forty minutes.”
“But not her body,” Elias replied.
“I identified her necklace.”
“A necklace can be removed.”
Gabriel’s expression darkened.
“At the time, I had no reason to question it.”
“You always have a reason to question everything.”
“I was twenty-eight. Your father was dying, and you had just taken control of an organization that wanted you dead.”
“My father lived another five years.”
“He was dying long before his heart stopped.”
Elias rolled closer.
“Did my mother know about the ledger?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Yes.”
Margaret stared at him.
“She contacted me two weeks before the accident,” he continued. “She said Adrian had records that could destroy Sloane and half the waterfront commission.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She made me swear not to.”
Elias laughed bitterly.
“Everyone protects me by lying.”
Clara moved closer to the window.
Elias saw her reflection.
“You have something to say.”
“No.”
“You usually do.”
She faced him.
“You punish people for treating you as helpless, but you also punish them for telling you things you don’t want to hear.”
Margaret whispered her name in warning.
Elias’s expression became cold.
“Continue.”
Clara almost stopped.
Then she remembered the blood on his office floor and the silence that had allowed him to rise.
“You built rules that made everyone afraid to come near you. Gabriel used that fear to control what reached you. Margaret hid things because she thought the truth would hurt you. Maybe your mother did the same.”
“And your conclusion?”
“You were surrounded by people willing to die for you.”
Clara held his gaze.
“But none of them trusted you enough to let you choose what to do with the truth.”
The room became painfully silent.
Gabriel looked toward the floor.
Margaret wiped at her eyes.
Elias turned back to the harbor.
“If my mother is alive, we find her.”
No one argued.
Dr. Hart entered an hour later.
“Dominic is stable. The bullet missed his heart, but he lost significant blood. He won’t be answering questions tonight.”
“Can he travel tomorrow?” Elias asked.
“He should not travel for three weeks.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
“No.”
“Then he stays.”
Dr. Hart examined Elias’s hands.
The bandages covered repeated abrasions across both palms.
“These aren’t from tonight,” she said.
Clara watched Elias withdraw.
“I know.”
“What happened?”
“Wheel work.”
“Don’t insult me.”
Dr. Hart unwrapped the gauze. The older cuts had reopened.
“You’ve been practicing floor transfers alone.”
Elias said nothing.
“How often?”
“Every night.”
Margaret stared.
“That’s what we’ve been hearing?”
He ignored her.
Dr. Hart cleaned the wounds.
“You damaged your shoulder the last time you trained without supervision.”
“I am aware.”
“You have a physical therapist.”
“Had.”
“You fired him.”
“He grabbed me without warning.”
“He stopped you from falling.”
“He removed the choice.”
Dr. Hart looked at Clara.
“Who are you?”
“The maid.”
“She lasted three days,” Elias said.
There was something almost proud in his tone.
Clara tried not to react.
Dr. Hart bandaged his hands again.
“You need rest.”
“I need transportation.”
“To where?”
“New Bedford.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Rusk will expect us to go to the Mercy Ann.”
“Then he should prepare.”
They could not use Elias’s accounts or vehicles. Gabriel contacted an old associate and obtained a delivery van fitted with a wheelchair ramp.
At sunrise, Margaret returned to the estate with Captain Walsh to assess the damage and protect the remaining staff.
Clara intended to go with her.
Elias stopped her.
“You’re coming to New Bedford.”
“That sounded like an order.”
“It was.”
“My mother’s facility will call today.”
“Give Margaret the information.”
“I don’t want your money.”
He looked at her.
“You accepted eighteen hundred dollars per week.”
“For work.”
“Then work.”
Clara folded her arms.
“What assignment requires twelve thousand dollars?”
“Remaining alive long enough to become annoying.”
Gabriel turned away, hiding what might have been a smile.
Elias continued.
“Your mother’s balance will be paid as an advance.”
“I can’t repay that.”
“You will.”
“How?”
“By helping me find Thomas.”
Clara studied him.
“You believe he’s alive?”
“I believe Dominic thought he was.”
“And your mother?”
His eyes shifted toward the harbor.
“I don’t know what I believe.”
Clara finally nodded.
The drive to New Bedford took two hours.
Gabriel drove.
Elias sat in the rear beside a small arsenal.
Clara sat across from him.
For the first thirty minutes, no one spoke.
Then Elias asked, “Why six crackers?”
Clara blinked.
“What?”
“You told Margaret you ate six crackers for dinner.”
“I didn’t tell you.”
“She did.”
“That was private.”
“She was explaining why you nearly fainted while carrying laundry.”
“I did not nearly faint.”
“You walked into a linen cabinet.”
“The door was open.”
His mouth shifted.
Clara realized he was teasing her.
It looked unfamiliar on him.
Almost dangerous in a different way.
“Why did you stop eating?” he asked.
“I didn’t stop.”
“Six crackers is not dinner.”
“I sent everything to the facility.”
“Your mother would want you starving?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“So you also protect people by lying.”
Clara looked out the window.
The observation stung because it was true.
Elias leaned back.
“Apparently it is contagious.”
They reached the dry dock shortly before noon.
The Mercy Ann sat inside a rusted warehouse near the harbor. Its faded blue hull matched the vessel in Thomas’s photograph.
No guards were visible.
“That worries me,” Gabriel said.
“Everything worries you,” Elias replied.
“That is why you’re alive.”
They entered through a side door.
The warehouse smelled of salt, oil, and rotting wood.
Gabriel searched the office.
Clara approached the boat.
Her father had stood in this exact place.
She touched the hull.
A memory returned.
Thomas teaching her to tie a bowline when she was eight.
His rough hands guiding hers.
A promise that knots mattered because the sea punished careless people.
“Clara.”
Elias’s voice came from behind her.
He pointed toward the stern.
A dark stain marked the deck.
Blood.
Gabriel climbed aboard first.
Below deck, they found restraints bolted to the wall.
Food wrappers.
Empty water containers.
A woman’s scarf.
Elias picked it up.
His face changed.
“My mother wore this at my graduation.”
Gabriel found a recent newspaper beside the bunk.
Three days old.
“They were here.”
A faint knocking came from beneath the floor.
Clara knelt.
“Hello?”
Three knocks answered.
Gabriel lifted a hidden hatch.
Inside the compartment lay Thomas Keane.
Older.
Thinner.
Bearded.
Alive.
Clara stopped breathing.
His eyes opened.
For one second, he did not recognize her.
Then he whispered, “Little bird?”
She fell to her knees beside him.
“Dad.”
Thomas tried to raise one hand.
Chains held him to the floor.
Clara touched his face.
He began to cry.
“I told you not to come.”
“You disappeared.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“You don’t get to call that protection.”
A gun clicked behind them.
Gabriel turned.
Anthony Rusk stood at the cabin entrance with three armed men.
He was tall, silver-haired, and dressed like a banker.
“Touching reunion,” he said.
Elias aimed his weapon.
Rusk’s men aimed at Clara.
“Put it down, Moretti.”
Elias did not.
Rusk smiled.
“You came for a dead father and found a living one.”
He looked at the scarf in Elias’s hand.
“And you came for a living mother who would have preferred to remain dead.”
“Where is she?” Elias asked.
“Close.”
A second hatch opened behind Elias.
A woman climbed from the forward compartment holding a pistol.
She was in her early sixties.
Silver threaded through her dark hair.
Her eyes were identical to Elias’s.
Margaret’s sister.
Elias’s mother.
Isabella Moretti pressed the weapon against her son’s head.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Then she looked at Rusk.
May you like
“But you were never supposed to survive.”
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