Chapter 8 - The Man Who Watched Us
Vincent wanted me gone.
Not from his employment.
From Connecticut.
“Private plane,” he said. “Tonight.”
“No.”
“You are on a schedule kept by a man connected to my father.”
“I heard.”
“And you’re saying no?”
“Yes.”
We stood in the rental kitchen at midnight.
Mrs. Harper had taken the twins upstairs.
Two police officers were outside.
Vincent looked furious.
“You have no obligation to die for my family.”
“I’m not planning to.”
“Then leave.”
“No.”
His palm hit the counter.
“Why are you being impossible?”
“Because if Sloan has been watching us, he already knows every person around the boys. Sending me to an airport doesn’t magically make me invisible.”
“I can protect you.”
“Then protect me here.”
His voice dropped.
“Claire.”
“I’m not Isabella.”
That landed harder than I intended.
His face changed.
“I know.”
“Then stop trying to rewrite what happened to her by controlling what I do.”
He stared at me.
I softened my voice.
“I’m scared too.”
That was the truth.
My hands had been shaking for an hour.
“But the twins know me now. They’re improving. Their entire world has been turned upside down. I’m not disappearing in the middle of the night because some coward took photographs.”
Vincent looked away.
“You call that bravery?”
“No.”
“What do you call it?”
“Being their nanny.”
He laughed once.
Then rubbed his face.
“You’re going to destroy my blood pressure.”
“That sounds like Dr. Blake’s department.”
The joke was terrible.
It still made him smile.
At seven the next morning, police used the scheduled walk to set a trap.
The twins never left the house.
Neither did I.
An officer wearing my coat walked down the seaside path beside two smaller undercover officers.
Nothing happened for nine minutes.
Then a gray vehicle moved slowly along the road.
Patrick Sloan was arrested three blocks away.
Inside his car, investigators found surveillance equipment.
A fake maintenance badge.
Disposable phones.
And keys to the Moretti estate.
He refused to speak.
Until Vincent arrived at the police station.
Then he asked for a deal.
I was not supposed to be inside the interview room.
I watched from behind glass.
Sloan looked ordinary.
That disturbed me.
Fifty-something.
Balding.
Pale jacket.
A face nobody would remember after passing him in a grocery store.
Vincent sat across from him.
“You photographed my children.”
Sloan looked at the camera.
“My attorney—”
“You asked to speak to me.”
Sloan swallowed.
“I want protection.”
“From whom?”
“People you don’t understand.”
Vincent leaned back.
“My father?”
Sloan’s eyes moved.
That was answer enough.
“Carlo is dead,” Vincent said.
“Dead men leave instructions.”
My stomach tightened.
“What instructions?” the investigator asked.
Sloan ignored him.
Vincent continued.
“Did my father order Isabella killed?”
Sloan’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
“Did he poison her?”
“No.”
“Did he install the ventilation devices?”
Sloan stared at the table.
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Your father wanted pressure.”
“What kind of pressure?”
“He wanted Isabella frightened.”
Vincent’s eyes became cold.
“So he had Harrison make her sick.”
Sloan looked uncomfortable.
“The original compound wasn’t supposed to cause permanent harm.”
I felt my stomach turn.
As if that distinction mattered.
Vincent leaned forward.
“My wife got headaches.”
“Yes.”
“Nausea.”
“Yes.”
“Confusion.”
Sloan nodded.
“The goal was to make her question herself.”
Vincent stared at him.
“To make me question her.”
Sloan said nothing.
“And her accident?”
Sloan looked toward his attorney.
The attorney shook his head.
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“Tell me.”
“It wasn’t planned.”
Vincent stopped moving.
“What?”
“She was being followed.”
“By you?”
“Michael Vane.”
The dead maintenance worker.
“He was supposed to find out where she was going.”
“What happened?”
“She realized someone was behind her.”
Sloan swallowed.
“She accelerated.”
Vincent’s hands curled.
“It was raining.”
I closed my eyes.
No.
“She lost control.”
Sloan continued quickly.
“Michael called Harrison afterward. He was panicking.”
“Was Isabella alive?”
Sloan did not answer.
Vincent stood.
“Was my wife alive?”
Sloan whispered, “For a few minutes.”
The room seemed to stop.
“Did Michael help her?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“He was afraid.”
Vincent moved so quickly two officers stepped forward.
He stopped himself.
Barely.
“She died alone because he was afraid?”
Sloan looked down.
“Yes.”
Vincent sat again.
His face had become almost gray.
I wanted to go into that room.
I didn’t.
Not yet.
“Why did Michael die?” the investigator asked.
Sloan shook his head.
“I didn’t kill him.”
“Who did?”
“Harrison arranged it.”
Blake.
Vincent looked through the glass without knowing exactly where I stood.
