Chapter 4: What She Found Before They Took Her
The doctor's name was Reeves.
He had been on Dominic's private payroll for eleven years and had learned not to ask questions about the circumstances that brought patients to him.
He had set broken fingers, removed a bullet from a man's shoulder in a kitchen, and once kept a witness alive through a February night with nothing but a first aid kit and a space heater.
He looked up when Dominic entered the guest room.
"Dehydration.
Soft tissue damage to both wrists.
Bruised ribs — at least two.
She'll need rest and fluids for several days."
"Will she recover fully?"
"Yes.
But she was close to the edge when you found her."
Dominic nodded once.
"Give us a few minutes."
Reeves packed his bag and stepped out.
Harper was curled against her mother's side on the bed, one small fist wrapped around the collar of Dominic's coat, which was still draped over Mia's shoulders.
She had fallen asleep.
Mia watched Dominic pull a chair to the bedside.
"You heard me," she said.
Her voice was rough, scraped thin.
"I heard you say there was something else."
She looked down at Harper.
Brushed a strand of hair from the child's forehead with two fingers that still shook slightly.
"I need to know Harper stays in this room while I tell you."
"She's asleep."
"I need to know she stays here.
With the door closed.
And I need to know that whatever I tell you, you don't go downstairs and do something that can't be undone.
Not yet."
Dominic looked at her for a moment.
"Tell me what you found."
Mia reached under the edge of the mattress.
Her fingers searched for a moment.
Then she pulled out a folded envelope, creased and slightly damp, and held it out to him.
He took it.
The envelope had already been opened.
Inside were two sheets of paper — printed photographs, slightly blurred, taken from a distance with a long lens.
The first photograph showed Nathan Cross outside a building Dominic recognized immediately.
A private legal office in White Plains.
The kind that handled estate transfers, asset restructuring, and the quiet movement of money between names.
The second photograph showed Nathan shaking hands with a man named Gerald Foss.
Dominic had not heard that name in four years.
Gerald Foss ran a competing operation out of Newark.
They had reached an uneasy truce in 2019.
They had not spoken since.
"Where did you get these?" Dominic asked.
"They came to the house by courier three weeks ago.
Addressed to you.
Nathan signed for the delivery.
I was standing in the hall when it arrived.
He looked at the return address and put the envelope in his jacket pocket." She paused.
"He didn't know I saw."
"And you took it."
"I opened it first.
Then I took it.
I put it under my mattress and I was trying to decide what to do with it." She looked at him steadily.
"That was the night Claire came to find me for the wine."
Dominic set the photographs on his knee.
"You think that's why they took you."
"I think Nathan realized the envelope never reached you.
I think he went looking for it.
I think he found it in my room." She stopped.
"I think Claire didn't lock me in that cellar because she was jealous, Dominic.
I think she locked me in there because Nathan asked her to."
Dominic looked at the second photograph again.
Nathan's hand in Foss's.
Both of them smiling.
"How long have you had these?"
"Three weeks."
"Why didn't you come to me directly?"
Mia looked at her daughter's sleeping face.
"Because I didn't know who else in this house was involved.
And I have Harper." She met his eyes.
"I couldn't afford to be wrong."
Dominic folded the photographs back into the envelope.
He stood.
He walked to the window.
Outside, the gray dawn had turned to pale morning, and the two black SUVs still sat in the drive below, their engines cold now.
"Nathan told me he brought you water," he said.
"Twice.
He told me both times that it would be over soon.
That I just needed to be patient." Her voice didn't waver.
"He said you would understand once Claire explained everything."
Dominic turned from the window.
"He was going to let Claire explain it.
And then what — you'd be dismissed quietly.
Given a reference.
Gone."
"And the photographs would never reach you."
He moved toward the door.
"Lock this door," he said.
"Don't open it for anyone except me or Reeves."
"Dominic."
He stopped.
"Gerald Foss," Mia said.
"Check the date on the back of the second photograph."
He turned the photograph over in his hand.
The date stamped on the back was eleven days before Dominic's most recent Atlantic City meeting.
The meeting Nathan had arranged.
May you like
The meeting that had kept Dominic away from the estate for a full week.
The meeting that had given them exactly the window they needed.
