Chapter 9 - THE NIGHT HER MOTHER DIED
Hannah stared at Dominic.
“My mother died of an aneurysm.”
Dominic said nothing.
“That’s what the hospital said.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did my father tell me to ask you?”
Dominic closed the door.
“Because I was there that night.”
Hannah felt the room tilt in a way that had nothing to do with blood pressure.
“My mother died at home.”
“No. She collapsed at a hotel near Logan Airport.”
Hannah’s breath caught.
Dominic continued carefully. “Your parents had met in secret. Your father wanted to bring you both into protection. Your mother refused to uproot you without proof you were in danger.”
“What happened?”
“She drank from a bottle of water in the room. Twenty minutes later, she collapsed.”
Hannah shook her head. “No.”
“The official cause was aneurysm. Vincent believed she had been poisoned. There was never enough evidence.”
“By Victor?”
Dominic’s jaw tightened. “We thought so.”
“Thought?”
“There was another person in the hotel hallway that night.”
He took out his phone and showed her a still image from old security footage.
A younger man stood near the elevator, face half turned.
Hannah recognized him.
Not Bradley.
Bradley’s father.
Richard Bennett.
The man who had welcomed Hannah into his family, paid for the rehearsal dinner, and cried during her wedding vows.
“He knew my mother?”
“He worked for Victor.”
Hannah covered her mouth.
Dominic said, “Bradley did not marry you by accident.”
The sentence landed harder than everything else.
Five years of marriage rearranged itself in her mind.
The coffee shop where they had ‘randomly’ met.
Bradley’s curiosity about her childhood.
His insistence on handling taxes.
His irritation whenever she mentioned her mother’s old papers.
“He was sent to find the trust.”
Dominic nodded.
Hannah’s eyes filled, but her voice went cold.
“Then I was never his wife.”
Detective Chen’s phone rang.
She answered, listened, and swore.
“What?” Dominic asked.
Chen looked at Hannah.
May you like
“Kelsey escaped police custody.”
A second later, the NICU alarm system began to scream.
