Chapter 9 - DOMINIC'S LIE
Vincent called the number back immediately.
The recording said it was no longer in service.
Marco tried from another phone.
Same result.
Grace stared at the handset.
"That was her."
Vincent did not answer.
He knew Sofia's voice even when fear had reduced it to a whisper.
Three years had changed the edges, not the center.
It was her.
Alive.
Somewhere.
And she was still afraid of Dominic.
Marco began tracing the call through a private telecom contact.
"Prepaid device."
"Can you locate it?" Vincent asked.
"If it reconnects."
"What about the tower?"
"Working on it."
Grace looked at the wall message again.
VINCENT DOES NOT KNOW.
DOMINIC DOES.
"She wanted whoever found this room to know the difference."
Vincent nodded.
"And Dominic has been lying since the first minute."
Marco looked at him.
"We left him at the estate."
Vincent's face hardened.
"With Emily."
Grace went white.
She was already dialing Marco's deputy before anyone spoke.
The call connected.
"Where is my daughter?"
A startled voice answered.
"Mrs. Carter, Emily is in the morning room with Ms. Romano."
"Is Dominic there?"
"No, ma'am."
Grace closed her eyes briefly.
"Where is he?"
There was a pause.
"Guest suite."
Vincent took the phone.
"Physically verify."
"Sir, the guard is outside his door."
"Open it."
Another pause.
"Now."
They heard movement through the phone.
A knock.
A key.
The creak of a door.
Then silence.
"Sir."
Vincent's jaw tightened.
"Say it."
"The room is empty."
Grace grabbed the edge of the dresser.
Vincent's voice became dangerously calm.
"Lock the estate."
"It is locked."
"Then find out how he got out."
"Yes, sir."
"Move Emily to the safe suite."
"Immediately."
Grace took the phone back.
"Put Emily on."
A minute later, her daughter's voice came through.
"Mom?"
Grace breathed again.
"Are you okay?"
"Yes."
"Stay with the guards."
"I am."
"Do not go anywhere with anyone except Marco's deputy or Isabella."
Emily hesitated.
"What about Mr. Dominic?"
Grace looked at Vincent.
"Especially not Dominic."
Emily's voice became smaller.
"Okay."
Grace ended the call and faced Vincent.
"We go back."
Vincent nodded.
Marco raised a hand.
"Before we do, there is something you need to see."
His technician had recovered deleted files from the Maple House office computer.
Among them were monthly visitor logs.
Dominic Moretti's name appeared seven times.
Not once.
Not twice.
Seven visits over two years.
Vincent stared at the dates.
"He told me he saw her one time."
Grace pointed to the third entry.
"That visit was on Sofia's birthday."
Vincent's face went still.
Every year on Sofia's birthday, Dominic had come to the estate for dinner.
Every year he had raised a glass with Vincent.
Every year he had watched Vincent pretend not to care.
And at least once, he had visited Sofia earlier that same day.
Marco opened the related visitor note.
VISITOR BROUGHT PERSONAL ITEMS.
Grace read it aloud.
"Blue sweater, paperback novel, lemon candy."
Vincent shut his eyes.
Sofia loved lemon candy.
Dominic knew that because she used to keep bowls of it in the kitchen and complain when he stole handfuls.
The cruelty was not that Dominic had forgotten her.
The cruelty was that he remembered exactly what she liked.
Vincent turned away.
For a moment, Grace saw not a feared businessman but a husband realizing that his closest relative had visited his missing wife in secret and returned home carrying her silence.
"There is more," Marco said.
Vincent did not want more.
He looked anyway.
A scanned note had been attached to Dominic's fifth visit.
PATIENT AGITATED AFTER FAMILY CONTACT.
REPEATEDLY ASKED VISITOR TO TELL HUSBAND TRUTH.
VISITOR DECLINED.
Vincent read the final two words twice.
Visitor declined.
Grace touched his arm.
"We need to leave."
Vincent nodded.
They were halfway down the stairs when Marco's secure phone rang.
His deputy.
Vincent answered.
"Report."
"Dominic exited through an old service passage behind the guest suite fireplace."
"Where does it lead?"
"West carriage house."
"Vehicle missing?"
"One utility SUV."
Vincent cursed.
"Emily?"
"Safe suite with Isabella and four guards."
"Charles?"
Silence.
Vincent stopped walking.
"Where is Bellamy?"
"Library window was forced from the outside."
Grace's stomach dropped.
"He is gone too."
The deputy continued.
"We found the two guards assigned to the corridor unconscious."
"Alive?"
"Yes."
"Camera footage?"
"Looped for twelve minutes."
Vincent looked at Marco.
"Dominic took him."
Marco shook his head.
"Or released him."
The distinction mattered.
Vincent did not know which possibility was worse.
The return trip began before midnight.
Snow made the road south slower.
The jet waited in Burlington with engines running.
On board, Vincent stared at the seven visitor dates from Maple House.
Grace sat across from him.
"Why would Sofia warn us to run if Dominic was there?"
"Because she thinks he is part of it."
"He is part of it."
"That is not the same as being the reason."
Grace studied him.
"You still want to believe there is a difference."
Vincent looked out the dark window.
"He was ten when his father died."
"That does not answer me."
"I raised him half the time."
Grace's expression softened.
Vincent continued.
