Chapter 8 - The Day My Father Vanished
I showed the card to Detective Alvarez before breakfast.
She examined the front, then the back.
“Do you recognize this care facility?” she asked.
“No.”
“Your father?”
Dad shook his head.
The name was Willowbrook House, a private residence outside the city. Alvarez checked its public records. It was a licensed facility that had recently changed ownership through a chain of companies. One investor traced back to a Bellini development group.
“Don't go,” Alvarez told us.
“We weren't planning to.”
But I couldn't stop staring at the words.
YOUR DAUGHTER CAN STILL SAVE MRS. MORETTI.
Why would they say that if Teresa was safe at home?
I called the estate.
Mrs. Carter answered.
“She's having breakfast,” she said. “Luca's sitting beside her, looking like a man about to be graded on how well he buttered toast.”
I smiled despite myself.
“Can I speak to her?”
Teresa came on the line.
“Claire, my dear. I am perfectly well.”
“Please stay with Luca today.”
“I intend to. We're sorting his father's old books.”
I hesitated.
“And don't open the door for Vanessa.”
Teresa's tone sharpened.
“Darling, I am seventy-eight, not six.”
I closed my eyes.
“I'm sorry.”
She softened.
“I know why you're worried. I promise I'll be careful. You must be careful too.”
At noon, my father insisted on walking to the corner pharmacy for a prescription refill.
I offered to go.
“I've been inside for three days,” he complained. “I need to see a tree that doesn't belong to the Morettis.”
“Dad—”
“The pharmacist knows me. It's two blocks.”
He was right. The corner was busy. The security driver was parked nearby. I couldn't keep Dad inside forever because somebody wanted me to be frightened.
“Take your phone,” I said.
He kissed my forehead.
“Always.”
Twenty minutes later, the security driver called.
“Miss Bennett, your father came out of the pharmacy and spoke to someone in a white sedan. He got in voluntarily. I followed, but a truck cut me off at the intersection.”
I stopped breathing.
“Where is he now?”
“I've lost visual contact. I'm calling police.”
I dialed Dad.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
The kitchen seemed to tilt.
I gripped the counter.
“Dad, answer.”
My phone lit up with an unknown number.
I snatched it.
“Where is he?”
A man's voice answered.
“Your father is comfortable.”
“Let me speak to him.”
“Three o'clock. Willowbrook House. Come alone.”
“You expect me to believe you?”
“I expect you to care more about your father than about Luca Moretti.”
The line went dead.
I called Alvarez before I called Luca.
She listened and gave me clear instructions. I was not to go alone. She would coordinate officers and contact the facility. She also asked me to write down the exact words.
I obeyed, although my hands shook so badly I could barely hold the pen.
When Luca arrived, I was sitting on the floor beside the refrigerator.
He crouched opposite me.
“Claire.”
I looked up.
“I let him go to the pharmacy.”
“That's not a crime.”
“I should have gone with him.”
“You trusted him to walk two blocks.”
My eyes filled.
“He had a heart attack six months ago. I promised my mother I'd look after him.”
Luca's face changed.
“Your mother?”
I nodded.
“She asked me before she died. She said he'd pretend he was fine when he wasn't.”
The words came out broken.
“I keep failing him.”
Luca sat on the floor beside me, an expensive black coat folded awkwardly under his knees.
“Claire, somebody chose to threaten your family. That choice belongs to them.”
I wanted to believe him, but guilt was easier to hold than fear. Guilt made it seem I could have prevented everything if I'd just done one thing differently.
Luca waited until I could breathe steadily again.
Then he said, “Alvarez is arranging an operation. She has the information. Our security team will follow her lead.”
“You aren't going to send men to break in?”
He looked at me.
“Would that make you feel safer?”
“No.”
“Then no.”
I understood how much that answer mattered.
At two thirty, Alvarez called. The facility's director had cooperated. There was no scheduled appointment under Richard Bennett's name. An employee had reported seeing a white sedan at the rear entrance an hour earlier. Officers were checking the property and nearby roads.
I sat with Luca and Naomi Reed in a police interview room, waiting for another call.
Time became something cruel.
Every minute stretched until it felt as if the clocks had stopped out of spite.
As the minutes passed, I kept remembering how Dad taught me to use a pay phone when I was ten. We were on a long drive, and the car broke down miles from home. He gave me coins, pointed to a gas station, and made me practice explaining where we were.
“First tell them you're safe,” he'd said. “Then tell them exactly where to find you.”
I had thought he was being dramatic. Years later, those words were all I could think about.
He'd built a quiet life around preparing for little emergencies. Extra flashlight batteries. A list of the neighbors' numbers. A small sewing kit in the glove compartment. The hidden coat pocket Mom used to tease him about.
I hoped one of those habits could help him now.
Naomi sat beside me and asked whether I wanted water. I shook my head. The cup in front of me had gone untouched for an hour.
“I can't stop thinking about the last thing I said to him,” I whispered.
“What was it?”
“Take your phone.”
“That's a sensible thing to say.”
“It wasn't I love you.”
She waited a moment.
“Claire, he knows you love him.”
I stared at the clock.
“When Mom died, the last thing we talked about was whether I'd bought milk. I swore I'd never let that happen again with someone I loved.”
Naomi reached for my good hand.
“An ordinary last conversation doesn't make a lifetime of love ordinary.”
I wanted to remember that.
Luca was sitting across from us. He hadn't made a call to anyone who might intimidate the people holding my father. He had given the investigators what they needed and remained in the room, hands folded, as powerless as I felt.
Once he caught me looking at him.
“I can stay,” he said.
“Please.”
He stayed.
I realized then that protection didn't always mean solving the problem. Sometimes it meant refusing to leave somebody alone while the answer was still unknown.
At three ten, a detective came into the room with an updated map of the roads near Willowbrook House. She pointed to two warehouses the white sedan might have passed. The search was widening.
The sound of my phone vibrating made all three of us jump.
At three seventeen, my phone buzzed.
Dad.
I answered so quickly I almost dropped it.
“Dad?”
A whisper.
“Claire, I'm all right.”
I covered my mouth.
“Where are you?”
“I don't know exactly. They brought me to a building with a loading dock.”
“Who did?”
“Two men. They said somebody needed to talk to me about you.”
I heard a scraping sound.
“Dad, are you alone?”
“For a minute. I found my phone in my coat lining. They didn't check there.”
Typical Dad. He'd sewn a hidden pocket into that coat years ago because he didn't trust crowded subway trains.
“Can you see anything?”
“A sign. Northstar Cold Storage. I think that's what it says.”
Alvarez took the address immediately and signaled to another officer.
Then Dad whispered, “Listen to me. They want me to say you were drunk when you hurt Mrs. Moretti.”
I closed my eyes.
“I know.”
“And there's something else.”
His breathing sounded strained.
“One of them said Vanessa couldn't be trusted because she wanted an accident, but her father wanted paperwork. They were arguing about it.”
My eyes flew open.
“What?”
“Claire, I think the man running this is her father.”
Footsteps sounded behind him.
“Dad?”
“I love you, sweetheart.”
The call ended.
Alvarez left the room with two officers. Before she went, she turned to me.
“We have a location lead. We are going to check it.”
I nodded because I couldn't speak.
Luca held out his phone.
On its screen was a message from Julian Pace.
I THINK IT'S TIME YOU AND I SPOKE ABOUT YOUR FATHER'S LEGACY.
May you like
Beneath it was a photograph of Antonio Moretti's old desk.
And resting on top of the desk was the missing letter from the blue album.
