Chapter 2 - The House Above the Frozen Lake
By noon, Damian Caruso's photograph was on television.
Claire stood barefoot in the cedar house, wrapped in a sweater Mason had bought from a nearby town, watching a Chicago news anchor explain that police were "seeking information" regarding her disappearance.
A photograph from Claire's wedding appeared next.
She barely recognized the woman smiling beside Evan.
Then Evan himself appeared outside their Lincoln Park townhouse.
He wore no tie.
His hair was deliberately imperfect.
His face showed exactly the amount of exhaustion a worried husband should show.
Claire knew because she had watched him practice sincerity for five years.
"My wife has been struggling privately," Evan told reporters. "I didn't want to disclose that because I love her."
Claire's fingers tightened around the mug.
Evan continued.
"Recently she became convinced that people were conspiring against her. She mentioned Mr. Caruso several times."
Claire stared at the screen.
"I never mentioned Damian."
"I know," Mason said.
Evan looked into the camera.
"If Claire sees this, sweetheart, please come home. Nobody is angry with you."
Claire switched the television off.
Silence filled the room.
Then she threw the mug.
It struck the stone fireplace and broke.
Mason raised his eyebrows.
"Feel better?"
"No."
"Good answer."
Claire turned on Damian.
"You knew this could happen."
"I knew Evan would react. I didn't know he'd use my name."
"Why yours?"
Damian said nothing.
That worried her more.
"Why yours?"
Mason shifted near the kitchen.
Damian glanced at him.
"Tell her," Mason said.
Damian looked back at Claire.
"Evan has been researching my company."
"For what?"
"The warehouse."
Claire frowned.
Damian walked to a cabinet and removed a document.
"Two months ago, somebody accessed old property records connected to several Caruso holdings."
"Evan?"
"We don't know."
"But you think so."
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because the warehouse where we found you wasn't random."
Damian placed the document down.
It was a map.
Several properties had been circled.
Claire recognized the warehouse near the river.
"That building has been inactive for nine years," Damian said. "But twenty years ago, it was attached to a shipping investigation involving my father."
Claire understood immediately.
"If police found me there..."
"People would assume Caruso involvement."
"Evan picked it because of your family."
"Probably."
She sank into a chair.
It was bigger than she thought.
Evan had not acted out of panic.
He had researched.
Planned.
Constructed every detail.
A broken wife.
A frightened husband.
A notorious businessman.
A convenient abandoned property.
Claire whispered, "How long has he been planning this?"
Damian did not answer.
Mason did.
"Longer than you've known."
Claire looked at him.
"What?"
Mason hesitated.
Damian's jaw tightened.
But Claire was done with men deciding what information she could handle.
"Tell me."
Mason rubbed his forehead.
"Your father's death."
The room changed.
Daniel Whitaker had died eighteen months earlier.
Officially, a heart attack.
Sudden but not suspicious.
He was sixty-eight.
He worked too much.
Doctors had warned him about hypertension.
Claire had accepted it because everybody else had.
"What about my father?"
Mason looked at Damian.
Damian finally spoke.
"Daniel Whitaker contacted me six weeks before he died."
Claire stopped breathing.
"What?"
"He requested a private meeting."
"Why?"
"He didn't say."
"Did you meet him?"
Damian's eyes moved toward the frozen lake.
"No."
The words hit Claire strangely.
Then she remembered what he had said in the car.
Somebody once called him for help.
And he had been too busy.
"My father?"
Damian said nothing.
Claire stood.
"It was my father?"
"Yes."
The room seemed to tilt.
"What did he want?"
"I don't know."
"You never called him back?"
"I intended to."
"That isn't what I asked."
"No."
Claire stared at him.
Anger came before grief.
"You knew who I was in the warehouse."
"Yes."
"That's why Mason reacted."
"Yes."
"And you didn't tell me."
"You were hypothermic and terrified."
"Stop deciding what I can handle!"
The words echoed through the house.
Damian accepted them without flinching.
Claire's eyes filled.
"My father called you."
"Yes."
"And six weeks later he died."
"Yes."
She looked toward the door.
For one irrational second she wanted to walk into the snow and never see Damian Caruso again.
But she had nowhere to go.
Evan controlled her house.
Her phone.
Their joint accounts.
Possibly her company.
And now the public thought Damian had kidnapped her.
Claire folded her arms.
"What did my father say?"
Damian thought.
"He said, 'Mr. Caruso, I think someone inside my company is building a cage around my daughter.'"
Claire covered her mouth.
The tears came before she could stop them.
Damian continued quietly.
"He said he needed somebody who wasn't afraid of the board."
"Why you?"
"My father and yours had history."
"What kind?"
"Not friendly history."
Claire gave a humorless laugh.
"Of course."
"But Daniel trusted one thing about me."
"What?"
"That I had no reason to protect his directors."
Claire wiped her face.
"What happened to the message?"
"I kept it."
Her eyes snapped up.
"You still have it?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
Damian looked at her.
"Because when I heard Daniel Whitaker died, I listened to it eleven times."
For the first time, Claire saw something beneath Damian's controlled exterior.
Guilt.
Not theatrical guilt.
The kind that had lived there so long it had become architecture.
He had built walls around it.
But it remained.
Claire's anger did not disappear.
Yet it shifted.
"Let me hear it."
Damian hesitated.
"Please."
He retrieved his phone.
The recording was old.
Daniel's voice sounded tired.
But it was unmistakably her father's.
