Chapter 8 - The Price of Silence
Gabriel did not shout.
Chloe wished he had.
Shouting would have made him easier to read.
Instead, he stood in front of Anthony with the terrifying stillness of a man holding back everything at once.
“You took money from my father to alter a police report.”
Anthony nodded.
“Yes.”
“After a twenty-six-year-old man died.”
“Yes.”
“You never told me.”
“No.”
Gabriel’s fist tightened.
Chloe moved closer before she thought about why.
Beatrice did the same.
Anthony noticed.
“If I had killed Leo, I would not be standing here explaining this.”
“That is a remarkably poor defense,” Chloe said.
“I know.”
“Then give me a better one.”
Anthony looked at her.
“Your brother was already dead when Salvatore called me.”
Chloe swallowed.
Anthony continued.
“The truck belonged to a company connected to us.”
“Your father was afraid the police would start looking into Harbor Food.”
“He told me to make sure the truck became an irrelevant detail.”
Chloe’s stomach turned.
“So you paid someone.”
“I paid a retired detective who still had friends in traffic investigations.”
“Five thousand dollars.”
“That was my fee.”
Chloe laughed in disbelief.
“You took a fee.”
Anthony’s face tightened.
“I was a different man then.”
“My brother was the same dead man then.”
The sentence hit him.
He looked down.
Gabriel spoke.
“Who was the detective?”
“Raymond Pike.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Find him.”
Anthony nodded.
Gabriel did not move away.
“Then you’re done.”
Anthony looked up.
“With what?”
“With me.”
The words landed harder than anger.
Anthony’s face went blank.
“I have been with this family since before you could drive.”
“And you helped my father hide evidence connected to a dead man.”
“I did what your father ordered.”
Gabriel’s expression darkened.
“That sentence has excused enough in this family.”
Anthony looked toward Beatrice.
She did not defend him.
He reached inside his jacket slowly and removed his phone.
Then his access card.
Then a small ring of keys.
He placed them on the table.
“I will find Pike.”
Gabriel said nothing.
Anthony looked at Chloe.
“I am sorry.”
She hated the sincerity in his face because it complicated the anger.
“Find the man who helped erase my brother.”
Anthony nodded once.
Then he left the townhouse alone.
The front door closed.
Beatrice sank into her chair.
Gabriel stayed standing.
Chloe looked at him.
“You believed him.”
“I believe he did what he said.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Do you think he helped kill Leo?”
Gabriel looked toward the dark window.
“I don’t know what I think.”
For the first time since Chloe met him, he sounded tired instead of dangerous.
Beatrice signed.
You should sleep.
Gabriel almost laughed.
“No.”
She pointed at Chloe.
Both of you.
Chloe shook her head.
“I’m not sleeping.”
Beatrice frowned.
Chloe translated for Gabriel.
“She says we both should.”
“I understood that one.”
His signing vocabulary was growing.
Beatrice looked pleased despite everything.
Gabriel noticed.
“Do not look proud.”
She smiled.
At four in the morning, Chloe finally gave in.
Beatrice led her upstairs to a guest room overlooking the street.
The bed was too soft.
The room smelled faintly of lavender.
Chloe placed Leo’s messenger bag beneath the pillow like a child protecting treasure.
She slept for forty-three minutes.
A crash woke her.
Then another.
Chloe ran into the hallway.
Gabriel was already moving downstairs.
“Ma?”
No answer.
He took the steps two at a time.
Chloe followed.
Beatrice stood in the kitchen gripping the counter.
A broken wineglass lay on the floor.
Her face was gray.
Gabriel reached her first.
“What happened?”
Beatrice tried to sign.
Her fingers were clumsy.
Chloe caught the first word.
Burning.
Then throat.
Chloe grabbed Gabriel’s arm.
“Call an ambulance.”
He stared at her.
“Now.”
Gabriel pulled out his phone.
Beatrice tried to speak but only a rough breath came out.
Chloe guided her into a chair.
“What did you drink?”
Beatrice pointed toward the shattered glass.
Then toward an open bottle of mineral water on the counter.
Not wine.
Water.
Chloe looked at Gabriel.
“She says her throat is burning.”
Gabriel’s face changed instantly.
He picked up the bottle with a dish towel.
The cap had already been opened.
“Who put this here?”
Beatrice’s breathing became shallow.
Chloe knelt in front of her.
“Stay with me.”
She signed as she spoke.
“Look at me.”
Beatrice’s eyes focused on her.
Gabriel relayed information to the emergency dispatcher.
Chloe kept signing.
“Ambulance is coming.”
Beatrice’s hands moved weakly.
Not accident.
“I know.”
Cabinet.
“What cabinet?”
Blue bowl.
Chloe looked around.
A blue ceramic bowl sat above the refrigerator.
She pulled it down.
Inside was a small silver key and a folded note.
Gabriel saw it.
