Chapter 2 - The Debt Dominic Never Paid
Claire did not remember leaving the diner.
One second she was staring at Gabriel’s phone.
The next she was inside a black SUV with Noah pressed against her side.
Dominic sat opposite them.
Gabriel drove.
“Where are we going?” Claire demanded.
“A secure place.”
“No.”
Dominic looked at her.
“What?”
“I asked for an address.”
“Rittenhouse.”
“That isn’t an address.”
“It’s enough.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Noah looked between them.
Claire lowered her voice.
“My son is sitting here.”
Dominic glanced at Noah.
“Then we shouldn’t have this conversation yet.”
Claire laughed once.
“You don’t get to decide when I learn why somebody broke into my apartment.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
The words silenced her.
Noah’s fingers tightened around hers.
Claire immediately regretted the argument.
She leaned toward him.
“Hey. It’s okay.”
“Is someone stealing our stuff?”
“I don’t know.”
“My dinosaur is there.”
“We’ll get it.”
Dominic looked toward the window.
His expression changed briefly.
Pain.
Claire noticed.
“Did you know my father?”
Dominic stayed silent.
“You were in that picture.”
“I knew him.”
“How?”
“He worked for my father.”
Claire blinked.
“My dad sold insurance.”
“No.”
“You’re saying my mother lied?”
“I’m saying someone did.”
The SUV turned onto a quieter street.
Claire stared at Dominic.
“What did my father really do?”
Dominic rubbed his thumb across one of the rings on his right hand.
“He was an accountant.”
“For your family?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of accountant needs photographs hidden for twenty-three years?”
Dominic looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel kept his eyes on the road.
Claire understood.
“The illegal kind.”
Dominic said nothing.
She leaned back.
“My father died when I was nine.”
“I know.”
“Car accident.”
“That’s what you were told.”
Claire’s pulse jumped.
“What happened?”
Dominic looked at Noah.
Claire followed his gaze.
“Noah, honey, put your headphones on.”
“I don’t have headphones.”
Dominic reached into a storage compartment and pulled out a set.
Noah’s eyes widened.
“Those are huge.”
“They’re Gabriel’s.”
Gabriel said, “They are not.”
Dominic handed them over.
“They are now.”
Despite everything, Noah smiled.
Claire connected the headphones to her phone and started a cartoon.
Then she faced Dominic.
“Talk.”
Dominic inhaled slowly.
“Your father’s name was Michael Mercer.”
“Yes.”
“He worked for Raines Freight when my father controlled it.”
“Controlled?”
“My father, Victor Raines, was not a good man.”
“And you are?”
Dominic’s eyes met hers.
“No.”
The simplicity of the answer caught her off guard.
He continued.
“Michael found irregular payments. Bribes. Kickbacks. Money moving through construction contracts.”
Claire swallowed.
“He tried to expose it?”
“He tried to leave.”
“What happened?”
Dominic’s gaze shifted away.
“He came to me.”
“You were what, sixteen?”
“Seventeen.”
“In the photograph you look seventeen.”
“He knew my father wouldn’t listen to him. He thought I might.”
“Did you?”
Dominic’s silence answered.
Claire’s anger rose.
“My father asked you for help?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I told him he was overreacting.”
Claire stared at him.
“He died after that.”
“Yes.”
The SUV seemed suddenly too small.
Claire whispered, “You knew.”
“I suspected.”
“For twenty-three years?”
“No.”
“When?”
Dominic looked directly at her.
“I learned the truth six years ago.”
Claire slapped him.
The sound cracked through the SUV.
Gabriel glanced into the mirror.
Dominic didn’t react.
Noah still watched his cartoon.
Claire’s hand shook.
“You learned six years ago and never came to me?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Couldn’t?”
“If I came to you without proof, I would put you in danger.”
“I am in danger!”
“I know.”
“Because of you!”
“Yes.”
Again, no defense.
No excuse.
That made her angrier.
The SUV entered an underground garage.
Gabriel parked.
Dominic stepped out first.
Claire stayed seated.
“I want to go to the police.”
“We will.”
“Now.”
“We can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because at least one person in the department is involved.”
She stared.
Dominic opened her door.
“Tonight’s envelope means someone believes you have something your father hid.”
“I don’t.”
“They don’t know that.”
Claire stepped out.
Noah followed.
They entered an elevator.
Dominic pressed the top floor.
Claire looked at him.
“What exactly are they looking for?”
“A ledger.”
“What ledger?”
“Your father kept records.”
“Of your family?”
“Of everybody.”
The elevator climbed.
