Chapter 3 - The Woman in the Orange Dress
Dominic took Elena’s phone before she could move.
“No.”
She reached for it.
“Give it back.”
“No.”
“My mother—”
“Is exactly why you’re not going alone.”
“They told me to.”
“They expect you to panic.”
“I am panicking.”
“Then let me do the thinking.”
Elena glared at him.
“If that were your mother, would you stand here?”
The question struck hard.
Dominic looked away.
His mother had died when he was twenty-two.
Not from illness.
From a choice his father made.
Dominic had spent fourteen years pretending that memory no longer controlled him.
Elena had just proved otherwise with one sentence.
“We’re going,” he said.
“We?”
“Yes.”
“They said alone.”
“They’ll survive the disappointment.”
He turned toward a concealed wall panel and entered a code.
A secondary elevator opened.
Elena stared.
“You have another elevator?”
“This building has six.”
“Of course it does.”
They descended to the parking level.
Marcus was waiting beside a black sedan with blood on his collar.
Elena stopped.
“Are you hurt?”
“Not enough to matter.”
Dominic looked at him.
“Calder?”
“Gone.”
“How?”
“Two men came through the service entrance using valid access cards.”
“Whose?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Vivienne’s.”
Dominic’s expression changed.
Elena noticed.
“The woman upstairs?”
Dominic said nothing.
Marcus continued.
“Her account opened the loading entrance and killed cameras for ninety seconds.”
“Where is she now?”
“Missing.”
Dominic looked toward the garage exit.
For the first time since Elena met him, something close to uncertainty crossed his face.
“Find her.”
Marcus nodded.
Dominic opened the rear door for Elena.
She got inside.
The drive to St. Catherine’s took twelve minutes.
Dominic made it in eight.
Elena spent every second staring at her phone.
No second message came.
At the hospital, the night entrance was almost empty.
Dominic walked beside her.
Marcus followed several yards behind.
They reached Maria Hart’s floor.
Room 814 was empty.
The bed was stripped.
The IV pole was gone.
Elena stopped breathing.
“No.”
She ran to the nurse’s desk.
“Where is Maria Hart?”
Mrs. Park stood quickly.
“Elena?”
“Where’s my mother?”
“They moved her ten minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“I thought you approved it.”
“I didn’t approve anything.”
Mrs. Park’s face fell.
“A transport team had paperwork.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“What company?”
“I don’t know. Private ambulance.”
“Which elevator?”
“Service.”
Marcus was already moving.
Elena gripped the desk.
“Was she awake?”
“No.”
“Was she stable?”
“Yes.”
“Where did they take her?”
“The order listed a rehabilitation facility downtown.”
“Name?”
Mrs. Park pulled up the record.
Then frowned.
“The entry is gone.”
Dominic looked at Marcus.
“Lock every exit.”
Elena turned on him.
“You can’t lock a hospital.”
“I can lock this floor for ninety seconds.”
“That’s insane.”
“Useful insanity.”
Marcus spoke into his radio.
Dominic leaned over the computer screen.
“Show me the audit trail.”
Mrs. Park hesitated.
“I could lose my job.”
Elena took her hand.
“My mother could disappear.”
Mrs. Park looked at her.
Then typed.
A string of login data appeared.
Dominic read it.
One username stood out.
V.CROSS.
He went still.
Elena saw it.
“Vivienne.”
Mrs. Park looked confused.
“You know her?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“I thought I did.”
They followed the transfer log to the basement loading area.
No ambulance.
No Maria.
Only a discarded hospital blanket near the curb.
Elena picked it up.
It smelled like her mother’s lavender hand lotion.
Her knees weakened.
Dominic caught her elbow.
“She was here.”
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t tell me everything is going to be okay.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
“I was going to tell you we’re going to find her.”
Elena looked at him.
“How can you know that?”
“I don’t.”
The honesty made her eyes burn.
Dominic continued.
“But someone went to enormous trouble to move a sick woman because of something they think she knows.”
Elena’s face hardened.
“So she’s valuable.”
“Yes.”
“That’s supposed to comfort me?”
“No.”
His phone rang.
Marcus.
“We found Vivienne.”
“Where?”
“Your penthouse.”
Dominic frowned.
“She went back?”
“She never left.”
Dominic turned toward the car.
“What does that mean?”
Marcus’s voice lowered.
“She’s locked inside your father’s old study.”
