Chapter 3 - THE DEAD MAN’S CLOCK
3
Nobody needed to ask who Anthony meant.
Every face in the room turned toward Samuel Rusk.
Samuel didn’t move.
That was almost worse than if he had run.
I held the phone so tightly my fingers hurt.
“Anthony,” I whispered. “Are you saying Samuel hurt my father?”
Samuel’s head snapped toward me.
“That is not what he said.”
Anthony heard him.
His voice changed instantly.
“Is Rusk there?”
Luca took the phone from my hand.
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere I’m staying alive.”
“Anthony.”
“Not over the phone.”
“You disappeared after a recording surfaced making it sound like you betrayed me.”
“I disappeared because somebody shot out a tire on my car twenty minutes after Vanessa texted me asking to meet.”
Vanessa’s face drained of color.
“I never—”
Anthony continued.
“I knew the recording was coming. I didn’t know when.”
Luca stared at Vanessa.
“How?”
“Because I’ve been following the money for six months.”
“What money?”
“Dad’s.”
The word landed hard.
Luca’s expression changed.
“Our father has been dead twelve years.”
“Exactly.”
Anthony coughed.
“Yet companies connected to Gideon Hale have been receiving payments from an account Dad supposedly closed before the Riverside fire.”
Samuel finally spoke.
“Anthony, you are confused.”
Anthony laughed weakly.
“Still cleaning up other people’s stories, Samuel?”
Samuel went pale.
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“What does that mean?”
“I’ll explain when we’re face-to-face.”
“Where?”
“Not there.”
“Anthony—”
“You have a leak inside your house.”
His words made everyone glance around the room.
Anthony lowered his voice.
“And Claire? Listen carefully.”
I stepped toward the phone.
“I’m here.”
“Your father kept something Gideon Hale wanted.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. A tape. Maybe a reel. Maybe digital. But Gideon spent years looking for it.”
“My father said he destroyed the original.”
“He lied.”
“How do you know?”
“Because six months ago I found a payment from Hale Strategic Holdings to a private investigator. The memo said D.D. ARCHIVE RECOVERY.”
Vanessa whispered, “You shouldn’t have gone looking.”
Luca’s head turned.
Anthony heard her.
“There she is.”
Vanessa said nothing.
Anthony continued.
“I found photographs of Daniel. Then Claire. Then her employment paperwork.”
I looked at Samuel.
He avoided my eyes.
“You arranged it,” I said.
“No.”
“Yes.”
I stepped closer.
“You put me in this house.”
Samuel stood.
“I introduced an applicant to an employer. That is not a conspiracy.”
“An applicant whose father you had been watching?”
“I was not watching anyone.”
Anthony laughed again through the phone.
“Ask him about Bellweather.”
Samuel’s expression changed.
Luca noticed.
“What is Bellweather?”
Silence.
“Samuel.”
“It means nothing.”
Anthony spoke.
“It’s where everything started.”
Then the line went dead.
“Anthony?”
Luca stared at the screen.
Disconnected.
He called back.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Luca handed the phone to Marco.
“Trace it.”
Marco shook his head.
“Probably disposable.”
“Try.”
Then Luca turned toward Samuel.
“What is Bellweather?”
Samuel looked older suddenly.
Not weaker.
Older.
Like the last twenty years had arrived all at once.
“I advise you to stop digging into this.”
Luca smiled without humor.
“You advise me?”
“Yes.”
“My brother is hiding. My fiancée brought a fabricated recording into my house. Claire’s disabled father has been under surveillance. And your name appears beside Gideon Hale six days before my father died.”
Samuel met his eyes.
“Some graves exist for a reason.”
That sentence changed Luca.
I saw it happen.
The man I knew as Luca Moretti had built his life around suspicion, control, and strength.
But somewhere underneath all of that was still the son of Salvatore Moretti.
A son who had spent twelve years believing he understood how his father died.
Now somebody was telling him not to ask.
Luca walked around the table.
He stopped directly in front of Samuel.
“My father’s grave?”
Samuel said nothing.
“Is that the one you mean?”
“I mean the past.”
“You don’t get to separate those things.”
Vanessa stepped forward.
“Luca, please.”
He turned toward her.
“Don’t.”
“Samuel is right.”
Every face shifted toward her.
She seemed to regret it immediately.
But it was too late.
Luca’s voice became almost gentle.
“What exactly is he right about?”
Vanessa looked at Samuel.
He shook his head once.
Small.
Warning.
I caught it.
So did Luca.
