Chapter 12 - The Memory They Buried
Helena survived.
The bullet passed through her shoulder.
Roman moved her to a private clinic under armed guard.
Then he confronted Claire.
He did not warn her.
He placed the photograph of teenage Claire and Victor on the kitchen table.
Claire stared at it.
Her face changed.
Roman sat opposite her.
“Tell me your real name.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Catherine Shaw.”
Nora stood near the doorway.
Sophie was asleep upstairs.
Roman had waited until she was safe before beginning.
“Victor is your brother.”
“Half brother.”
“Did you marry me because he ordered you to?”
Claire looked at him.
“At first.”
Roman absorbed the words.
“Did you ever love me?”
“Yes.”
“Wrong answer.”
“It’s the truth.”
“I don’t know what that word means when you say it anymore.”
Claire began crying.
Roman felt nothing.
Or too much.
“Did you help fake Sophie’s death?”
“Yes.”
“Did you help fake your own?”
“Yes.”
“Did you talk to Victor afterward?”
“Yes.”
“Did you run the Circle?”
“No.”
“Helena has a recording.”
“I know.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“You know?”
“Because I made it.”
He stared.
“What?”
“The conversation was staged.”
“For whom?”
“Your mother.”
Roman almost laughed.
“Of course.”
“I needed Helena to believe I was still working with Victor.”
“Why?”
“Because Helena still had contacts inside the Circle.”
Roman leaned back.
“So every person was spying on every other person.”
“Yes.”
“And I was the only idiot who knew nothing.”
“You were the one person Arthur wanted outside it.”
“He did an incredible job.”
Claire flinched.
Roman slid the black-and-white photograph across the table.
“Why does Victor want Sophie’s memory?”
Claire went still.
“How do you know that?”
“My mother.”
Claire stood.
“Where is Helena?”
“Alive.”
Relief crossed her face.
Roman noticed.
“Why does Sophie’s memory matter?”
Claire sat again.
“When Sophie was an infant, Arthur recorded something in front of her.”
Roman frowned.
“She was a baby.”
“Eighteen months.”
“Sophie disappeared before she was one.”
Claire shook her head.
“That was the first disappearance.”
Roman stared.
“What?”
“She came back.”
Roman’s face went blank.
Claire’s voice dropped.
“For three days.”
Roman stood.
“I would remember my daughter returning.”
“You didn’t see her.”
“Where was she?”
“With Arthur.”
“But Arthur was dead.”
“No.”
Roman stepped back.
Everything rearranged again.
“His death was staged before Sophie disappeared?”
“Yes.”
Roman remembered the body.
The hospital.
“He had a condition that slowed his heart.”
“Dr. Hill helped.”
Roman stared.
“You all staged my father’s death.”
“Arthur believed the only way to expose the Circle was to disappear.”
Roman pressed his palms against the table.
“Continue.”
“Months later, after Sophie’s supposed death, Helena secretly took her to Arthur.”
“For what?”
“Protection.”
“And?”
“Victor found them.”
Roman’s breathing slowed.
“What happened?”
“Arthur confronted Victor.”
“He recorded the confrontation.”
“Sophie was in the room.”
Roman frowned.
“She was a toddler.”
“She may still remember pieces.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
Claire leaned forward.
“Victor believes she saw where Arthur hid the master ledger.”
“The ledger I found is not the master?”
“No.”
Roman sat slowly.
“What does the master contain?”
“Everything.”
“Names.”
“Payments.”
“Murders.”
“Foreign accounts.”
“Judges.”
“Officials.”
“Enough to destroy everyone.”
“And Sophie knows where it is?”
Claire shook her head.
“She doesn’t consciously.”
“But Arthur used a memory game with her.”
Roman stared.
“What game?”
“Colors.”
“Objects.”
“A song.”
“He made hiding things into a game so she wouldn’t be frightened.”
Roman thought of the music box.
The wooden horse.
Numbers.
417.
Arthur had turned a criminal investigation into a child’s scavenger hunt.
“Why does her birthday matter?”
“Because Arthur designed the last clue around her ninth birthday.”
Roman stared.
“How?”
Claire whispered.
“I don’t know.”
Roman looked toward the stairs.
Sophie had spent her life thinking adults were lying.
Now her childhood memories could expose a criminal network.
Nora stepped forward.
“She draws the same picture.”
Roman looked at her.
“What picture?”
“For years.”
Nora went upstairs.
She returned with a folder of Sophie’s drawings.
One image repeated dozens of times.
A red door.
Three trees.
A black bird.
A white circle in the sky.
And beneath everything, four numbers.
0314.
Roman stared.
“What is that?”
Claire whispered.
“March fourteenth.”
“What happened March fourteenth?”
Claire looked up.
“Arthur died.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“His fake death.”
“Yes.”
Roman studied the drawing.
Three trees.
Red door.
Black bird.
White moon.
Maybe not a dream.
Maybe a map.
Sophie appeared at the top of the stairs.
She had been listening.
Roman cursed himself.
She walked down slowly.
“Grandpa called it the moon house.”
Claire’s face changed.
“What?”
Sophie pointed at the drawing.
“The place with the red door.”
Roman moved closer.
“You remember being there?”
“A little.”
“With Grandpa?”
She nodded.
“And Uncle Victor.”
Claire’s face drained.
“What happened?”
Sophie closed her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
Roman knelt.
“You don’t have to force it.”
Sophie whispered.
“There was a song.”
“What song?”
She hummed four notes.
Claire covered her mouth.
Roman looked at her.
“What?”
“That was Arthur’s clock.”
“What clock?”
“The grandfather clock in the original Vale farmhouse.”
Roman stared.
The Vale farmhouse had been abandoned for thirty years.
It stood on hundreds of acres in northern Vermont.
Three trees.
Red door.
Moon house.
Roman stood.
“We’re going to Vermont.”
Sophie grabbed his hand.
“No.”
He looked down.
Her face had turned white.
“What?”
She whispered.
May you like
“That’s where Grandpa buried the man.”
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