Chapter 6 - THE MAN STANDING BESIDE CALEB
Caleb did not draw his gun.
That surprised Jonah.
It surprised Mara too.
“Talk.”
Jonah looked at the photograph.
Then Eddie.
“Oben misunderstood.”
Mara stood.
“My husband named you.”
“He named me because I moved the body.”
Silence.
Caleb’s jaw tightened.
“You put the body in Oben’s truck.”
“Yes.”
Mara’s face went white.
“Whose body?”
“Martin Sloan’s first attempt.”
Jonah closed his eyes.
“A man named Peter Voss.”
Caleb knew the name.
A bookkeeper who disappeared around the same time.
“What happened?”
“Voss worked for Sloan. Sloan killed him when Voss wanted out.”
“And you found the body.”
“Yes.”
“Then put it in Oben’s truck?”
Jonah looked sick.
“Rose ordered me to.”
Rose stared at him.
“No.”
Everyone turned.
Jonah looked at her.
“You told me Oben needed to disappear permanently.”
“I told you Sloan needed to believe Oben was dead.”
Caleb stepped closer.
“Clarify that very carefully.”
Rose said:
“Voss was already dead. I arranged dental records under Oben’s identity.”
Mara whispered:
“You faked my husband’s death.”
“Yes.”
“You let me bury another man.”
Rose’s eyes lowered.
“Yes.”
Mara looked nauseated.
“Why?”
“To make Sloan stop hunting Oben.”
“Did Oben agree?”
Rose hesitated.
Mara laughed bitterly.
“Of course not.”
Jonah continued:
“I drove the truck.”
Caleb stared.
“You caused the crash.”
“I staged it.”
“And told me it was an accident.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Rose said Sloan had compromised someone close to you.”
“There it is again.”
Caleb looked between them.
“Everyone deciding I can’t handle information.”
Jonah nodded.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
Just yes.
Mara looked at Jonah.
“Did Oben know?”
“Afterward.”
“You saw him?”
Jonah nodded.
“The night of the crash.”
Her breath caught.
“He was alive.”
“Yes.”
“Did he ask about us?”
“The first thing.”
Mara closed her eyes.
“What did you tell him?”
“That you and Elsie were safe.”
“You knew where he went?”
“At first.”
“Where?”
“Rose’s cabin in Wisconsin.”
Rose said:
“For six weeks.”
“And then?”
“He disappeared.”
Mara looked at Jonah.
“You helped hide him from me.”
“Yes.”
“Why did he think you betrayed him?”
“Because he later discovered I moved Voss’s body.”
“But why tell Eddie you were the man responsible?”
Jonah looked at Caleb.
“Because two months ago, I met Sloan.”
Caleb’s face hardened.
“You what?”
“Oben saw us.”
“Why meet him?”
“He contacted me.”
“About?”
“Rose.”
Rose’s expression changed.
Jonah continued:
“Sloan claimed Rose had been using both of us for years.”
“True,” Mara said.
Rose almost smiled.
Jonah continued:
“He offered proof in exchange for immunity.”
“You don’t give immunity.”
“No.”
“I was gathering information.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
Caleb laughed bitterly.
“At least everybody is consistent.”
Eddie interrupted:
“Oben didn’t trust Jonah after that.”
Mara asked:
“Where is the Gary restaurant?”
Caleb looked at her.
“We go.”
Nobody argued.
Not even Jonah.
Especially Jonah.
The abandoned Bassaro stood near the industrial edge of Gary.
Old red brick.
Boarded front windows.
Caleb remembered visiting once as a teenager.
His father used the upstairs dining room for meetings with Chicago and Indiana crews.
Closed after an FBI raid.
Supposedly empty ever since.
The rear door had a new lock.
Oben’s watch ticked when Elsie held it near the frame.
Elsie had insisted on coming to Indiana.
Mara had refused.
That argument Mara won.
Elsie stayed in Chicago with Eddie’s wife and two guards Mara selected herself.
Caleb respected that.
The watch led them to a transmitter hidden above the door.
Jonah disabled it.
Inside:
Dust in public rooms.
Fresh footprints in kitchen.
Food containers.
A cot.
Medical supplies.
Mara found Oben’s jacket first.
Brown canvas.
Patch at one elbow.
She pressed it to her face.
“His.”
Caleb looked away.
Then a sound upstairs.
Three knocks.
Mara froze.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
She ran.
“MARA!”
Caleb followed.
Second floor.
Locked office.
Three knocks again.
Mara reached it.
“Oben?”
Silence.
Then:
“Mara?”
Her body stopped.
Caleb had never seen a person break and heal in the same second.
She touched the door.
“Oben.”
His voice came again.
Older.
Weak.
“Oh, God.”
Jonah broke the lock.
The door opened.
Oben Ward stood behind it.
Alive.
Thin.
Bearded.
One arm in a makeshift sling.
Mara stared.
For a moment neither moved.
Then Oben whispered:
“You got my watch.”
Mara slapped him.
Caleb blinked.
Jonah looked away.
Oben absorbed it.
“I deserve that.”
Mara slapped his chest again.
Not hard.
Then grabbed his shirt and pulled him toward her.
“Eleven months.”
“I know.”
“Eleven months.”
“I know.”
“You let our daughter think you were dead.”
“I know.”
“You let me bury a stranger.”
“I didn’t know Rose would do that.”
Mara was sobbing now.
“So come home.”
Oben’s face collapsed.
“I couldn’t.”
“You could have called.”
“They watched you.”
“You could have called once.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Three times.”
Mara froze.
“I never got calls.”
Oben looked toward Caleb.
Caleb’s blood chilled.
“My estate?”
Oben nodded.
“Calls routed through Bass systems.”
Jonah checked.
“If someone intercepted them…”
Rose.
