Chapter 3 - THE COUSIN WHO BURIED A LIVING WOMAN
Vincent did not tell Julian to sit.
That was deliberate.
Julian remained near the study door while Daniel closed it behind him.
Claire stood beside the fireplace.
Vincent held Natalie’s photograph between two fingers.
“Say it again.”
Julian’s face looked exhausted.
“Natalie begged me to tell you she was dead.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody knew she was pregnant.”
Vincent went completely still.
Claire stared.
“You knew about Sophie?”
“Not Sophie.”
Julian shook his head.
“Not yet.”
Vincent moved around the desk.
“You told me Natalie died before my child was born.”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
“I helped her disappear.”
“How?”
“Milwaukee first. Then a small town outside Madison.”
Claire frowned.
“She never told me you helped her.”
“She wasn’t supposed to.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Apparently everyone had rules except me.”
Julian accepted that.
“Yes.”
“Why did she trust you?”
“She didn’t.”
That surprised him.
Julian continued.
“She trusted that I was more afraid of you losing her than I was of breaking your trust.”
Vincent almost laughed.
“You were wrong.”
“I know.”
“Who was threatening her?”
Julian looked toward Claire.
Then Daniel.
Vincent saw.
“You say it with everybody here.”
Julian exhaled.
“We didn’t know.”
Vincent’s voice became colder.
“You buried a living woman because of someone you couldn’t identify.”
“No.”
Julian reached inside his jacket slowly.
Daniel shifted.
Julian removed a small gold wristwatch.
Women’s.
Old.
The crystal cracked near twelve.
Vincent recognized it.
He had bought it for Natalie after she complained that his meetings always ran late.
He had engraved one sentence inside.
FIVE MINUTES IS STILL LATE.
She had laughed for ten minutes.
Vincent took it.
“Where did you get this?”
“Natalie mailed it to me after Sophie was born.”
Claire stared.
“I never knew.”
Julian nodded.
“She included a note.”
“What note?”
“I destroyed it.”
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
“Of course you did.”
“But I kept what was inside.”
Julian opened the watch’s backplate.
Something thin had been tucked beneath the mechanism.
A strip of yellow plastic.
Stamped:
C-9.
Daniel’s expression changed.
“Calumet Nine.”
Vincent looked at him.
“You know it?”
“Old Rowan freight seal.”
Julian nodded.
“Your father used them before we changed vendors.”
Vincent’s late father, Tomas Rowan, had built the first serious Rowan foothold around Calumet Harbor.
Warehouses.
Trucking.
Union influence.
The foundation of everything Vincent later inherited and expanded.
“What did Natalie say about it?”
Julian looked at Vincent.
“That somebody at Calumet Nine had access to your private routes.”
“And?”
“She saw a meeting.”
“Who?”
“She couldn’t see faces.”
“Convenient.”
“She saw one man’s hand.”
Vincent waited.
“Silver raven ring.”
Daniel swore softly.
The Rowan family crest.
Only high-ranking men had been allowed to wear one.
Tomas Rowan.
Vincent.
Julian.
And Elias Voss.
Consigliere.
Tomas’s oldest friend.
The man who had taught Vincent contract law, union politics, and exactly when silence was more threatening than shouting.
Elias was downstairs.
Waiting for Sunday dinner.
Vincent looked at Julian’s right hand.
No ring.
Julian had stopped wearing his years ago after breaking the band.
“My father?”
Julian shook his head.
“Natalie didn’t know.”
“Elias?”
“She suspected him.”
Claire looked toward the door.
“And you still didn’t tell Vincent.”
Julian turned.
“I went to Elias.”
Vincent’s expression changed.
“You what?”
“I showed him the seal.”
“Why?”
“Because I was twenty-nine and he’d been cleaning up our problems since before I could drive.”
“You trusted him.”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That Natalie had stumbled into an old internal dispute. That he would investigate.”
“And you believed him.”
“At first.”
Vincent’s anger sharpened.
“At first?”
Julian looked ashamed.
“Two days later, someone went into Natalie’s apartment while she was sleeping.”
Claire’s hand tightened around the mantel.
“What?”
“No one hurt her.”
Julian continued.
“They left a photograph on her pillow.”
“Of what?”
“Vincent leaving a restaurant.”
