Chapter 4 - The House in ConnecticutThey reached the Gallagher family home at 1:06 a.m.
The front door was open.
Beatrice ran inside.
“Mom?”
No answer.
The house smelled like smoke.
Not fire.
Something sharper.
Chemical.
Dante stopped her.
“Don't touch anything.”
Beatrice ignored him.
She raced toward the kitchen.
A mug lay shattered on the floor.
Her mother's purse sat beside the sink.
Her phone was missing.
“Maggie?”
“I’m here.”
Dante's guards secured the house.
One of them called from upstairs.
“Mr. Moretti.”
Dante went up.
Beatrice followed.
Her mother's bedroom had been turned upside down.
Drawers emptied.
Mattress cut open.
Photographs torn apart.
One wall had been scraped where a painting used to hang.
Dante examined it.
“Safe.”
Beatrice blinked.
“What?”
“Hidden compartment.”
He pulled loose a section of wood.
Inside was a metal box.
Beatrice opened it.
There were twelve letters.
All addressed to her mother.
The oldest was dated twenty-nine years earlier.
The signature:
Thomas.
Beatrice opened one.
You cannot keep her from me forever.
Another.
The child is mine.
Another.
Michael knows what he did.
Beatrice looked up.
“What did my father do?”
Dante was reading another letter.
“This.”
He handed it to her.
If Michael talks, the Wilkes trust will destroy him.
Beatrice's hands shook.
“My father was threatened.”
“Yes.”
“Over my mother?”
“Over you.”
A floorboard creaked downstairs.
Dante's gun appeared instantly.
He moved toward the staircase.
A figure burst through the kitchen door.
Beatrice screamed.
A man tackled one of Dante's guards and ran.
Dante chased him.
The intruder escaped through the back window.
Outside, tires screamed.
Dante returned moments later.
In his hand was a torn piece of fabric.
“From his jacket.”
Beatrice looked at it.
A monogram.
W.L.
Wilkes Legal.
She felt sick.
“An attorney?”
Dante nodded.
“Or someone pretending to be one.”
They searched the house again.
This time, Beatrice found something hidden beneath the floorboards in her mother's study.
A small tape recorder.
She pressed play.
Her mother's voice filled the room.
“Beatrice, I am sorry.”
Beatrice froze.
“I never wanted you to know.”
A long pause.
“Your father loved you.”
Another pause.
“But he was not your biological father.”
Beatrice covered her mouth.
“Thomas Wilkes was.”
Dante looked at her.
“He paid your father's medical bills anonymously.”
The recording continued.
“He wanted custody.”
Her mother's voice broke.
“I refused.”
Beatrice whispered:
“Why?”
“Because I discovered what he had done.”
A click.
Then another recording began.
Thomas Wilkes.
His voice was younger.
Calm.
Possessive.
“You will bring me my daughter.”
Her mother's voice replied:
“She is not yours to own.”
Thomas laughed.
“Everything is mine.”
The tape ended.
Silence swallowed the room.
Then Dante noticed another item beside the recorder.
A children's drawing.
A little girl.
Two men holding her hands.
One figure had been crossed out in black ink.
The other had been labeled:
DAD.
Beatrice stared.
“I remember this.”
Dante looked at her.
“When?”
“My fifth birthday.”
She closed her eyes.
“My mother told me I drew it.”
Dante turned the paper over.
There was a date.
August 17, 1999.
And a second note.
Not her mother's handwriting.
Thomas Wilkes's.
She chose Michael. That was the beginning of the war.
Beatrice's breathing changed.
“What war?”
Dante's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression became darker.
“What happened?”
A pause.
Then:
“Say it again.”
He looked at Beatrice.
“Maggie is missing.”
Beatrice stood.
“No.”
“She was taken from the safe house.”
“When?”
“Seven minutes ago.”
“By who?”
Dante didn't answer immediately.
May you like
Then he said:
“By someone wearing my security badge.”
