Chapter 12
Chloe spent the night reading her mother’s death certificate.
Anna Bennett.
Age thirty-four.
Car accident.
Chloe had been eleven.
Sam had not yet been born.
Different father.
Different tragedy.
Chloe remembered the funeral.
Rain.
A closed coffin.
Her father drinking in the parking lot.
She remembered asking why she could not see her mother one last time.
Her father had said the accident had been too bad.
Closed coffin.
No viewing.
Chloe stared at the document.
Dominic sat across from her.
“Say it.”
She looked at him.
“You’re thinking it.”
Dominic hesitated.
“Your mother may not be dead.”
Chloe laughed.
It sounded almost hysterical.
“Of course.”
She stood.
“Why should anyone in our lives stay dead?”
“Chloe.”
“My mother. Your father. Your uncle. Silvio. Daniel.”
She threw the death certificate onto the table.
“Apparently cemeteries are just storage facilities for lies.”
Dominic stood.
She turned away.
“I buried her.”
“I know.”
“I cried for months.”
Dominic moved closer.
“I know.”
“I raised Sam because Dad fell apart after she died.”
Her voice broke.
“If she was alive…”
Dominic put his arms around her.
For several seconds, Chloe resisted.
Then she collapsed against him.
“If she was alive, she left me.”
Dominic knew that wound.
Better than anyone.
He did not tell her to forgive.
He did not tell her there must have been a reason.
He simply held her.
Eventually Chloe stepped back.
“We verify.”
Dominic nodded.
“No assumptions.”
“No.”
They began with the accident.
Police records showed Anna Bennett’s car had left a mountain road and burned.
Dental identification confirmed the body.
Chloe stared at the report.
“Dental records again.”
Dominic grimaced.
“Apparently our families lacked imagination.”
The dentist was alive.
Dr. Martin Keller.
Retired.
Seventy-eight.
Living two hours away.
They visited him that afternoon.
Keller opened the door wearing slippers and suspicion.
“I don’t discuss former patients.”
Dominic placed the accident report in front of him.
Keller looked at the name.
His face changed.
Chloe saw it.
“You remember.”
“No.”
“You do.”
Keller tried to close the door.
Dominic stopped it with one hand.
“We’re coming inside.”
“Dominic.”
Chloe touched his arm.
Then she looked at Keller.
“I was eleven when my mother died.”
The old dentist stared at her.
“I never saw her body.”
Keller’s shoulders lowered.
Chloe continued.
“I have spent seventeen years believing she died in that car.”
A long silence.
“Please.”
Keller opened the door.
They sat in his living room.
Keller poured himself whiskey despite the early hour.
“I was paid.”
Chloe felt nothing.
Perhaps she had expected it.
“By who?”
“I don’t know.”
“How much?”
“Fifty thousand.”
He stared into the glass.
“A man brought me dental X-rays and told me to confirm they belonged to Anna Bennett.”
“Did they?”
“No.”
Chloe closed her eyes.
Dominic’s hand found hers.
“Was my mother alive?”
“When I signed the papers?”
Keller nodded.
“Yes.”
The room became silent.
Chloe breathed slowly.
“Did you see her?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes opened.
“What?”
“She came to my office the night before.”
Keller looked ashamed.
“She begged me to help.”
“Why?”
“She said men were looking for her.”
“Which men?”
“She never said.”
Keller stood and walked toward an old cabinet.
He removed a small envelope.
“I kept this because I knew one day someone might come.”
Inside was a photograph.
Anna.
Older than Chloe remembered.
Standing beside a bus.
On the back was an address.
Seattle.
And a date.
Sixteen years ago.
Chloe stared.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“I was afraid.”
Dominic looked at him with disgust.
Keller lowered his eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Outside, Chloe stood beside the car.
Dominic waited.
She looked toward the road.
“My mother survived.”
“Yes.”
“She left.”
“Yes.”
The word hurt.
Dominic did not soften it.
Chloe appreciated that.
“Seattle.”
“We can be there tonight.”
She looked at him.
“You’d come?”
Dominic almost seemed offended.
“Where else would I be?”
They flew west.
Paulie remained with Sam and Joseph.
The Seattle address belonged to an old apartment building.
Anna had moved away fourteen years earlier.
But the landlord remembered her.