Vincent frowned.
“Why would that scare her?”
“Because the photograph was taken through a rifle scope.”
Silence.
No graphic threat needed.
The meaning was enough.
Julian continued:
“On the back it said: STAY, AND HE DIES FIRST.”
Claire’s face went white.
Vincent stared at Julian.
“So you moved her.”
“Yes.”
“And told me she died.”
“Yes.”
“Who suggested Prague?”
Julian hesitated.
Vincent saw.
“Who?”
“Elias.”
There it was.
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
Claire looked toward Vincent.
But Julian immediately added:
“He also arranged the safe house.”
The room shifted.
Vincent frowned.
“He threatened her and saved her?”
“I don’t know that he threatened her.”
“Then why suggest the death story?”
“He said whoever was watching her needed to believe she was beyond reach.”
“Did you ever prove that?”
“No.”
“Did Elias?”
“He said he was working on it.”
Vincent laughed bitterly.
“For eight years?”
“After Natalie really died, everything changed.”
“How?”
Julian looked toward Claire.
“I kept watching Claire.”
Her face hardened.
“What?”
“Not inside your home.”
“You watched Sophie?”
“Yes.”
Claire stepped toward him.
“You had no right.”
“I know.”
“That preschool photograph.”
Julian shook his head.
“Not mine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you moved the box today,” Vincent said.
Julian looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because that same kind of surveillance started again.”
Vincent went still.
Julian took out three photographs.
Sophie leaving school.
Sophie at a grocery store with Claire.
Sophie inside the Rowan estate garden, taken through a long lens.
Claire covered her mouth.
“When?”
“Last ten days.”
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“And instead of telling me, you put Natalie’s photograph where a child could find it.”
Julian looked miserable.
“I needed you to know Sophie was yours before somebody else used it against you.”
“You could have opened your mouth.”
“I tried three times.”
“When?”
“Last week.”
Vincent remembered.
Julian asking for private meetings.
Vincent postponing two.
The third ended early because of a dock dispute.
That did not absolve Julian.
It did complicate the anger.
Julian continued:
“Tomorrow, the Rowan captains meet with the West Side Bellomo crews about the lakefront trucking vote.”
Vincent knew.
A fragile agreement.
Union leadership.
Warehouse access.
Three families trying not to turn business competition into blood.
“What does Sophie have to do with that?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then why now?”
“Because somebody accessed Claire’s staff quarters yesterday.”
Daniel looked down.
“We confirmed it.”
Vincent turned.
“Who?”
Daniel hesitated.
“Master code.”
“Whose?”
“Elias Voss.”
The room went quiet.
Claire stared.
Julian did too.
Vincent asked:
“Where is Elias?”
Daniel answered:
“Dining room.”
“Still?”
“Yes.”
Vincent walked toward the door.
Claire caught his sleeve.
He stopped.
“Don’t walk in angry.”
Vincent looked down at her hand.
Then at her face.
“He knew my daughter existed.”
“Maybe.”
“He entered your room.”
“Maybe.”
“He helped convince me Natalie was dead.”
“Yes.”
Claire’s voice softened.
“But if Natalie learned anything, it was that the first answer can still be the wrong one.”
Vincent stared.
Then nodded once.
They went downstairs.
Elias Voss sat alone at the long dining table.
Sixty-three.
Silver hair.
Black suit.
No visible fear.
He looked up as Vincent entered.
Then at Julian.
Claire.
Daniel.
Finally the old watch in Vincent’s hand.
Elias sighed.
“So Julian finally opened it.”
Vincent stopped.
“You knew what was inside.”
“Yes.”
“Did you put the box in Sophie’s reach?”
Elias looked at him.
“Yes.”
Claire inhaled sharply.
Vincent’s voice went quiet.
“Why?”
Elias folded his napkin once.
“Because by tomorrow afternoon, the Bellomos were going to show you that photograph themselves.”
Silence.
Then he placed another photograph on the table.
Sophie.
At school.
Beside her backpack was a white envelope marked with a yellow crane.
The same symbol stamped onto the old Calumet Nine seal.
Elias looked at Vincent.
“They know who she is.”
May you like
And then he said:
“The question is whether you still have time to learn why Natalie was so afraid of that crane.”
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