Chapter 3 - What Their Fathers Buried
Roman called the hospital before he reached his car.
"Move Claire Bennett immediately."
The administrator tried asking why.
Roman didn't explain.
"Private floor. No visitors. Nobody gets her room number without authorization from me or Dr. Ferris."
"Mr. DeLuca—"
"Do it."
He ended the call.
Howard followed him outside.
"Police?"
"Not yet."
"Roman."
Roman stopped.
Howard had worked for the DeLuca family since Roman was twelve. He was one of the few people alive who could use his first name when Roman looked like that.
"If someone photographed her through a hospital window, this has moved beyond family business."
"That's exactly why I don't know which police officer to trust."
Howard didn't argue.
Roman looked at the photograph again.
His father.
Thomas Bennett.
Charles Mercer.
Salvatore.
He had spent twelve years believing his father's death was the cleanest tragedy in an otherwise dirty family history.
Now he wasn't sure of anything.
By noon, Claire had been moved.
She was furious.
"You put guards outside my door."
"Yes."
"Two."
"Four. You can only see two."
Claire stared at him.
Roman placed the photograph on her bed.
Her anger disappeared.
"Dad."
Her fingers touched the plastic sleeve.
Thomas Bennett was younger in the picture, perhaps forty-five. Work boots. Denim jacket. A tired smile.
Claire hadn't seen that smile in years.
"Where was this taken?"
"We're working on it."
She looked at the other men.
"That's your father."
Roman nodded.
"And Vivian's."
"Yes."
"Who's he?"
"My uncle Salvatore."
Claire studied Roman.
"Your family knew my father."
"Apparently."
"You said you didn't know him."
"I didn't."
"Maybe you forgot."
Roman's eyes hardened.
"I don't forget people."
"Then somebody kept him away from you."
That possibility had already occurred to him.
He disliked hearing Claire say it aloud.
Roman pulled a chair closer.
"Tell me everything you remember about the weeks before your father died."
Claire looked back at the photograph.
"He changed."
"How?"
"Stopped sleeping. Checked the locks constantly. Started driving Lily to school even though she complained she was seventeen and didn't need him."
"Did he mention Northstar?"
"No."
"Mercer?"
"No."
"DeLuca?"
Claire shook her head.
Then stopped.
"Wait."
Roman leaned forward.
"My dad had a phrase."
"What phrase?"
"When something went wrong, he'd say, 'That's how the kings stay clean.'"
Roman frowned.
"Kings?"
"I thought it was just something he said."
"Anything else?"
Claire closed her eyes.
Memories came slowly.
Her father at the kitchen table.
Stacks of papers.
A cheap calculator.
Coffee at two in the morning.
Then one night—
Claire opened her eyes.
"He burned something."
"What?"
"Documents. In the backyard."
"When?"
"Maybe a month before the accident."
"What did he tell you?"
"That some papers were dangerous to keep."
Roman's phone vibrated.
His investigator, Dominic Hale.
Roman answered.
"Talk."
"Northstar Recovery Holdings officially dissolved eleven years ago."
Roman looked at Claire.
"Keep going."
"Unofficially, it became six companies. Different names, same collection infrastructure."
"Owners?"
"Shells."
"Beneficiaries?"
"I'm digging."
"Mercer?"
Silence.
"That's where it gets interesting."
Roman stood.
"How interesting?"
"Charles Mercer sat on the board of a holding company that financed three of Northstar's successors."
Claire watched Roman's face.
"And Salvatore?"
"Consulting fees. Large ones."
Roman walked toward the window.
"My father?"
"No direct payments I've found."
That mattered.
"Thomas Bennett?"
"Accountant."
Roman turned.
Claire stared.
"What?"
Dominic continued.
"Thomas Bennett worked contract forensic accounting for Northstar for eighteen months."
Claire's face went blank.
"My father was a mechanic."
Dominic heard her.
