Chương 3
Everyone looked at him.
He kept his voice respectful. “The dog is trained for estate protection. He does not enter public medical facilities.”
Dominic waited.
DeMarco’s jaw shifted.
“Unless you order it.”
“Find a way.”
The chief looked at Mara, then at Umbral.
“I’ll call ahead.”
Mara ate another bite of toast.
“What about you?” she asked Dominic.
He was not prepared for the question.
“I’ll come.”
She studied him for several seconds. “Mom said you don’t go anywhere unless people make it empty first.”
The comment embarrassed him more than an accusation might have.
“Your mother said that?”
“She said rich people are scared of getting touched.”
Reilly stared at the floor.
Dominic rubbed one hand over his stubble.
“Your mother and I disagreed about a number of things.”
“She said you always say ‘a number of things’ when you don’t want to say how many.”
DeMarco coughed into his fist.
Dominic looked at him.
“Cold air,” DeMarco said.
For the first time, Mara’s mouth moved at one corner.
The expression disappeared before it became a smile.
At the hospital, the staff placed them in a pediatric isolation room normally used for contagious patients, not because Mara was contagious, but because it had a separate exterior entrance and enough space for Umbral to lie against the wall without blocking equipment.
A county child-protection investigator arrived twenty minutes later.
Her name was Andrea Bell. She was in her fifties, with gray braids, practical boots, and a canvas shoulder bag that had been repaired at one corner with blue thread. She refused the private waiting room Dominic’s staff had arranged.
“I’ll meet the child where she is,” she said.
DeMarco attempted to explain the security concerns.
Andrea looked past him. “You’re standing between me and the child where she is.”
He moved.
She entered the hospital room alone.
Dominic watched through the glass as Andrea sat in a plastic chair beside Mara’s bed. Umbral lifted his head but did not rise. Andrea did not offer a toy, candy, or a bright professional smile. She put her bag on the floor and complained that hospital chairs had been designed by people who hated the human spine.
Mara looked at her.
Andrea adjusted the chair twice, gave up, and sat sideways.
They spoke for nearly forty minutes.
Dominic spent that time in the corridor answering calls from his board chairman, his communications director, and Victor, who had apparently decided that being forbidden from coming to the estate did not apply to the hospital.
Victor arrived in a charcoal suit and camel-hair coat. At sixty-eight, he moved with the careful economy of someone who had begun measuring risk in his joints.
He found Dominic beside a vending machine.
“This was mishandled,” Victor said.
“The child is receiving medical care.”
“Your entire security team saw her. Paramedics saw her. Hospital staff saw you arrive with your dog. Someone has already called a local reporter.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the reporter called me.”
Dominic looked through the glass.
A nurse was attaching a bag of clear fluid to Mara’s IV. Mara watched the needle site without blinking.
“Did you send the file?”
Victor glanced toward DeMarco, who stood within earshot.
“We should speak privately.”
“No.”
“Dominic.”
“Did you know Elena had a daughter?”
Victor’s lips pressed together.
“That is not a question to discuss in a hallway.”
“It is if the answer is one word.”
“Life rarely provides one-word answers.”
“Try.”
A housekeeping cart squeaked past them. The woman pushing it looked at Dominic, recognized him, and looked away too late.
Victor waited until she entered another room.
“Elena claimed many things during a period when she was unwell.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I received an allegation that she was pregnant. Years later, after she had broken contact with the family.”
“An allegation from whom?”
“Elena.”
Dominic’s chest tightened.
“You spoke to her.”
“I communicated through counsel.”
“When?”
“Several times.”
“You told me she was dead.”
“I told you we had received credible information that she had died abroad.”
“From whom?”
Victor’s eyes shifted toward the glass.
Mara was now watching them.
“Not here,” he said.
Dominic stepped closer. “You will answer me.”
Victor did not retreat.
It was one of the reasons Dominic’s father had trusted him. Victor could stand near angry powerful men without performing bravery.
“The information came through a private investigator retained by your father. There was a death certificate under a legal name Elena had used in Portugal. The age and identifying details matched.”
“Did you see the body?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“Dominic, this is not useful.”
The calmness of that sentence nearly broke the last of Dominic’s restraint.
He caught Victor by the arm.
DeMarco moved immediately, not toward Victor, but between them.
“Sir.”
Dominic released his grip.
Victor smoothed the sleeve of his coat. His face had lost some color.
“This,” he said quietly, “is precisely why we need to proceed carefully.”
“You knew she might have a child.”
“I knew she claimed to be pregnant.”
“And you said nothing.”
“Your father instructed me to investigate. The documentation provided by Elena’s attorney was inconsistent. She requested money, then rejected it. She refused medical verification. She changed addresses. She accused the family of surveillance while simultaneously sending packages to the estate.”
“Did you tell me any of that?”
“You were twenty-seven. You had just assumed operational control of a company under federal review, your father was dying, and your sister had spent years attempting to destabilize him.”
“My sister asked for help.”
“That is one interpretation.”
“It’s the one where she was alive.”
Victor’s voice hardened. “Your father believed Elena was using a supposed child to regain leverage. He had reasons.”
“My father had reasons for everything.”
“Yes. Some of them built the life you enjoy.”
May you like
Dominic looked at the man who had taught him how to read liability clauses, how to remove emotion from negotiations, how to survive his father’s rages by becoming stiller than the room.
Behind the glass, Mara pulled her blanket to her chin.
