Chapter 5 - The Father Who Was Supposed to Be Dead
Penelope did not lower the receiver.
She remained frozen.
Her father’s voice still echoed in her head.
Penny.
Nobody had called her that after he disappeared except her mother.
Nobody said it the same way.
One syllable stretched slightly at the end.
A private sound from childhood.
It was him.
Or someone who had studied him well enough to destroy her.
Penelope turned toward Dominic.
“Why did he tell me to get away from you?”
Dominic holstered his gun.
“I don’t know.”
Vincent laughed.
“That answer again.”
Dominic looked at him.
“You’re still alive because she’s here.”
Vincent spread his hands.
“Romantic.”
Penelope stepped between them.
“Stop.”
Both men went silent.
She pointed at Vincent.
“You leave.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“This isn’t your hotel.”
“No, but apparently my family’s secrets have occupied the place long enough to establish residency.”
Catherine almost smiled.
Vincent did not.
Penelope continued.
“You’ve given me exactly enough information to make everyone else look guilty while telling me nothing useful about yourself.”
Vincent looked impressed.
“So you’re smarter than you look.”
Penelope’s eyes narrowed.
“Would you like another demonstration?”
His hand went unconsciously toward his cheek.
Catherine actually laughed.
Vincent glared at her.
Then at Dominic.
“This isn’t over.”
“No,” Dominic said. “It isn’t.”
Vincent left with his guard.
Penelope waited until their footsteps disappeared.
Then she turned on Dominic.
“Blood in your trunk.”
He nodded.
“Explain.”
Dominic sat on the edge of the old desk.
“The night Gabriel vanished, he called me at 1:12 a.m.”
“You remember the exact time?”
“I remember everything about that night.”
“What did he say?”
“He told me to meet him beneath the Williamsburg Bridge.”
“Why?”
“He said he had been hurt.”
Penelope crossed her arms.
“And?”
“When I arrived, he wasn’t there. There was blood on the pavement.”
“His?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“Police later tested it.”
“What happened next?”
“I searched.”
“Alone?”
“With men I trusted.”
“Like Catherine?”
Dominic glanced at her.
“No.”
Catherine accepted that.
“I found Gabriel’s jacket near the river. More blood. I put it in my trunk.”
Penelope stared.
“That’s your explanation?”
“Yes.”
“You transported bloody evidence belonging to a missing man in your trunk.”
“I was twenty-nine.”
“You were an idiot.”
“Yes.”
The immediate agreement disarmed her.
Dominic continued.
“The police stopped me the next morning. They already knew to search my car.”
“Meaning someone tipped them off.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I always assumed Anthony.”
Catherine said, “It was Samuel.”
Dominic turned sharply.
She looked ashamed.
“Eleanor told me years later.”
Penelope pressed her fingertips to her temple.
“My grandfather framed you.”
“He tried.”
“For murdering my father.”
“Yes.”
“And my mother knew.”
“Eventually.”
Penelope looked at Catherine.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because by then she had built another life for you.”
“That wasn’t her decision to make.”
“No,” Catherine said quietly. “But parents often confuse protection with permission.”
That sentence stayed with Penelope.
She looked at the dead phone.
“How did Gabriel know we were here?”
Dominic walked to the nightstand.
He examined the line.
“Portable relay.”
“What does that mean?”
“Someone reconnected this room to a private system.”
“Recently?”
“Yes.”
“So whoever is controlling this has access to the building.”
Dominic looked toward the ceiling.
“And likely cameras.”
Penelope immediately searched the corners.
Catherine pointed toward a smoke detector.
A tiny blue light blinked.
Dominic pulled a chair beneath it.
Inside the detector was a camera.
Penelope stared.
“We’re being watched.”
Dominic removed the device.
“And listened to.”
He crushed it beneath his shoe.
Penelope looked at the note again.
Find the man with the broken watch.
Her father wore it.
So the note had been written for her to find him.
But why hide?
Why return now?
Why wait twenty years?
Her anger began overtaking the relief.
If Gabriel was alive, then he had chosen not to contact them.
Her mother had died believing—
Penelope stopped.
Did Eleanor know?
Another possibility opened.
“What if my mother knew he was alive?”
Dominic shook his head.
“She didn’t.”
“How can you know?”
“Because she spent years searching.”
“You helped?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Until she asked me to stop.”
“When?”
“When you were sixteen.”
Penelope remembered that year.
Her mother had suddenly sold their apartment.
Moved them again.
No explanation.
“Why?”
“She received a threat.”
“From whom?”
“Unknown.”
“What did it say?”
Dominic hesitated.
Penelope gave him a look.
He sighed.
“It said: Stop looking for the dead if you want your daughter to stay alive.”
Penelope’s skin went cold.
“So she stopped.”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“No.”
Catherine looked surprised.
“You kept searching?”
“For another eleven years.”
“Why didn’t you tell Eleanor?”
“She wanted plausible deniability.”
Penelope watched Dominic carefully.
“You loved her.”
He did not answer immediately.
Then:
“Yes.”
Something shifted inside Penelope.
Not jealousy.
Not even surprise.
Grief, perhaps.
For the younger version of her mother who had apparently lived an entire hidden life.
“Were you in love with her?”
Dominic’s eyes met hers.
“No.”
“Then what kind of love?”
“The kind you have for someone who knows every ugly thing about you and stays anyway.”
Catherine looked away.
Penelope believed him.
That was inconvenient.
A noise sounded in the corridor.
Dominic raised one hand.
Quiet.
Footsteps approached.
Slow.
Unhurried.
Penelope’s heart accelerated.
A shadow appeared beneath the door.
Then someone knocked.
Three times.
Pause.
Twice.
Dominic went pale.
“What?”
“That was Gabriel’s knock.”
Penelope could not breathe.
Another knock.
Three.
Pause.
Two.
She moved toward the door.
Dominic caught her arm.
“No.”
She pulled free.
“That’s my father.”
“It could be a trap.”
“Everything could be a trap.”
“Penelope.”
She looked at him.
“If he’s alive and I walk away again, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Dominic released her.
She opened the door.
The hallway was empty.
On the floor sat a small wooden box.
Penelope picked it up.
Inside was the broken gold watch.
Her father’s.
She recognized the scratch across the face.
She had caused it when she was five.
She had dropped it while pretending to be a businesswoman.
Gabriel had laughed instead of getting angry.
Beneath the watch lay a note.
PENNY,
I CANNOT COME TO YOU YET.
THE LEDGER IS NOT SAFE.
NEITHER ARE YOU.
TRUST NO ONE WHO ATTENDED TONIGHT’S DINNER.
Penelope looked at Dominic.
He had attended.
Catherine too.
Vincent.
Everyone.
She turned the note over.
One final line.
Especially the man who calls you his future wife.
Penelope’s eyes rose slowly.
Dominic had read it over her shoulder.
For the first time since she met him, he looked genuinely wounded.
Then something clicked behind them.
The wall safe.
The empty wall safe.
It had opened by itself.
Inside, where nothing had been seconds ago, lay a single black envelope.
Penelope approached.
Her name was written across it.
May you like
And beneath her name were two words.
FROM DOMINIC.
