Chapter 3 - THE HOUSE WITH NO ADDRESS
Z
At 10:47 p.m., Claire Bennett disappeared from her own life.
Marco’s security team collected Lily from Mrs. Alvarez without explaining more than necessary.
Claire made the call herself.
“An electrical problem at the restaurant,” she lied, staring at Marco while she said it. “I need to stay somewhere else tonight.”
Mrs. Alvarez arrived at Palazzo Nero’s rear entrance holding a sleepy four-year-old wrapped in a yellow coat.
Lily saw Claire and ran immediately.
“Mommy.”
Claire dropped to her knees and held her so tightly Lily complained.
“You’re squishing me.”
“I know.”
“Why are there police?”
“Something happened outside.”
“Bad?”
Claire closed her eyes.
“A little.”
Lily looked past her.
Marco stood several feet away.
He had removed his suit jacket.
His white shirt sleeves were rolled once at the wrists.
To Lily, he apparently looked less like New York’s most feared crime boss and more like a tall stranger who needed to be investigated.
“Who’s that?”
Claire sighed.
“Marco.”
Lily stared openly.
“Are you Mommy’s boss?”
Marco answered before Claire could.
“No.”
“Good. Her boss is mean.”
Vincent looked away to hide a smile.
Marco’s mouth twitched.
“I’ve heard.”
They traveled in three different vehicles.
Claire and Lily rode in the middle SUV with Marco and Daniel.
Nobody told Claire the destination.
She considered demanding it.
Then she noticed the motorcycle that followed them for twelve blocks before turning away after Daniel made three abrupt route changes.
Her argument died.
The house was in Westchester, hidden behind stone walls and trees.
It did not look like a fortress.
That probably meant it was a very expensive fortress.
Lily woke completely when she saw the staircase.
“Is this a hotel?”
“No,” Marco said.
“Do you live here?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why sometimes?”
“Because I have too many houses.”
Lily considered this.
“That’s silly.”
Claire covered her face.
Marco looked toward the ceiling as if asking a higher power why his armed security team had failed to protect him from a preschooler.
“She’s tired,” Claire said.
“She’s right.”
The bedroom prepared for them was larger than Claire’s entire apartment.
There were fresh pajamas for Lily.
A toothbrush.
Children’s shampoo.
Even a stuffed elephant on the bed.
Claire looked at Marco.
“How did you do this in forty minutes?”
“I have people.”
“That is becoming the answer to everything.”
“It frequently is.”
Lily climbed onto the mattress.
“Can I keep the elephant?”
Marco looked at Claire first.
Claire appreciated that.
“If you want,” she said.
Lily hugged it.
“He needs a name.”
Marco turned toward the door.
“Good night.”
“Wait.”
He stopped.
Lily pointed to the elephant.
“You have to name him.”
Claire expected Marco to decline.
Instead he studied the toy as seriously as if negotiating a merger.
“Anthony.”
“That’s a people name.”
“Most names are.”
“He looks like a Peanut.”
“Then Peanut.”
Lily approved.
Five minutes later, she was asleep.
Claire stood beside the bed until she was certain.
When she entered the hallway, Marco was still there.
“You could have left.”
“I wanted to make sure she settled.”
Claire pulled the door nearly closed.
“Why?”
Marco’s gaze remained on the narrow opening.
“Children shouldn’t pay for adult wars.”
Something in his voice suggested history.
Claire noticed it.
She did not ask.
Not yet.
They went downstairs.
Daniel had transformed the dining room into a command center.
Laptops.
Maps.
Photographs.
Security footage.
Claire saw Evan’s face on one screen and stopped.
Daniel enlarged the picture.
“This was taken July nineteenth. He met with Victor Bianchi.”
Marco’s expression became unreadable.
Claire looked between them.
“Who is Victor?”
“My consigliere,” Marco said.
“Your what?”
“My senior adviser.”
“You mean your mafia adviser?”
Silence.
Claire laughed once without humor.
“Okay. We’re not pretending anymore.”
Marco leaned against the table.
“You already knew what people say about me.”
“I knew rumors.”
“Now you know some of them are true.”
“Which ones?”
“That’s a conversation for another night.”
“No. That’s a conversation for the night someone puts a bomb under your car and then threatens my child.”
Marco’s eyes sharpened.
“Nobody threatened Lily.”
“They threatened me. I’m her mother. Same difference.”
He accepted that.
Daniel changed screens.
A security camera showed the restaurant’s rear alley.
The two Italian-speaking men arrived forty-three minutes before Marco.
A third figure appeared briefly.
Claire leaned forward.
“Stop.”
Daniel froze the video.
A man in a baseball cap stood near the delivery entrance.
His face was mostly hidden.
Claire’s heart began pounding.
“Zoom in.”
The image blurred.
But the man turned slightly.
A scar crossed his chin.
Claire knew that scar.
Evan had gotten it when he was nineteen after crashing a motorcycle.
She grabbed the back of a chair.
“That’s him.”
Marco’s face became still.
“Are you sure?”
“I kissed that scar for three years.”
Nobody spoke.
Claire felt sick.
Evan had been outside Palazzo Nero.
Tonight.
The night Marco’s car exploded.
The night assassins somehow knew Claire’s name.
Daniel’s phone rang.
He answered, listened, then looked toward Marco.
“What?”
Daniel put the call on speaker.
A guard’s voice filled the room.
“We searched Bennett’s apartment.”
Claire spun around.
“You what?”
“Claire,” Marco began.
“You searched my apartment?”
The guard continued.
“Nothing disturbed. No forced entry. But someone had been there.”
Claire’s anger vanished.
“How do you know?”
“The kitchen window was unlocked. Neighbor says Ms. Bennett always locks it because of the fire escape.”
Claire did.
Every night.
The guard continued.
“And there’s something missing.”
Claire frowned.
“What?”
“We found an empty rectangle in the dust behind the bedroom dresser. Whatever was stored there was removed recently.”
Claire pictured the old wooden box she kept behind the dresser.
Her mother’s things.
Photographs.
Recipe cards.
A bracelet.
Letters Claire had never read.
Her mouth went dry.
“My mother’s box.”
Marco straightened.
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know. Old papers.”
“Who knew about it?”
Claire thought.
Her mother had died when Claire was nineteen.
For years, the box had traveled from apartment to apartment.
Only one other person had ever helped her move enough times to know exactly where she kept it.
Claire looked at Evan’s face on the screen.
“He did.”
Marco’s phone vibrated.
An unknown number.
He answered without speaking.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then a man’s voice.
Claire recognized it instantly.
Evan.
“Marco Keane.”
Marco’s eyes locked on Claire.
Evan laughed softly.
“If Claire Bennett is standing beside you, tell her I’m sorry I missed her.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Evan continued.
“And tell her this time, she should stay out of things she doesn’t understand.”
Marco’s voice turned deadly calm.
“You came near her apartment.”
“I came for something that belongs to us.”
“What?”
“That’s between me and Claire.”
Marco’s eyes never left hers.
Evan gave one final warning.
May you like
“Ask her what her mother really did for the Keane family.”
The line went dead.
