Chapter 2 - Nobody Touches the Cup
The ambulance doors closed with Arthur inside.
Chloe stared at him.
"You were supposed to get married."
Arthur answered without looking away from her.
"Not anymore."
The paramedic attached a blood-pressure cuff to Chloe's arm.
Arthur watched the numbers appear.
The paramedic's expression changed.
"We need to move."
Chloe saw Arthur notice.
"Is the baby okay?"
"We'll check both of you at the hospital."
Arthur reached for her hand, then stopped.
That hesitation hurt more than Chloe expected.
Months ago, he wouldn't have hesitated.
She turned her palm upward.
Arthur took it.
His fingers closed around hers.
"Victor Romano," Chloe said. "Tell me."
Arthur looked toward the ambulance doors.
"My uncle."
"The dead one?"
"Yes."
"What happened to him?"
"Officially? Heart attack."
"And unofficially?"
Arthur was silent.
"Arthur."
"He died at a family dinner."
Chloe felt cold.
"After drinking wine?"
Arthur looked at her.
That was answer enough.
At the hospital, Chloe was rushed into obstetric triage.
Arthur wasn't initially allowed through.
He stood outside the doors with rain still shining on his black wedding suit.
Daniel arrived twenty minutes later.
"No chalice."
Arthur turned.
"Cameras?"
"Someone shut down the cathedral's security system for exactly six minutes."
"Starting when?"
"Thirty seconds after Chloe entered."
Arthur's jaw flexed.
"Guests?"
"Still being interviewed."
"Croft?"
"Richard left."
Arthur looked up sharply.
"How?"
"Service exit."
"Vivian?"
"Still there."
Daniel handed Arthur a phone.
"And we found this."
A security photograph showed a man leaving the cathedral carrying a florist's equipment case.
Arthur zoomed in.
"Who is he?"
"We're working on it."
Arthur stared at the man's profile.
Something was familiar.
Then the hospital doors opened.
A doctor approached.
"Mr. Romano?"
"Yes."
"Ms. Henderson's blood pressure is dangerously elevated. We're monitoring her and the baby."
Arthur's face tightened.
"Is my child safe?"
"For now. But she needs rest, observation, and absolutely no unnecessary stress."
Arthur almost laughed at the impossible instruction.
"Can I see her?"
"She asked for you."
That mattered more than he wanted to admit.
Chloe lay propped against pillows when he entered.
Without the wet coat, her pregnancy looked even more real.
Arthur stopped.
For a few seconds, he simply stared.
Chloe noticed.
"You're doing the counting again."
"Probably."
"Thirty weeks."
"I heard you."
He sat beside her.
"Boy or girl?"
She hesitated.
"Girl."
Arthur looked down.
A daughter.
He pressed his lips together.
"Does she have a name?"
"Not yet."
"Why?"
"Because every name I liked reminded me that I'd be filling out the birth certificate alone."
Arthur closed his eyes.
"Chloe..."
"You don't get to look wounded."
"I know."
"Do you?"
"Yes."
She studied him.
"Then tell me why you left."
Arthur leaned forward.
"Two months ago, I was told someone had targeted you because of me."
Chloe frowned.
"Who told you?"
"Richard Croft."
She stared.
"He showed me photographs of you leaving the diner. Your apartment. The grocery store. He had information nobody should have had."
"And you believed him?"
"I believed the photographs."
"What did he want?"
"A merger between our families' businesses. The marriage was part of it."
Chloe blinked.
"You agreed to marry his daughter to protect me?"
"I agreed to publicly separate myself from you."
"Without telling me?"
"I thought if you hated me, you'd stay away."
Chloe looked at him for several seconds.
"That may be the stupidest thing you've ever done."
"I know."
"No, Arthur. You don't get points for sacrificing yourself when you never gave me a choice."
"I know."
"You decided my life for me."
"Yes."
"And Vivian agreed?"
Arthur hesitated.
"Vivian had her own reasons."
"What reasons?"
Before he answered, Daniel knocked.
"Arthur."
His expression made Arthur stand.
"What?"
"We identified the florist."
Daniel showed him a photograph.
Chloe recognized the man immediately.
Her heart rate jumped.
"I know him."
Arthur turned.
"What?"
"He was at the diner."
"The men you overheard?"
"One of them."
Arthur looked back at Daniel.
"Name?"