"Mr. Caruso, this is Daniel Whitaker. We have never had reason to trust one another, but I find myself needing a man who does not care whether my board approves of him."
Claire closed her eyes.
Her father's voice continued.
"I believe someone inside Whitaker Consolidated is manipulating Claire's future. If anything happens to me, do not trust the first story you hear."
The recording ended.
Claire stood completely still.
Mason looked away.
Damian lowered the phone.
Claire whispered, "Play it again."
He did.
The second time, she heard something she had missed.
Background noise.
A bell.
Then another sound.
A station announcement.
Claire opened her eyes.
"He wasn't at the office."
Damian frowned.
"What?"
"The background."
She took the phone.
"Play it."
They listened.
Claire knew that sound.
Her father had taken the train north every Wednesday to visit one of Whitaker Consolidated's distribution sites.
"He recorded this at Union Station."
Mason looked interested.
"Meaning?"
"Meaning he was going somewhere."
"Which facility?"
Claire looked at the date of the message.
Then she froze.
"I know."
Damian watched her.
"Where?"
"Milwaukee."
That afternoon, Mason began digging through old travel logs while Damian's attorney prepared statements.
Claire wanted to return to Chicago immediately.
Damian refused.
"You walk into a police station right now, Evan controls the story."
"I'm the missing person."
"Exactly."
"I can tell them what happened."
"You can."
"And?"
"Then Dr. Vale walks in with months of notes describing paranoia."
Claire hated that he was right.
Damian continued.
"Leonard Shaw confirms Evan's concerns. Two directors say you've been behaving strangely. Evan cries on television."
"So I hide?"
"No."
Damian moved closer.
"You collect enough truth that nobody can put you back in that cage."
For the next eight hours, Claire reconstructed six months of her life.
Every doctor's appointment.
Every argument.
Every time Evan encouraged her to drink a glass of wine before a company dinner.
Every morning she woke groggy.
Every time she found documents moved.
Every time he told her she had forgotten something.
Then she remembered the vitamins.
Small white capsules Evan began placing beside her breakfast four months earlier.
"Stress supplements," he'd called them.
Mason found the prescription records by evening.
There was no prescription in Claire's name.
But there was one in Evan's.
A sedative.
Damian stared at the screen.
"He was drugging you."
Claire's stomach turned.
"We don't know that."
"No," Mason said. "But I know where we can find out."
Her hairbrush.
Her bathroom cabinet.
A water bottle from her office.
But everything was in Chicago.
Inside Evan's reach.
Claire walked toward the window.
Snow was beginning again.
"There's another place."
Damian looked up.
"My office."
"What about it?"
"My father built a hidden filing cabinet behind the lower bookshelf."
Mason blinked.
"Why?"
"He didn't trust computers."
"What's inside?"
"I don't know. After he died, I couldn't open it."
"Who can?"
Claire looked at them.
"Me."
Damian shook his head immediately.
"No."
"If my father knew something, that's where he put it."
"Evan will have your office watched."
"Then don't take me through the front door."
Mason smiled despite himself.
"She's learning."
Damian ignored him.
"Absolutely not."
Claire stepped closer.
"My birthday is eight days away."
"I know."
"Every day we wait gives Evan another day to build his story."
"I know."
"And my father contacted you because he believed somebody was building a cage around me."
Damian's expression hardened.
Claire lowered her voice.
"You didn't answer him."
Silence.
It was unfair.
Claire knew it the instant she said it.
But it worked.
Damian looked toward the fire.
Then back.
"When?"
"Tonight."
"No."
"Tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow night."
Claire nodded.
Mason groaned.
"I hate both of you."
Later, after Mason went upstairs, Claire remained by the fireplace.
Damian was checking messages when she spoke.
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"Using my father against you."
"You weren't wrong."
"That doesn't make it fair."
Damian put the phone down.
"Fair disappeared somewhere around the handcuffs."
Claire almost smiled.
Then her expression became serious.
"What happened to the person who called you before?"
"My father?"
"No."
"The reason you care."
Damian stared into the flames.
Claire waited.
Finally he said, "My younger sister."
Claire said nothing.
"Elena called me one night twelve years ago."
"What did she need?"
"She said she was scared."
Damian's face became unreadable.
"I was in a meeting."
Claire felt cold despite the fire.
"I told her I'd call back."
"Did you?"
"Forty-three minutes later."
"What happened?"
Damian stood.
"Get some sleep."
"Damian."
"Tomorrow will be difficult."
He walked away.
Claire watched him disappear into the hallway.
The answer had been no answer.
Which meant the truth was probably worse.
At 1:13 a.m., Mason's laptop chimed.
Claire looked toward the kitchen.
Mason had left it open.
A message appeared.
ARCHIVE SEARCH COMPLETE.
Claire knew she should wake him.
Instead, she clicked.
The file concerned her father's Milwaukee trip.
Daniel Whitaker had entered the distribution facility at 11:04 a.m.
He left at 1:16 p.m.
But he had not been alone.
A visitor had signed in forty minutes before him.
Dr. Malcolm Vale.
The same psychiatrist Evan planned to bring to the warehouse at dawn.
Claire stared at the screen.
Then she saw the next line.
Dr. Vale had listed the purpose of his visit.
PRIVATE CONSULTATION — D. WHITAKER.
Her hands began trembling.
Her father had met Evan's psychiatrist before he died.
And suddenly Claire realized something terrifying.
Maybe Dr. Vale had not entered her life because she was supposedly unstable.
May you like
Maybe he had entered her life because Daniel Whitaker had discovered who he really was.
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