"Officially, yes. Before that he was a CPA."
Claire shook her head.
"No."
Roman lowered the phone.
"Claire?"
"My dad never told us."
Dominic spoke again.
"There's another thing."
Roman raised the phone.
"Go."
"Thomas Bennett didn't borrow seventy-five thousand dollars from Northstar."
Claire stopped moving.
"What?"
"He received seventy-five thousand."
"For Lily's treatment."
"No."
Dominic paused.
"The transfer occurred four months before Lily became sick."
The room seemed to tilt.
Claire whispered, "That's impossible."
"I have the bank record."
Roman's voice hardened.
"What was the payment for?"
"No description. But three days later Thomas opened a safe-deposit box in Stamford."
Claire looked at Roman.
Roman understood immediately.
"Is it still active?"
"Yes."
"Who has access?"
"Thomas Bennett."
"He's dead."
"Then here's the strange part."
Dominic's voice dropped.
"Someone accessed that box last month."
Claire's face drained.
"Who?"
"I'm trying to get the surveillance."
Roman ended the call.
For several seconds neither spoke.
Then Claire swung her legs off the bed.
"Don't."
"I'm done lying here."
"Your doctor—"
"My father had a secret safe-deposit box that somebody opened six years after he died."
"And you're recovering from hypothermia."
"Roman."
It was the first time she'd used his first name.
He noticed.
So did she.
Claire took a breath.
"I have spent six years paying people because I thought my father died owing them money. I've skipped meals. Worked doubles. Sold his truck. Sold my mother's jewelry. Lily has blamed herself for every dollar."
Roman said nothing.
Her eyes filled, but she refused to cry.
"And now you're telling me the debt may not even be real."
"I'm telling you we don't know yet."
"I know enough."
She stood.
Her knees buckled.
Roman caught her.
Claire grabbed his shirt.
For one second they were too close.
She felt the warmth of him.
He felt her trembling.
Neither moved.
Then Claire whispered, "Don't."
Roman released her immediately.
She sat on the bed.
"I'm sorry."
"You didn't do anything."
"I hate needing help."
Roman looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because help always comes with an invoice."
That sentence hit harder than he expected.
Roman pulled the chair close again.
"Mine doesn't."
Claire gave him a tired look.
"Men like you don't do anything for free."
"Men like me?"
"Rich. Powerful. Used to controlling rooms."
"That's a remarkably polite description."
She almost smiled.
It vanished quickly.
Roman leaned forward.
"I didn't notice what was happening in my own house."
"That's not the same as causing it."
"No."
His jaw tightened.
"But it matters."
Claire studied him.
For the first time, she saw something beneath the polished certainty.
Guilt.
Real guilt.
Not the decorative kind wealthy people displayed before writing checks.
"You really didn't know."
"No."
"About Vivian?"
"No."
"About Northstar?"
"I knew the name. Nothing else."
Claire looked down.
"My father knew yours."
"Yes."
"Maybe that's why Vivian was afraid."
Roman's phone rang again.
Dominic.
"I got the bank footage."
"Who opened the box?"
"You're not going to like this."
"Try me."
"I sent the image."
Roman opened it.
A grainy security photograph filled the screen.
An older man stood at a bank counter wearing a baseball cap.
Roman enlarged the image.
Claire leaned closer.
She didn't recognize him.
Roman did.
His stomach dropped.
"Who is he?" Claire asked.
Roman didn't answer immediately.
"Roman."
He turned the phone toward her.
"His name is Vincent Caruso."
"So?"
"He was my father's driver."
Claire waited.
Roman swallowed.
"He died in the same car as my father twelve years ago."
Silence.
Claire stared at the screen.
"Then who's that?"
Roman looked at the timestamp.
Twenty-eight days earlier.
A dead man had walked into a Connecticut bank and opened Thomas Bennett's safe-deposit box.
May you like
And whatever their fathers had buried together was suddenly alive again.
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