Chapter 11 - Clare’s Secret
“I knew my father worked for the Vales.”
Clare’s voice shook.
Dominic said nothing.
Vincent stared at her.
“You told us you didn’t.”
“I said he never told me.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“I found out after he died.”
Clare sat down.
Ellie was upstairs with two guards.
This conversation stayed below.
“I found a box in his garage,” Clare continued. “Old employee badges. Pay stubs. A newspaper clipping about Nicholas Vale’s murder.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“My brother.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“There was a note.”
Clare looked at him.
“My father wrote: If anything happens to me, someone at the Vale house knows why.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“So you took a job here.”
“I wanted answers.”
Dominic felt betrayal, but not the kind Arthur would have felt.
Clare had lied.
But she had also spent fourteen months folding sheets and cleaning rooms in a house connected to her family’s buried history.
“What did you find?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Until tonight.”
She looked toward Ellie’s abandoned latch toy.
“Then my daughter touched a buckle.”
Dominic almost laughed at the cruel absurdity.
A thirty-year conspiracy uncovered by a child who liked mechanisms.
Clare took a folded paper from her pocket.
“I found this six months ago.”
Dominic read it.
A maintenance access code.
The code for the hidden basement security room.
Vincent stared.
“You knew about that room?”
“No. I thought it was an old alarm code.”
“Why hide it?”
“Because I was afraid.”
Clare looked at Dominic.
“Of you.”
That landed harder than he expected.
“You thought I killed your father?”
“I didn’t know what to think.”
Dominic handed back the paper.
“Fair.”
Vincent looked at him.
“Fair?”
Dominic ignored him.
“What did Daniel die from?”
“Heart attack.”
“When?”
“Four years ago.”
Mercer, still holding ice against his face, looked up.
“Was there an autopsy?”
Clare shook her head.
Dominic closed his eyes briefly.
Another convenient death.
Another unanswered question.
Arthur’s life was still hanging in the balance.
Dominic looked at Clare.
“Lydia asked for you.”
“I know.”
“You’re not going.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No.”
“She’s using Arthur because she knows you care whether people die.”
Dominic stared at her.
“Don’t mistake that for permission.”
Clare stepped closer.
“She’s connected to Rafael. Rafael is my brother. She might talk to me.”
“She might shoot you.”
“Then stand close.”
Vincent almost smiled.
Dominic did not.
Twenty minutes later, they approached Arthur’s Gold Coast townhouse.
Clare wore a wire.
Dominic hated every part of it.
“You stay behind me.”
Clare looked at his cane.
“With respect, you’re not exactly built for tackling anyone tonight.”
Vincent muttered, “I like her.”
Dominic gave him a look.
They entered.
Arthur sat at the dining table.
Hands free.
No visible injuries.
Lydia stood by the windows.
No weapon in sight.
She looked younger than Dominic expected.
Thirty.
Beautiful.
Calm.
Dangerous because she didn’t look dangerous.
“Clare.”
Clare stared at her.
“You threatened my daughter.”
Lydia’s eyes softened slightly.
“That wasn’t me.”
“Your video said it.”
“Rafael wrote the message.”
“So you’re saying he threatened a four-year-old?”
“I’m saying Rafael is becoming someone Michael would hate.”
Clare’s jaw tightened.
“Where is he?”
“Halsted.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“Why blackmail Arthur?”
Lydia looked at her father.
“Because he wouldn’t help us.”
Arthur laughed bitterly.
“You never asked.”
“I asked you to investigate Leonard Vale.”
“You told me you were writing a family-history article.”
“You would’ve shut me down if you knew.”
“You used me.”
Lydia’s face finally cracked.
“You spent my whole life serving this family.”
Arthur stood.
“I served Dominic.”
“You served Leonard first.”
Arthur’s eyes changed.
Shame.
Dominic noticed.
“What did you do for my father?”
Arthur looked away.
“Arthur.”
Lydia answered for him.
“He drove the truck.”
Clare went still.
“What truck?”
“The cement truck.”
Arthur closed his eyes.
Clare stopped breathing.
Lydia continued.
“The night Michael Rowan disappeared.”
Clare lunged.
Dominic caught her.
“You buried my father!”
Arthur backed against the table.
“I didn’t know he was alive.”
“You poured concrete on him!”
“I was twenty-nine!”
Clare screamed.
“That doesn’t make him less dead!”
Arthur’s face collapsed.
“Leonard told me Michael was already dead.”
Lydia laughed bitterly.
“And you believed him.”
“I chose to.”
Silence.
Arthur whispered, “That’s worse.”
Clare was crying now.
Dominic held her shoulders.
Arthur looked at her.
“I am sorry.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying it!”
She shoved Dominic away and walked toward Arthur.
“You knew where he was.”
“Yes.”
“All these years.”
“Yes.”
“And you sat in that house. Ate dinner. Drank whiskey. Watched Dominic run the company built over my father’s grave.”
Arthur couldn’t look at her.
“Yes.”
Clare slapped him.
Arthur accepted it.
Then Lydia’s phone rang.
She answered.
Her expression changed.
“Rafael?”
A pause.
Then fear.
Real fear.
“No. Don’t do that.”
Dominic took a step closer.
“What?”
Lydia looked at him.
“Rafael rigged the Halsted site.”
“With what?”
“Explosives.”
Arthur stared.
“Why?”
Lydia’s face drained.
“He thinks if the city won’t dig up the truth…”
May you like
She swallowed.
“…he’ll blow the whole foundation open during tomorrow’s ceremony.”