“Interesting,” Luca said.
Samuel’s mouth hardened.
“You are making conclusions from gestures.”
“No. I’m finally watching the people I trusted.”
He looked at Marco.
“No one leaves.”
Samuel laughed.
“You cannot hold me here.”
“Then call someone.”
Samuel’s expression tightened.
We all understood what Luca meant.
If Samuel wanted to leave badly enough, he could create noise.
Police.
Attorneys.
Security.
Questions.
But doing so would expose the fact that something serious was happening.
Samuel sat down again.
Luca looked at me.
“Can your father communicate?”
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“Some days are better than others. He understands almost everything. Speech is difficult when he’s tired.”
“Can we talk to him tonight?”
My immediate instinct was no.
Not because I wanted to protect Samuel.
Because Dad had spent years building a small, careful life after his stroke.
He hated hospitals.
He hated strangers.
He hated being reminded of the shop.
Dragging Luca Moretti into his living room in the middle of the night felt cruel.
Then I remembered the photograph.
Someone had already dragged this into Dad’s life.
I just hadn’t known.
“I’ll go alone,” I said.
Luca shook his head.
“If Samuel was involved—”
“My father won’t talk if eight men show up.”
“I’m not sending eight men.”
“You’re not coming.”
The room went very quiet.
I had just told Luca Moretti no.
Vanessa almost smiled.
Luca studied me.
“Why?”
“Because you scare people.”
One of the men coughed into his hand.
I continued.
“My father has had enough fear.”
Luca didn’t appear offended.
Instead, he nodded slowly.
“Marco drives.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“I drove myself here.”
“If somebody has been watching your father and now knows you found the card, you aren’t driving alone.”
I hated that he was right.
“Marco stays outside.”
“Agreed.”
Samuel leaned forward.
“This is insanity.”
I turned toward him.
“Does my father know you?”
“No.”
“Then you shouldn’t care if I ask.”
His jaw tightened.
I looked back at the laptop.
The HALE folder contained one more photograph.
Vanessa’s old sitting room clock.
Except it wasn’t in her Chicago room.
It sat on a desk somewhere else.
The photograph was dated twelve years earlier.
On the desk beside it were three objects.
A reel-to-reel tape.
A pair of silver headphones.
And a business card.
DAWSON AUDIO RESTORATION.
I zoomed in.
There was handwriting on the back of the photograph.
BELLWEATHER - MASTER SESSION.
My pulse quickened.
“Bellweather isn’t a person.”
Luca came beside me.
“What?”
I pointed.
“It was a session.”
Samuel stood so abruptly his chair fell backward.
Marco immediately stepped forward.
That was the first time Samuel truly looked afraid.
Luca noticed.
“So Anthony was right.”
Samuel said nothing.
“What happened at the Bellweather session?”
“Nothing.”
“What was recorded?”
“Nothing.”
“What did Daniel restore?”
“Ask him.”
The words were bitter.
Samuel knew the moment they left his mouth that he had made a mistake.
Because they confirmed the one thing he had been denying.
He knew my father.
I looked at him.
“You said you never knew him.”
Samuel’s face closed.
I picked up my coat.
“I’m going to Milwaukee.”
Luca turned to Marco.
“Go.”
Before we reached the door, Vanessa spoke.
“Claire.”
I stopped.
She was standing beneath the chandelier, looking smaller now.
Less polished.
Less certain.
“If Daniel tells you what he remembers, you may wish you had left him alone.”
I stared at her.
“Is that a threat?”
“No.”
For the first time, she sounded sincere.
“It’s a warning.”
“From you?”
“From someone who learned too late what happens when people in Luca’s family discover they’ve been lied to.”
Luca’s eyes darkened.
But Vanessa looked only at me.
“There was never just one recording.”
My hand tightened around my coat.
“What does that mean?”
She glanced toward the memory card.
“The Anthony recording was practice.”
“For what?”
Vanessa smiled faintly.
“For the one they were planning to play at the wedding.”
Nobody spoke.
Luca stepped toward her.
“What recording?”
But Vanessa shook her head.
“I don’t know what’s on it.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Gideon never trusted me with the final archive.”
“Your father is dead.”
Vanessa looked at him.
And what she said next made Samuel whisper her name in warning.
“My father may be dead.”
She paused.
“But Bellweather never belonged to him.”
I felt my heartbeat in my throat.
“Who did it belong to?”
May you like
Vanessa turned toward Samuel Rusk.
“The man who taught my father how to create a lie people would kill for.”
