Chapter 2 - The Name She Buried
Nora did not get into the SUV.
"Tell me here."
Dominic glanced toward the hospital doors.
"Not safe."
"For who?"
"You."
She almost laughed.
For twelve years, people had told her to be careful whenever she asked about Daniel Bennett.
Her father had left for work one rainy November morning and never returned. No body. No arrest. No goodbye.
Only one thing had surfaced years later: a photograph of Daniel standing beside Adrian Vale's father outside a warehouse on the harbor.
That photograph had brought Nora into Vale Manor under a fake last name.
She opened the SUV door.
Dominic drove to an underground garage beneath a closed office tower. Inside a private conference room, he placed a burned leather wallet on the table.
"This was found in the library wall after the fire."
Nora stared at it.
The initials D.B. were stamped inside.
Her father's.
"Where did you get that?"
"Behind a false panel near Adrian's desk."
Her throat tightened.
"He kept my father's wallet hidden in his house?"
"Maybe. Or someone wanted us to find it tonight."
Dominic opened the wallet.
One item remained inside: an old Massachusetts driver's license.
Daniel Bennett.
The expiration date was ten years after he disappeared.
Nora went cold.
"That's impossible."
"It was renewed eight years ago."
"My father was alive?"
Dominic did not answer.
Instead, he slid over a security photo from the hospital.
A man in a cap stood outside Adrian's room twenty minutes earlier.
Older. Thinner. Scar along one cheek.
But Nora knew the eyes.
She stood so fast the chair tipped over.
"That's him."
Dominic caught her wrist before she reached the door.
"Listen to me. The man in that photo used a visitor badge under another name."
"What name?"
Dominic released her.
"Michael Crane."
Nora stared.
May you like
That name was printed on every monthly paycheck she had received at Vale Manor.
Michael Crane was the man who had hired her.
