Chapter 4 - THE LITTLE GIRL THEY WANTED ERASEDAt 6:12 the next morning, Claire Bennett called the one man in Vermont she trusted more than anyone.
Daniel Brooks answered on the second ring.
"Claire?"
"I need your help."
Something in her voice made him sit upright.
"Tell me what happened."
She described the anonymous call, the photograph, and the warning.
Daniel listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he asked one question.
"Where's Isabella?"
"Asleep in the next room."
"Good. Keep her there. I'm coming."
"Daniel, you're four hours away."
"Then I'll be there in four hours."
The call ended.
Claire stood beside Isabella's bed for a long time.
Her daughter slept beneath a white comforter, one hand curled beneath her cheek.
Seven years earlier, Claire had escaped Chicago to protect that child from becoming a bargaining chip in the Moretti family.
Now someone had found them anyway.
She was terrified.
But fear wasn't the same as helplessness.
And Claire had spent seven years becoming someone who understood the difference.
By noon, Daniel arrived with a retired federal investigator named Thomas Reed.
Thomas was fifty-six, silver-haired, and built like a man who had spent his career trying to fit his shoulders through doorways designed for smaller people.
Daniel introduced him as an old friend.
Claire looked skeptical.
"Old friend?"
Thomas smiled.
"I handled financial crime investigations before retirement. Daniel and I served on a child-protection advisory board."
Claire showed him the photograph.
His expression immediately changed.
"That's surveillance."
"Can you find out who sent it?"
"Possibly. But first, we need to determine whether the threat is credible."
He examined the metadata and message details.
"The picture was taken recently. Whoever has been watching Isabella knew her school schedule."
Claire felt sick.
"Do I call the police?"
"Yes. Preserve the messages and make a report. We'll also coordinate with local authorities and your attorney."
"What about the gala?"
Daniel folded his arms.
"We can decline the award."
From the doorway came a small voice.
"No."
Everyone turned.
Isabella stood there wearing pink pajamas, her curls tangled from sleep.
Claire's heart dropped.
"Sweetheart, how long have you been listening?"
"Long enough."
Isabella looked at the three adults.
"Somebody doesn't want me to get my award?"
Claire crossed the room.
"Honey, there are grown-up things happening that aren't your responsibility."
"But I worked really hard."
"I know."
"And the money is for the libraries."
"I know, baby."
Isabella's eyes filled.
"If we don't go, does that mean the kids don't get their books?"
Claire knelt in front of her.
"We'll find another way."
Isabella shook her head.
"That's not fair."
Daniel stepped closer.
"Sometimes being brave means knowing when to wait."
Isabella considered his words.
Then she looked at Claire.
"Mommy, you always tell me not to let bullies decide who I am."
Claire could barely speak.
"I do."
"Then why do they get to decide whether I go?"
Three hundred miles away, Vincent Moretti was asking a different question.
"Who authorized the security review of the Bennett girl?"
His head of security, Marco DeLuca, shifted uneasily.
"Mrs. Moretti requested background checks on all award recipients."
Vincent sat behind his desk.
"All of them?"
Marco hesitated.
"Primarily this one."
Vincent leaned forward.
"Explain."
Marco handed him a folder.
Inside were photographs of Claire's cottage, Isabella's school, and the local children's library.
Vincent stared at them.
Then he looked up.
"Why are there surveillance photographs of my daughter?"
Marco swallowed.
"Sir?"
"You heard me."
"I didn't know she was your daughter."
"Who ordered this?"
"Mrs. Moretti used a private security contractor."
"Name."
"Blackstone Investigations."
Vincent stood.
"Get the owner here."
"Immediately?"
Vincent's voice became deadly quiet.
"Marco, my seven-year-old daughter has been followed to school by strangers."
Marco straightened.
"Understood."
"And find out whether Claire knows."
Marco paused.
"Should I contact her?"
Vincent looked down at a photograph.
Claire stood outside a library holding Isabella's hand.
She was smiling.
He hadn't seen that smile in seven years.
It should have made him happy.
Instead, it reminded him of everything he'd destroyed.
"No," he said.
"Sir?"
"I'll contact her myself."
Sophia found Vincent standing in Alessandro's bedroom that evening.
Their son was practicing piano downstairs.
Vincent held a framed photograph of Alessandro's fifth birthday.
"Do you remember this day?" he asked.
Sophia smiled carefully.
"Of course. We had the magician."
"Alessandro cried because he wanted Claire's cake recipe."
Sophia froze.
Vincent turned.
"He was five, and you told him his aunt Claire was dead."
Sophia's face tightened.
"Vincent—"
"Was that your idea or your mother's?"
"Why are we talking about Claire?"
He set down the photograph.
"Because her daughter is receiving an award on Saturday."
Sophia forced a laugh.
"Oh, that. I heard something about it."
"Her name is Isabella."
"How nice."
"She's seven."
Sophia looked away.
Vincent moved closer.
"Look at me."
She did.
"Did you know where Claire was living?"
"No."
"Did you hire someone to follow her?"
Sophia's lips parted.