Sloan.
Someone else.
Mara looked back at Oben.
Then hugged him.
Hard.
Oben wrapped his good arm around her.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Caleb stepped into the hallway.
This reunion did not belong to him.
Jonah followed.
“You okay?”
Caleb looked through the doorway at Mara holding her husband.
“What answer are you hoping for?”
“None.”
Good.
Caleb leaned against the wall.
He had noticed Mara.
Too much, perhaps.
Her kindness.
Her stubbornness.
The way she filled a room once she stopped trying to make herself smaller.
Somewhere in those six months, interest had become something he never allowed himself to name because she worked for him.
Then he discovered he had hired her under false pretenses.
Now her husband was alive.
Relief should have been uncomplicated.
It wasn’t.
Caleb hated that about himself.
Inside, Oben sat at a table drinking water.
Mara refused to release his hand.
Caleb entered only when Oben called his name.
“Mr. Bass.”
“Oben.”
First time face-to-face.
Eleven months late.
Oben stared.
“You finally listened to the clocks.”
Caleb accepted the hit.
“Yes.”
“You fired me.”
“Yes.”
“You believed Sloan.”
“Yes.”
“You watched my wife.”
Mara looked toward Caleb.
He did not look away.
“Yes.”
Oben nodded.
“At least you’re consistent now.”
Caleb almost smiled.
“Apparently.”
“What did you find?”
Caleb explained Rose.
Victor.
Sloan.
Accounts.
Oben listened.
Then shook his head.
“No.”
“What?”
“Sloan didn’t create the C.BASS accounts.”
“Who did?”
Oben looked at Jonah.
Then Rose, who had entered under guard.
Finally Caleb.
“Your father.”
Caleb stared.
“My father is dead.”
“His account architecture isn’t.”
“What was it for?”
Oben leaned forward.
“Paying informants.”
“Under my identity?”
“Before you took over.”
Caleb felt cold.
“My father was setting me up.”
“No.”
Oben shook his head.
“He was building an escape.”
Silence.
“Escape from what?”
“Rose.”
Everyone looked at her.
Rose’s face changed.
Oben continued:
“Your father discovered what she did to Victor.”
Caleb stared.
“He knew?”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“He began moving money under your name because he thought she wouldn’t touch accounts she believed belonged to you.”
Rose whispered:
“That idiot.”
There.
Confirmation.
Caleb turned.
“You knew about the accounts.”
“I suspected.”
“You said Sloan created them.”
“I was wrong.”
“Or lying.”
Rose did not answer.
Oben continued:
“Your father was going to remove Rose from the family.”
Caleb’s pulse slowed.
“How?”
“Expose the medication tampering.”
“Then he died.”
Oben nodded.
Caleb’s father had supposedly died from a stroke eleven years earlier.
Same family tendency toward convenient medical events.
“Rose.”
She looked at him.
“Did you kill my father?”
For the first time, the woman who raised him looked afraid.
“No.”
Caleb believed that answer less than he wanted to.
Oben said:
“I know who did.”
Everyone turned.
“Who?”
Oben looked at Jonah.
Jonah’s face tightened.
Again.
Mara whispered:
“Please tell me this story has one man who is what he says he is.”
Oben almost smiled.
“It does.”
He pointed toward Jonah.
“Him.”
Everyone froze.
Jonah frowned.
“What?”
“You didn’t kill Arthur Bass.”
“No.”
Oben nodded.
“I know.”
Caleb’s patience snapped.
“Then stop circling it.”
Oben looked directly at him.
“Victor killed your father.”
Silence.
Caleb stared.
“My uncle.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Arthur was going to expose Rose.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if Victor loved her.”
Rose closed her eyes.
Caleb looked between them.
“Victor and Rose?”
Rose whispered:
“For thirty years.”
Caleb felt physically sick.
Sibling politics.
Family power.
Love affairs.
Poisoning.
Everything tangled.
Oben continued:
“Victor protected Rose. Rose later poisoned Victor when he decided to confess.”
Caleb laughed bitterly.
“You people have an interesting definition of love.”
Rose looked down.
Oben said:
“And now Victor wants the watch because it has the only recording of Arthur confronting him.”
Mara looked at Elsie’s watch.
“Another recording?”
Oben nodded.
“I hid the file behind the pulse board.”
Jonah opened the watch again.
Second microchip.
Audio.
Arthur Bass’s voice.
Caleb’s father.
Victor.
Rose.
An argument.
Then Arthur saying:
“Caleb gets everything tomorrow. You’re both finished.”
Victor shouted.
Rose begged him to stop.
A crash.
Arthur gasped.
The recording ended.
Caleb stared at nothing.
His father had not died from natural causes.
Victor struck him.
Rose hid it.
Eleven years.
Oben whispered:
“That’s why Sloan wants the watch.”
Caleb looked at him.
“Sloan works for Victor.”
“Yes.”
“Then Victor’s retirement—”
“Fake.”
“Stroke?”
“Real.”
“Rose caused it.”
“Yes.”
Mara looked toward Rose.
“You tried to stop the man you loved after helping him cover a murder.”
Rose nodded once.
Nothing about this family was clean.
Then a car engine roared outside.
Jonah ran to the window.
Three SUVs.
Black.
No plates.
Oben’s face went pale.
“Sloan.”
Caleb drew his weapon.
Mara looked at Oben.
Then Caleb.
“What does he want?”
Oben answered:
“Not the watch anymore.”
“What?”
“He knows I’m alive.”
Outside, men spread across the parking lot.
Oben whispered:
“He wants everyone who can prove Victor Bass murdered Caleb’s father in one room.”
Caleb looked around.
Rose.
Oben.
Jonah.
Mara.
May you like
Himself.
Sloan had just gotten his wish.
