Chapter 13 - Clara Was Never Hired by Accident
The photograph was impossible.
Clara stood beside Elena outside St. Anne's Medical Center.
Three years earlier.
Same dark hair.
Same face.
Elena's hand rested on Clara's shoulder.
Both women appeared to be laughing.
When Clara saw it, she denied remembering the moment.
“I've never met her.”
Dominic believed she believed that.
So did I.
That raised a worse question.
Why didn't she remember?
The answer came from Rebecca.
Three years earlier, during the first months of Rebecca's illness, Clara had suffered a car accident.
Minor injuries.
Concussion.
Two days of memory loss surrounding the event.
Samuel had been with her at St. Anne's.
Elena had visited him there.
Clara apparently met her then.
A tiny event erased by trauma.
What had Elena learned?
Rebecca remembered a fragment.
“She asked Dad if Clara was trustworthy.”
“When?”
“The day before Clara's accident.”
Clara stared at her sister.
“Why would Elena ask that?”
Rebecca shook her head.
“I don't know.”
Then she remembered something else.
“Dad said, ‘She's stubborn enough.’”
Clara almost laughed.
“That sounds like him.”
I understood.
Elena had chosen Clara years earlier.
Not for medical credentials.
Not because they were friends.
Because Clara had taken care of Rebecca through an impossible illness without abandoning her.
Elena had witnessed something.
Strength.
Loyalty.
The refusal to infantilize someone suffering.
Exactly what Matteo needed.
But why would Elena predict he would need a caretaker?
Because she knew danger was closing in.
Maybe she suspected an attack could injure him.
The thought made me sick.
Clara returned two days later.
No Elena.
But proof she had been alive within the last seventy-two hours.
Hair strands.
Fingerprints.
A torn piece of her old wedding dress fabric.
Someone wanted us to know.
Maybe Elena herself.
Maybe her captors.
Matteo handled the news better than I did.
“She's alive.”
“We think so.”
“Then we'll find her.”
Simple certainty.
I wished I still possessed it.
That night, Clara sat in Matteo's room.
I stood outside listening.
“Were you scared when your sister was sick?” Matteo asked.
“All the time.”
“Did you tell her?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I thought being strong meant hiding it.”
“Was that dumb?”
Clara smiled.
“Extremely.”
Matteo considered.
“Dad does that.”
“Your dad is very talented at it.”
I walked in.
“I'm standing right here.”
Matteo smiled.
“Good.”
That word mattered.
Good.
He wanted me there.
Later, Clara and I stood on the balcony.
“You should sleep,” she said.
“So should you.”
“I don't own a mansion full of beds.”
“You have a room.”
“Technically your employee has a room.”
“Do you want to stop being my employee?”
She looked at me carefully.
“Meaning?”
I realized how the sentence sounded.
“I mean stay until this is finished. Regardless of agency contract.”
“I was planning to.”
“For Matteo?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“And maybe because I want answers.”
“About your father.”
“Yes.”
We stood quietly.
Then Clara said, “What happens if Elena comes home?”
I looked toward the dark ocean.
“I don't know.”
“You've imagined it.”
“A thousand times since the call.”
“What do you imagine?”
“I walk toward her.”
“And?”
“I don't know whether she hugs me or slaps me.”
Clara smiled faintly.
“Both seems possible.”
“Elena was efficient.”
We laughed quietly.
It felt wrong.
Then it felt necessary.
At midnight, Dominic arrived with news.
Anthony Bell had been found.
Alive.
He had turned himself in to federal authorities.
He was requesting protective custody.
In exchange, he offered information about Argent Wing.
And Elena.
He agreed to speak to me under one condition.
No weapons.
No guards in the room.
I accepted.
Anthony looked twenty years older.
“You heard from Elena,” he said.
Not a question.
“Where is she?”
“I don't know now.”
“Now?”
“I helped move her.”
I stood.
He flinched.
“You kept my wife prisoner?”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
“She wasn't a prisoner at first.”
My blood went cold.
“At first?”
Anthony looked at me.
“Elena survived the bombing.”
“I know.”
“Marcus Vale declared her dead because she asked him to.”
The room stopped.
“What?”
“She wanted the world to think she was gone.”
“Why?”
“To protect Matteo.”
“From me?”
Anthony lowered his eyes.
“From Shepherd.”
“Who is Shepherd?”
He stared at the table.
Then said:
“Vincent, Shepherd isn't one person.”
“What does that mean?”
“It is a position.”
“Who holds it now?”
Anthony looked up.
“You're not going to believe me.”
“Try.”
“The current Shepherd is someone Elena trusted more than anyone except you.”
My chest tightened.
Anthony said the name.
May you like
And for several seconds, I genuinely could not understand the words.
“Dominic Marino.”