Dominic stopped walking.
That room had been sealed for eleven years.
Only two people had ever known the combination.
Dominic.
And his father.
Elena saw his face.
“What is it?”
Dominic ended the call.
“We’re going back.”
“My mother is missing.”
“And Vivienne may know why.”
Elena held the hospital blanket against her chest.
“Then drive.”
When they returned to Mercer Tower, daylight was beginning to gray the eastern sky.
Vivienne was seated in Dominic’s office.
The orange satin gown looked out of place under the cold morning light.
Her mascara was smudged.
Her confidence was gone.
Marcus stood behind her.
Dominic entered first.
Elena followed.
Vivienne looked at Elena and closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry.”
Elena stopped.
“Where is my mother?”
“I don’t know.”
“You used your access card.”
“Yes.”
“You changed the hospital records.”
“No.”
“Your login did.”
“My login was copied.”
Dominic leaned against the desk.
“You expect me to believe Calder stole your credentials?”
“No.”
Vivienne looked at him.
“My father did.”
Dominic stared at her.
Elena looked between them.
“Who is your father?”
Vivienne answered.
“Jonas Calder.”
Silence.
Dominic’s expression did not move.
But something in him turned to ice.
“You told me your father was dead.”
“He should be.”
“How long have you known he was manipulating Harbor payroll?”
“I didn’t.”
“You expect me to believe that too?”
“I knew he was using Mercer companies. I didn’t know how.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“You had five years to tell me.”
“I had five years knowing what would happen if he learned I betrayed him.”
Dominic’s voice hardened.
“You were afraid of Calder?”
Vivienne laughed bitterly.
“You think you’re the only man in New York people fear?”
Elena interrupted.
“My mother.”
Vivienne turned toward her.
“I found her name three weeks ago.”
“Where?”
“In my father’s private files.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. It was connected to Dominic’s father.”
Dominic stiffened.
Vivienne continued.
“There was an old account. Number 47-19.”
Elena looked at Dominic.
“The code.”
Vivienne nodded.
“My father had been paying someone from that account for years.”
“Who?” Dominic asked.
Vivienne looked at Elena.
“Maria Hart.”
Elena stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
“I saw the transfers.”
“My mother barely pays rent.”
“The money didn’t go to her bank.”
“Then where?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic spoke.
“Why did you go into my father’s study?”
“To get something before Calder did.”
“What?”
Vivienne reached into the small evening bag beside her.
Marcus tensed.
She removed an old brass key.
Dominic recognized it.
His father wore it on a chain for twenty years.
Dominic had buried him without it.
“Where did you get that?”
“My father.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“You saw Calder before you came here.”
“Yes.”
“And said nothing.”
“He threatened me.”
“So you came to my home, drank champagne, watched me find Elena in a closet, and still said nothing?”
Vivienne’s eyes filled.
“I was trying to decide whether I could trust you.”
Dominic’s laugh was quiet and humorless.
Elena watched them.
There was history here.
Pain.
Perhaps love once.
Perhaps something more complicated.
But none of it mattered as much as Maria.
“What does the key open?” Elena asked.
Vivienne looked at the office wall.
Dominic followed her gaze.
His father’s study was hidden behind a paneled door.
Dominic walked to it.
The old combination lock still worked.
Inside, dust covered furniture that had not moved in a decade.
Vivienne led them to a steel cabinet.
The brass key opened it.
Inside were ledgers.
Photographs.
Cash envelopes.
Old passports.
And a small cassette recorder.
Elena saw a photograph on top of the stack.
She picked it up.
A much younger Maria Hart stood outside a Manhattan hotel.
Beside her was Dominic’s father.
And beside him was a little boy of perhaps eight.
Dominic.
Elena looked up.
Dominic stared at the photograph.
“I don’t remember this.”
On the back, someone had written:
MARIA SAVED HIM. 1998.
Dominic’s face lost color.
Vivienne whispered, “That’s why Calder took her.”
Elena looked at Dominic.
“Saved you from what?”
Before Dominic could answer, the cassette recorder clicked.
It had activated automatically when the cabinet opened.
Static filled the room.
Then the dead voice of Dominic’s father began to speak.
“If you’re hearing this, Dominic, then Maria Hart has finally been found.”
May you like
A pause.
“And if Calder found her first, you have less than twenty-four hours before he tells you what really happened to your mother.”