“What is that?”
Beatrice shook her head violently.
Not him.
Chloe froze.
Beatrice pointed at Gabriel.
Then shook her head again.
Not yet.
Chloe understood.
“Okay.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“What is she saying?”
Chloe hated the position instantly.
Beatrice had just asked her to keep something from him.
Minutes after his mother nearly collapsed from a suspicious drink.
Gabriel saw the conflict on Chloe’s face.
“What?”
Beatrice grabbed Chloe’s wrist.
Her grip was surprisingly strong.
Not yet.
The sirens arrived.
Paramedics rushed through the front door.
Everything became movement.
Questions.
Equipment.
A stretcher.
Gabriel stayed beside his mother until they pushed him back.
Chloe slipped the silver key and note into her pocket.
At the hospital, doctors treated Beatrice behind closed doors.
Gabriel paced the corridor.
Chloe sat beneath a television showing a cheerful morning news anchor.
She wanted to throw something at the screen.
A detective arrived.
Then another.
Gabriel refused to let them take the water bottle until his attorney arrived.
Chloe watched him argue and wondered how many times similar arguments had protected people who deserved investigation.
That thought hurt more now.
A nurse came through the doors.
“Mr. Costello?”
Gabriel turned.
“Your mother is stable.”
His shoulders dropped by an inch.
“The doctor believes she ingested a toxic cleaning compound.”
Chloe felt cold.
The nurse continued.
“Her exposure appears limited.”
“She is very fortunate she stopped drinking immediately.”
Gabriel looked at Chloe.
“She noticed the taste.”
Chloe nodded.
The nurse looked confused.
Gabriel did not explain.
For the next forty minutes, they waited beneath fluorescent lights that made everyone look exhausted.
Chloe watched families move through the corridor.
A father carried a sleeping child against his shoulder.
A woman in scrubs hugged an older man near the elevators.
Two teenagers sat on the floor sharing earbuds.
Ordinary fear surrounded them.
No private rooms.
No bodyguards.
No family councils.
Just people waiting to learn whether someone they loved would be okay.
Gabriel stood at the far end of the corridor staring through a window at the city.
Chloe joined him after several minutes.
“You hate hospitals.”
He looked at her.
“Is that a question?”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He looked back at the glass.
“My father died in one.”
Chloe said nothing.
Gabriel continued.
“I was in a meeting in Boston.”
“Luca called and said there had been a heart attack.”
“By the time I got here, my father was gone and my mother had stopped talking to everyone.”
Chloe glanced at him.
“She was grieving.”
“I know that now.”
“What did you think then?”
“That she was shutting me out.”
He gave a bitter smile.
“So I responded by shutting her out first.”
Chloe thought of all the ways families could punish each other without ever naming the original injury.
“My mother died when Leo was nineteen.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“She had cancer.”
“She spent the last six months angry that everybody whispered around her.”
“She said people treated dying like a language she was not allowed to hear.”
Gabriel’s face softened.
“Leo?”
“He signed everything the doctors said.”
“Even when they asked him not to because they wanted to ‘protect’ her.”
Chloe smiled faintly.
“He told them she was already dying and deserved the truth more than comfort.”
Gabriel looked toward Beatrice’s treatment room.
“That sounds familiar.”
“Leo would have liked your mother.”
“He did.”
The words slipped out before Gabriel seemed to think about them.
Chloe looked at him.
“He met her seven times.”
“Yes.”
“She says he was impossible.”
Chloe laughed softly.
“That also sounds familiar.”
The shared moment lasted only seconds.
Then Chloe remembered the hidden key in her pocket and the promise she was keeping from Gabriel.
Guilt returned.
Gabriel noticed the change in her face.
He did not ask.
That restraint mattered.
When he finally sat beside Chloe, he covered his face with both hands.
For a long time, he said nothing.
Then he looked at her.
“What did she tell you in the kitchen?”
Chloe’s pulse quickened.
“Gabriel.”
“What did she tell you?”
“She asked me not to tell you yet.”
His expression hardened.
“My mother was poisoned in her own kitchen.”
“I know.”
“And she gave you something.”
Chloe looked toward the treatment doors.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I can’t.”
He stood.
“Chloe.”
“She trusted me.”
“So do I.”
The words stopped her.
Gabriel seemed surprised he had said them.
Chloe looked at him.
“That is exactly why I am not breaking the promise.”
His anger shifted into something more complicated.
Before he could answer, a man in hospital scrubs pushed a supply cart past them.
He was in his late forties.
Thin.
Gray at the temples.
He looked at Chloe once.
Then again.
His face went white.
The cart stopped.
Chloe stared back.
She knew that face.
Not personally.
From the accident file.
The employee photograph attached to the Harbor Food incident report.
Michael Doran.
May you like
The truck driver who had supposedly disappeared two years earlier.
He turned and ran.