"Samuel Pike. He worked for Croft Holdings until three years ago."
"Worked?"
"According to payroll records."
Chloe shook her head.
"He wasn't talking like an ex-employee."
Arthur's phone rang.
Vivian.
He answered.
"Where are you?"
Her voice trembled.
"Arthur, listen carefully."
"I'm listening."
"My father is gone."
"I know."
"No. You don't understand. He didn't just leave the cathedral. His house is empty. His driver doesn't know where he is."
Arthur glanced at Daniel.
"Vivian, what do the letters V.C.R. mean?"
Silence.
"Vivian?"
"I think I know."
"Tell me."
"Not over the phone."
Arthur's patience snapped.
"A pregnant woman collapsed trying to save my life. Someone photographed her sleeping. Stop protecting secrets."
"I'm not protecting my father."
"Then who?"
Vivian whispered something.
Arthur's expression changed.
"What did you say?"
Chloe watched him.
Vivian repeated it.
Arthur put the phone on speaker.
"The initials don't belong to a person," Vivian said. "They're a date code."
Daniel frowned.
"For what?"
"My grandfather kept private ledgers. V meant five. C meant one hundred. R meant Romano."
Arthur's eyes narrowed.
"Five-one-hundred-Romano?"
"No. You're reading it wrong."
Vivian's breathing shook.
"It means Vault C. Romano file."
Arthur went silent.
"What vault?"
"The one beneath my father's house."
Chloe sat straighter.
Vivian continued.
"I found the key when I was sixteen. My father caught me before I opened it. He told me never to go near that room again."
"What's inside?"
"I don't know."
"Then why mark the chalice?"
"Because someone wanted you to find the file."
Daniel said, "Or wanted us to think that."
Vivian agreed.
Arthur looked toward Chloe.
"Stay here."
She immediately shook her head.
"No."
"Chloe."
"You disappeared once because you decided what was best for me. You're not doing it again."
"You're in a hospital."
"Exactly. I'm staying here because the doctor says so. But you're going to tell me everything you find."
Arthur stared at her.
Then nodded.
"Everything."
He leaned down instinctively.
For a moment, Chloe thought he was going to kiss her.
He stopped.
She felt the old ache return.
"Go," she whispered.
Arthur left with Daniel.
Two hours later, Vivian met them outside the Croft estate.
The mansion was dark.
The front door was unlocked.
"That's wrong," Vivian whispered.
They entered.
Nothing appeared disturbed.
Vivian led them through a library.
Behind a portrait was a steel panel.
She entered a code.
A hidden door opened.
Stone steps descended underground.
Daniel went first.
Arthur followed.
The vault door at the bottom was already open.
Inside were shelves filled with numbered boxes.
Vivian searched.
"C section."
Arthur found it.
ROMANO.
The box contained photographs, financial records, medical reports, and newspaper clippings.
Then Arthur saw his uncle.
Victor Romano.
A photograph taken shortly before his death.
Beside it was a toxicology report Arthur had never seen.
He read the final page.
His blood went cold.
"Arthur?"
He handed it to Vivian.
Victor's death hadn't been a heart attack.
The report indicated exposure to a toxic substance before his collapse.
Someone had buried the finding.
Daniel opened another folder.
"Arthur."
Inside were photographs of Chloe.
Hundreds.
Chloe at work.
Chloe entering her apartment.
Chloe buying groceries.
Chloe visiting her doctor.
Arthur's hands shook.
Then Vivian pulled out the final envelope.
It was dated eight months earlier.
Before Arthur had disappeared.
Before anyone supposedly knew Chloe was pregnant.
She opened it.
There was a photograph of Chloe and Arthur leaving her apartment together.
Across the bottom, someone had written:
IF SHE BECOMES PERMANENT, REMOVE HER.
Arthur stared at the handwriting.
He knew it.
He had seen it his entire life.
Daniel saw his face.
"Whose handwriting is that?"
Arthur didn't answer.
His phone rang.
Hospital.
He answered instantly.
"Yes?"
A nurse spoke quickly.
Arthur's face drained of color.
"What do you mean she's missing?"
At the hospital, Chloe's empty bed was still warm.
Her phone lay on the pillow.
And on the screen was a message Arthur had supposedly sent her:
May you like
COME DOWNSTAIRS. I FOUND THE TRUTH.
But Arthur had never sent it.