“He hid it before he died.”
“And nobody found it?”
“No.”
“Why do they think I have it?”
Dominic looked at the photograph in his hand.
“Because Michael left instructions.”
“What instructions?”
“We don’t know.”
The elevator opened into a penthouse.
Claire stopped.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked Philadelphia.
Noah whispered, “Whoa.”
Dominic removed his coat.
“Guest room is down the hall.”
Claire didn’t move.
“I’m not sleeping.”
“You should.”
“Midnight is in eight minutes.”
Dominic glanced at the clock.
11:52.
Claire held out her hand.
“Give me the photograph.”
He did.
She studied it.
Her father smiled beside her.
Young Dominic stood several feet behind them.
There was a building in the background.
A brick warehouse.
Claire recognized the shape.
“My father took me there.”
Dominic turned.
“What?”
“I remember that place.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
“I was nine.”
Claire stared at the photograph.
She remembered cold concrete.
Her father buying her orange soda from a vending machine.
A little office with a green door.
He had told her not to touch anything.
Then he had given her a brass key.
Claire froze.
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
“My father gave me a key.”
“When?”
“The day this picture was taken.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I was nine.”
“Where did you keep things when you were nine?”
Claire looked at him.
“My mother’s house.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Too obvious.”
“My mother died four years ago. We sold the house.”
“To whom?”
Claire thought.
“A family. The Collinses.”
Dominic was already calling someone.
“Get me the sale file for 1814 Hanover.”
Claire grabbed his wrist.
“You’re not sending people into somebody’s house.”
“I’m finding out whether anything was left.”
“No.”
“Claire—”
“No breaking in. No threatening families. No men in black coats knocking on doors at midnight.”
Dominic’s mouth almost moved.
“Is that amusing?”
“A little.”
She glared.
“You think this is funny?”
“No.”
“Then stop smiling.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were close.”
His phone vibrated.
He read the message.
“The house was renovated.”
Claire’s hope disappeared.
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“Everything’s gone.”
“Maybe.”
The television in the penthouse showed Times Square coverage.
11:55.
Noah wandered toward the windows.
“Mom! Fireworks!”
Claire stood behind him.
Below them, Philadelphia glittered under snow.
For a moment, she wished the night could simply be what she had promised Noah.
Hot chocolate.
Fireworks.
A kiss on the forehead at midnight.
Nothing more.
Then Dominic’s phone rang.
He answered.
“Raines.”
A voice spoke.
Claire couldn’t hear the words.
Dominic’s posture changed.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
Then he held the phone away.
A text had arrived.
A photograph.
Claire’s apartment.
Her bedroom.
The intruder had opened an old storage box from beneath her bed.
Inside were photographs, receipts, Noah’s baby bracelet, her mother’s letters.
One object lay in the center.
A brass key.
Claire covered her mouth.
“I forgot.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You still had it.”
“My mother must’ve saved it.”
Another text appeared.
MIDNIGHT.
BRING HER TO PIER 19.
NO POLICE.
Dominic’s expression became lethal.
Claire looked at the clock.
11:57.
“No.”
Dominic turned.
“You’re staying here.”
“They want me.”
“They’re not getting you.”
“My father died because everyone else decided things for him. I’m not spending my life doing the same.”
“This isn’t courage.”
“What is it?”
“Walking into a trap.”
“Then we don’t walk in blind.”
Gabriel looked between them.
“You two have known each other thirty minutes.”
Claire said, “Feels longer.”
Noah called from the window.
“Mom?”
Claire turned.
The little boy held the wooden box.
Her stomach dropped.
“Noah, where did you get that?”
“It was on the table.”
He had opened the false bottom.
Something small rested in his palm.
A metal token.
Stamped with a number.
Dominic moved toward him.
“Let me see.”
Noah gave it to him.
Gabriel stared.
“That’s a warehouse locker token.”
Dominic looked at Claire.
“Pier 19.”
The clock reached 11:58.
Claire whispered, “My father planned this.”
Dominic turned the token over.
There were letters scratched into the metal.
D.R.
Dominic Raines.
The television began the sixty-second countdown.
Then the penthouse elevator chimed.
Gabriel drew a weapon beneath his coat.
Dominic moved Claire and Noah behind him.
Nobody had called the elevator.
The doors slowly opened.
A woman stepped out.
Claire recognized her immediately.
She had attended Michael Mercer’s funeral twenty-three years earlier.
Claire had called her Aunt Evelyn.
The woman smiled.
May you like
“Happy New Year, Claire.”
Then she held up the missing brass key.