“Quiet woman,” he said.
“Worked nights at a hospital.”
“Do you know where she went?”
“No.”
He thought.
“Wait.”
He searched through old records.
“Emergency contact.”
Chloe’s heart accelerated.
The contact was a woman named Rebecca Lane.
They found Rebecca outside Tacoma.
She opened the door.
Saw Chloe.
And began crying.
“You look exactly like her.”
Chloe stopped.
“Where is my mother?”
Rebecca covered her mouth.
“Oh God.”
“Please.”
Rebecca let them inside.
Anna had lived under the name Anne Lane.
She worked as a nurse.
She had spent twelve years moving between cities.
Seattle.
Portland.
Boise.
Denver.
Then four years earlier, she had disappeared again.
“Why?” Chloe asked.
Rebecca looked at Dominic.
“Because she saw him.”
“Who?”
“Daniel.”
Chloe felt cold.
Rebecca went to a bookshelf.
She removed a journal.
“Anna left this with me.”
Chloe opened it.
Her mother’s handwriting.
She recognized it instantly.
Pages of fear.
Regret.
Descriptions of Chloe.
I saw her seventh birthday from across the street.
I wanted to run to her.
I couldn’t.
Another page.
Daniel knows she exists.
If he finds her, he’ll use her to rebuild the family.
Another.
Carmine promised he would keep Daniel away.
Chloe stopped.
“Carmine protected us?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Your mother trusted him.”
Everything changed again.
Carmine Varga.
The man who threatened Chloe.
The man whose collector held a knife on her.
The man Dominic killed in a war.
Had Carmine truly wanted the debt?
Or had something else happened?
Chloe continued reading.
The final entry was four years old.
DANIEL FOUND ME.
IF HE FINDS CHLOE, CARMINE KNOWS WHAT TO DO.
DO NOT LET MY DAUGHTER BECOME A VARGA.
Chloe closed the journal.
Dominic was silent.
She looked at him.
“Carmine knew.”
“Yes.”
“He knew who I was.”
“Yes.”
“And he never told me.”
Dominic’s expression darkened.
“We need to find out what he was trying to do.”
They returned to Chicago.
Paulie had already begun searching Varga’s remaining properties.
One location remained untouched after the war.
Carmine’s private house.
Dominic had never bothered seizing it.
At 2:00 a.m., they entered.
Dust covered everything.
Chloe searched Carmine’s office.
Nothing.
Then Dominic noticed the floor.
One board had been replaced.
Beneath it was a safe.
Inside were documents.
Photographs.
And a letter.
CHLOE BENNETT.
Her name.
Her hands shook.
She opened it.
Chloe,
If you are reading this, then either I failed or Dominic Rossi finally became useful.
She almost laughed.
The letter continued.
Your mother was my niece.
Your grandfather Daniel is the worst man I have ever known.
Worse than Silvio.
Worse than me.
He believes blood is property.
Anna ran because she refused to let him turn you into another piece of the Varga organization.
Your father owed me money, yes.
But not forty thousand.
Four thousand.
I inflated the debt because Daniel’s people were watching.
I needed an excuse to keep men near you.
I needed you frightened enough to move somewhere I could protect you.
I did not expect Rossi.
Chloe stopped.
Dominic read over her shoulder.
The next lines were worse.
When Rossi bought the debt, I should have told him the truth.
Pride stopped me.
Then war started.
By the time I understood he would burn the city to protect you, it was too late.
If I die, know this:
Your mother is alive.
Daniel has her.
Chloe dropped the letter.
Dominic caught it.
Her knees weakened.
“My mother.”
Dominic grabbed her.
“She’s alive.”
Chloe looked at him.
The final line of Carmine’s letter contained an address.
Not Chicago.
Not Seattle.
A private estate in Montana.
And beneath it:
IF DANIEL STILL HAS HER, THIS IS WHERE HE WILL KEEP HER.
Chloe stared at the address.
For seventeen years she had believed her mother was dead.
For six months she had believed Carmine Varga was simply the monster who inherited her father’s gambling debt.
Now she understood.
The alley had never been the beginning.
It had been the collision point of two families whose secrets had been moving toward each other for decades.
Dominic took her hand.
“When do we leave?”
Chloe looked at him.
May you like
There was no fear left in her face.
“Now.”