I felt as if his eyes found me anyway.
“Why continue poisoning the boys?” he asked.
Sloan’s face changed.
“That wasn’t Carlo.”
“Who?”
Sloan stayed silent.
“Patrick.”
“I need protection.”
“You’ll have it.”
“Federal.”
The investigator nodded.
“We can discuss that.”
Sloan breathed hard.
“After Carlo died, someone discovered the old system.”
“Who?”
“He already knew about it.”
“Name.”
Sloan looked terrified.
“Daniel.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
But Sloan shook his head immediately.
“No. Not Mercer.”
We all froze.
“Then which Daniel?”
Sloan whispered:
“Daniel Blake.”
Harrison Blake’s son.
Nobody had mentioned him.
Vincent frowned.
“Harrison doesn’t have a son.”
Sloan gave a humorless laugh.
“Not publicly.”
The investigation changed direction within hours.
Daniel Blake was thirty-two.
Born Daniel Shaw.
Mother: Rebecca Shaw.
Father left blank on the birth certificate.
Genetic records from an old civil case connected him to Harrison Blake.
He had trained as an environmental systems engineer.
He had also worked under a contracting firm that serviced luxury estates.
Including Moretti properties.
My skin went cold.
The new ventilation device manufactured three years ago suddenly made sense.
A younger man.
Technical expertise.
Access.
A connection to Blake nobody knew existed.
But why the twins?
The answer arrived from the financial investigation.
Daniel Blake’s mother had died six years earlier.
Her medical bills had been enormous.
Harrison refused to acknowledge him publicly.
According to Sloan, Daniel blamed Harrison.
And the Morettis.
“He believed his mother died because Harrison spent his life serving wealthy families instead of helping her,” Sloan explained in a second interview.
“That still doesn’t explain Lucas and Leo,” I said.
Sloan looked at me through the glass when investigators relayed my question.
Then he said:
“Revenge doesn’t need logic.”
Daniel Blake had learned about his father’s role in Isabella’s death.
Instead of exposing him, he had begun blackmailing him.
Then Carlo died.
The old ventilation secret became a weapon.
Daniel wanted Harrison terrified.
He wanted Vincent Moretti suffering.
And he wanted money.
Millions.
Payments had been leaving one of Harrison’s offshore accounts for nearly two years.
The same period the twins became sick.
Harrison wasn’t poisoning the boys alone.
He was being forced to cooperate with his own son.
It didn’t make him innocent.
It made him pathetic.
The investigators obtained a warrant for Harrison Blake’s private office.
Inside a safe, they found records of Daniel’s threats.
Photographs of the twins.
Copies of toxicology reports.
And a handwritten note from Harrison:
I cannot make him stop without destroying everything.
Vincent read it.
Then threw it across the room.
“He could have told me.”
“He would have exposed himself,” I said.
“So he chose my sons.”
“Yes.”
That truth was ugly.
At four that afternoon, Harrison Blake asked to speak.
This time, I entered the room with Vincent.
Blake looked smaller without the expensive suit and medical authority surrounding him.
“You were right about the vent,” he told me.
I stared at him.
“That doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“I underestimated you.”
“You endangered two children.”
His eyes closed.
“I know.”
Vincent sat across from him.
“Where is Daniel?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve been paying him.”
“He changes locations.”
“What does he want?”
“Money.”
“Only money?”
Blake looked at me.
“No.”
“What else?”
“He wants Vincent to lose everything he loves.”
Vincent did not react.
“Why?”
“Because Daniel’s mother blamed Carlo for destroying her family.”
Vincent frowned.
“Rebecca Shaw.”
Blake nodded.
“Evelyn’s daughter.”
I felt cold.
Vincent’s cousin.
Daniel Blake was connected to the Moretti family by blood through Isabella’s ally Evelyn.
The family tree had become a minefield.
Blake continued.
“Rebecca worked for Carlo years ago. They had an affair.”
Vincent stared at him.
“Daniel may not be your son.”
“No.”
Blake’s voice cracked.
“He’s Carlo’s.”
Silence.
Vincent stopped breathing.
Daniel Blake was not Harrison Blake’s son.
He was Vincent’s half-brother.
A secret child of Carlo Moretti.
And suddenly revenge had a very different shape.
That evening, the twins were playing cards when Leo looked toward the window.
“Claire?”
“Yes?”
“Who’s that?”
I turned.
A man stood beyond the backyard fence.
Watching the house.
Tall.
Dark jacket.
He smiled.
Then lifted his phone.
Vincent entered behind me.
“What?”
I pointed.
The man raised one hand.
Not waving.
Showing us something.
A small black remote.
The same kind of remote capable of activating the ventilation device.
Then he mouthed two words through the glass.
May you like
Hello, brother.
Daniel Moretti had found us.