"My aunt worked nights."
"Dominic slept at our house, ate at our table, followed me everywhere."
"When I was twenty-three, he was thirteen and impossible."
A faint smile touched his face and vanished.
"I taught him to drive."
Grace waited.
"If he did this, I need to understand when he became someone I did not know."
"Maybe he did not become someone else all at once."
Vincent looked at her.
"Maybe he made one cowardly choice, then another, then another, until telling the truth cost more than continuing the lie."
Vincent looked down at the visitor list.
"That does not make it better."
"No."
"It makes it believable."
Marco came from the rear of the plane holding his phone.
"We traced the call from Maple House."
Vincent stood.
"Where?"
"The phone connected to a tower near Newburgh, New York."
Grace frowned.
"That is less than an hour from the estate."
"Yes."
Vincent stared at him.
"Sofia is back in the Hudson Valley."
"It looks that way."
"River Site B."
Marco nodded.
"I checked old insurance maps."
He placed a tablet on the table.
Four former Moretti river properties appeared.
Site A had become condominiums.
Site C was a public marina.
Site D had been demolished.
Site B remained privately owned through a holding company.
The owner was Harbor Light Industrial Services.
The address sat outside Newburgh along a narrow industrial road beside the river.
Vincent looked at the satellite image.
An old brick warehouse occupied the property.
Grace pointed to a smaller building behind it.
"What is that?"
Marco enlarged the image.
A two-story structure stood partly hidden by trees.
"Former caretaker's residence."
Vincent's phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone looked at it.
Vincent answered on speaker.
"Hello?"
For one second there was only static.
Then Dominic spoke.
"Do not go to River Site B."
Vincent gripped the phone.
"Where are you?"
"That does not matter."
"It matters to me."
"Charles is not the one you need to be afraid of tonight."
Grace and Marco exchanged a look.
Vincent's voice hardened.
"Then who?"
Dominic breathed into the phone.
"Isabella."
Grace went still.
Vincent said nothing.
Dominic continued.
"Get Emily away from her now."
The line disconnected.
Vincent kept the disconnected phone against his ear for two seconds after Dominic vanished from the line.
Grace watched him.
"You believe him?"
"I believe he believes something."
Marco leaned across the aisle.
"That is not the same thing."
"I know."
Vincent replayed Dominic's warning in his head.
Get Emily away from her now.
Dominic had sounded afraid, not calculating.
That did not make him trustworthy.
Fear had been the engine of almost every betrayal they had uncovered.
Grace looked at the visitor logs from Maple House.
"Seven visits."
"If Dominic wanted Sofia dead, he had years to arrange it."
Vincent looked at her.
"That is a terrible argument for his innocence."
"I did not say innocent."
Grace tapped the dates.
"I am saying his behavior does not fit one clean motive."
Marco nodded.
"He may be protecting one secret while trying to correct another."
Vincent leaned back.
"Everyone keeps wanting credit for the part where they finally became less terrible."
Grace's eyes remained on the logs.
"People are messy."
"Crimes are often committed by messy people."
The plane shook lightly in turbulence.
Marco's technician worked at the small rear table, comparing Dominic's calls with known Harbor Light numbers.
After several minutes, he raised his head.
"I found something."
Vincent turned.
"Dominic received six calls from a prepaid number in the forty-eight hours before the engagement signing."
"Can you identify the user?"
"Not directly."
"But the same prepaid number contacted Charles Bellamy's private line eleven times."
Grace frowned.
"So Charles and Dominic were both talking to someone else."
"Or Charles was using the prepaid phone himself."
Marco asked for location data.
The technician brought up tower connections.
Most clustered near Manhattan and the Hudson Valley.
One stood out.
The prepaid phone connected near Saint Agnes in Vermont two days before the facility closed.
Vincent stared at the map.
"Celeste."
Grace looked at him.
"Maybe."
"Or Sofia."
Vincent's expression changed.
If Sofia had gained access to a phone, she might have contacted the only people whose numbers she could remember.
Dominic was family.
Charles was her captor.
The pattern could mean rescue attempts, threats, or both.
Marco said, "We need the carrier records before we assume."
Vincent nodded reluctantly.
Another file from Maple House arrived over the secure link.
It was a scanned medication incident report.
Patient 17 had refused medication after a family visit.
The staff note said she repeatedly insisted the visitor was lying about her husband.
The visitor field showed D. MORETTI.
Grace read the final sentence.
Patient stated: Dominic is afraid of what I know, not of what I might do.
Vincent closed the file.
That sentence stayed with him.
Sofia had understood Dominic's motive before anyone else.
Whatever he had done, fear sat at the center of it.
Vincent looked at the dark cabin window.
His reflection looked older than it had that morning.
"When we get back, nobody acts on Dominic's warning until we see Emily with our own eyes."
Grace nodded.
"Agreed."
Marco added, "And Isabella is treated as a person of interest, not an enemy."
Vincent looked at him.
"You enjoy correcting me today."
"Today requires a lot of correction."
Grace looked away to hide a smile.
The landing lights appeared below them.
Somewhere inside the estate, Isabella sat beside Emily.
May you like
Somewhere outside it, Dominic and Charles were both moving without permission.
Vincent realized the most dangerous thing they could do next was choose the simplest explanation merely because it arrived first.