"That's ridiculous."
Vincent placed the surveillance folder on the dresser.
Her face went white.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then Sophia whispered, "I was protecting our family."
Vincent stared at her.
"From a seven-year-old?"
"You don't understand what Claire could do!"
"What could she do?"
Sophia's composure shattered.
"She could take everything!"
Vincent went still.
"Everything?"
Sophia caught herself.
"I mean your reputation. Our marriage. Alessandro's future."
Vincent looked at the woman he'd married.
For years, he'd excused her jealousy.
He'd dismissed her obsession with Claire.
He'd accepted her claims that his first wife wanted nothing to do with him.
Now, suddenly, he wondered how much of his life had been built on lies.
"You will not contact Claire," he said.
Sophia's eyes widened.
"Vincent—"
"You will not contact Isabella. You will not send investigators, make phone calls, or interfere with that award."
"You're taking her side?"
"I'm protecting a child."
"She's not your child!"
The words exploded from Sophia before she could stop them.
Vincent stared.
Sophia immediately stepped back.
"I didn't mean—"
"Say that again."
"Vincent, please."
"Tell me my daughter isn't mine."
Silence.
Then he spoke with a calmness more frightening than anger.
"Stay away from them."
He walked out.
Sophia remained motionless.
Then she picked up her phone and called her father.
"We have a problem."
The man who arrived at the Moretti mansion an hour later was Richard Reynolds.
Sophia's father.
Claire's adoptive father.
Once a respected Chicago investment banker, Richard had spent the last decade maintaining the image of a wealthy patriarch.
But his finances told a very different story.
He had lost millions in speculative investments.
Sophia had rescued him using money transferred through the Bennett trust.
And now those transactions were beginning to surface.
Richard entered Sophia's private sitting room.
"How much does Vincent know?"
"Enough to start asking questions."
"About the trust?"
"I don't think so."
Richard exhaled.
"Then we still have time."
Sophia paced.
"Claire's coming to the gala. Vincent knows Isabella is his daughter."
Richard's expression darkened.
"That complicates things."
"What do we do?"
He poured himself a whiskey.
"Claire always had one weakness."
Sophia looked up.
"Isabella."
"Exactly."
Sophia stared at her father.
"What are you suggesting?"
Richard turned.
"Nothing that harms the child. Fear is usually enough to change someone's mind."
"And if it isn't?"
Richard didn't answer.
Back in Boston, Thomas Reed received a response from an investigator he still trusted.
He stared at his laptop.
Then he called Claire into the hotel sitting room.
"I identified the company that photographed Isabella."
"Who hired them?"
"An intermediary working for Sophia Moretti."
Claire closed her eyes.
Of course.
"But that's not all," Thomas said.
He turned the screen toward her.
"There have been several large transfers from your grandmother's trust-linked assets into companies owned by Richard Reynolds."
Claire stared at the numbers.
Her father.
Again.
"How much?"
"At least eleven million dollars that we've traced so far."
Claire sat down.
"He helped steal from his own daughter."
Thomas nodded grimly.
"Claire, we're also concerned about the timing. The transfers increased shortly after Isabella was born."
"Why?"
"Because somebody may have believed you were too overwhelmed to notice."
Claire remembered herself in that hospital bed.
Alone.
Frightened.
Desperate to keep her baby alive.
While she was fighting to survive, her family had been moving money.
A strange calm settled over her.
"Then we're going to Chicago."
Daniel looked alarmed.
"Claire—"
"With protection. With my attorney. With law enforcement informed."
She looked at Thomas.
"And with copies of every document you've found."
Thomas nodded.
"That can be arranged."
Claire turned toward the bedroom.
Through the open door, she could see Isabella coloring a picture.
A little girl.
A smiling woman.
A blue sky.
And a house with a red roof.
At the bottom, Isabella had written:
Home is wherever Mommy is.
Claire pressed a hand against her mouth.
Then her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She answered cautiously.
"Hello?"
A familiar voice spoke.
"Claire."
Seven years vanished.
Her knees nearly buckled.
Vincent.
"Don't hang up," he said.
Claire gripped the phone.
"What do you want?"
His answer came after a long silence.
"I want to know whether my daughter is safe."
Claire closed her eyes.
Then she said the words she'd been waiting seven years to say.
"She's safe because I protected her from the people you chose over us."
Vincent didn't respond.
"And if you want to help her," Claire continued, "you'll start by telling me why your wife has been having my daughter followed."
His silence told her more than any confession could.
Finally, he whispered, "I just found out."
"That's what you said about a lot of things, Vincent."
"Claire, please."
"No. You don't get to say please now and make seven years disappear."
"I know."
The simple admission surprised her.
Then he said something she hadn't expected.
"There's something else you need to know."
"What?"
"Your father came to see me this morning."
Claire went cold.
"Why?"
Vincent's voice lowered.
"He told me Isabella isn't my daughter."
Claire stopped breathing.
May you like
And then Vincent said the one sentence that made her realize the past was far more dangerous than she'd imagined.
"He claims he has a medical report proving it."
Related Stories
