Chapter 3 - The Woman They Couldn’t Silence
Gabriel refused to let Chloe go home alone.
Chloe refused to accept that decision.
They argued beside the coat check while four armed men searched the restaurant.
“I have an apartment, Mr. Costello.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“I also have a front door.”
“Marco has your address.”
“I heard that part.”
“He may have a key.”
Chloe stopped.
“What?”
Gabriel looked at one of his men.
“Restaurant management keeps emergency employee information.”
“That doesn’t include keys.”
“Marco controlled the lockers.”
Chloe stared at him.
“You think he copied mine?”
“I think a man who emptied a safe and stole your personal information probably wasn’t planning to send you a Christmas card.”
She crossed her arms.
“I’m still going home.”
“No.”
Her eyebrows rose.
Gabriel apparently recognized the look.
He sighed.
“Ms. Bennett.”
“Chloe.”
“What?”
“If you’re going to order me around like a kidnapped accountant, at least call me Chloe.”
His mouth almost moved.
Almost.
“Chloe, you’re not going home.”
“Gabriel, yes I am.”
One of his men looked away very quickly.
Beatrice laughed silently from a nearby chair.
She signed something.
Chloe watched.
“He says no one argues with him?”
Gabriel asked.
“She says everyone should.”
His mother signed again.
“She also says it would improve your personality.”
Gabriel gave Beatrice a long look.
Beatrice smiled sweetly.
Twenty minutes later Chloe was sitting in the rear seat of a black SUV between Beatrice and a woman named Rosa.
Gabriel occupied the front passenger seat.
Two additional vehicles followed them.
Chloe had insisted they stop at her apartment.
Gabriel had insisted his men enter first.
They found the door unlocked.
Chloe knew she had locked it that morning.
One of the security men looked back at Gabriel.
“Stay outside.”
Chloe stepped forward.
“That’s my home.”
Gabriel blocked her.
“Not until they clear it.”
Five minutes later a man returned carrying Chloe’s jewelry box.
Its contents were scattered.
“Bedroom was searched.”
Chloe felt sick.
“Anything missing?”
“My laptop.”
She pushed past Gabriel before he could stop her.
Drawers were open.
Mattress lifted.
Closet emptied.
The framed photograph of Leo that normally stood beside her bed lay face down on the carpet.
Chloe picked it up.
The glass was cracked directly across her brother’s face.
Her hands started shaking.
Gabriel stood behind her.
“Your brother?”
She nodded.
“Leo.”
“The one who was deaf.”
“Yes.”
She turned the photograph over.
Leo was nineteen in the picture.
Dark curls.
Huge grin.
Hands frozen mid-sign because Chloe had taken the photograph while he was telling her to stop taking photographs.
“He hated cameras.”
Gabriel studied the picture.
“What happened to him?”
“Car accident.”
“I’m sorry.”
“People always say that.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“What should they say?”
Chloe thought about it.
“I don’t know.”
Beatrice entered slowly.
She saw the photograph.
Then she saw Chloe’s face.
The older woman approached.
Who?
She signed.
My brother.
Beatrice touched the cracked glass.
Deaf?
Chloe nodded.
Beatrice signed.
Beautiful smile.
Chloe laughed through the pressure in her throat.
“He knew.”
Beatrice looked around the destroyed room.
Then toward Gabriel.
Her hands moved.
This happened because of me.
“No.”
Chloe answered aloud and in ASL.
“This happened because bad men are afraid of being exposed.”
Gabriel watched their hands.
Chloe noticed.
“You can learn, you know.”
He looked at her.
“What?”
“ASL.”
His expression closed.
“I know some.”
Beatrice’s eyebrows shot upward.
Chloe glanced at her.
She signed.
He knows food.
Car.
Money.
And shut up.
Chloe coughed to hide a laugh.
Gabriel frowned.
“What?”
“Confidential.”
Beatrice looked delighted.
Gabriel muttered something in Italian.
Chloe gathered clothes into an overnight bag.
“You really can sign?”
“A little.”
“Show me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not performing.”
Beatrice tapped his arm.
Then she signed a single word.
Sorry.
Gabriel watched.
Chloe saw recognition pass across his face.
He looked away.
Beatrice signed it again.
Sorry.
His hand rose awkwardly.
The motion was stiff.
Unused.
But recognizable.
I’m sorry.
Beatrice’s face changed.
Chloe suddenly understood.
Gabriel had not forgotten everything.
He had simply stopped using it.
Beatrice turned away before either of them could see the tears building in her eyes.
Gabriel lowered his hand.
“We’re leaving.”
They returned to the SUVs.
Instead of taking Chloe to a hotel, Gabriel drove north toward Lake Forest.
His home sat behind iron gates and acres of dark trees.
It was not a house.
It was a stone fortress pretending to be one.
Inside, however, Beatrice immediately kicked off her shoes and demanded tea.
Chloe laughed.
The famous Gabriel Costello mansion had a grandmother who hated veal and left her slippers under the sofa.
That made it strangely less terrifying.
Until Gabriel’s security chief entered carrying a plastic evidence bag.
“Found this under Ms. Bennett’s kitchen sink.”
Inside was a tiny black device.
Chloe frowned.
“What is that?”
“A transmitter.”
Her stomach dropped.
“How long was it there?”
“We’ll have to test it.”
Gabriel took the bag.
“Was there one at her apartment?”
“No.”
“Then someone planted it recently.”
Chloe thought about Marco.
He had given her a ride home three weeks earlier after her car would not start.
He had come upstairs to help carry groceries.
Her skin crawled.
“Marco was in my apartment.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Beatrice signed rapidly.
Ask when the shipments changed.
Gabriel turned to Chloe.
“What did she say?”
“She wants to know when your shipment schedule changed.”
Gabriel frowned.
“Three weeks ago.”
Chloe stared at him.
Exactly three weeks.
Gabriel pulled out his phone.
“Get me everything on Marco Ventresca.”
A man disappeared into the hall.
Chloe sat beside Beatrice.
The older woman squeezed her fingers.
Then Beatrice became very still.
Her eyes had fallen on the evidence bag.
She pointed.
Not that.
Chloe frowned.
“What?”
Beatrice signed.
I have seen one before.
Gabriel noticed Chloe’s face.
“Where?”
Beatrice answered.
In Leo’s picture.
Chloe’s blood ran cold.
“What?”
Beatrice pointed toward the cracked photograph Chloe had carried from the apartment.
Gabriel picked it up.
Beatrice signed.
Behind him.
On the wall.
Chloe stared at the photo.
The background was blurry.
Leo had been standing outside a diner near the university.
Behind his shoulder was a streetlight.
A newspaper box.
And a small black object attached beneath a security camera.
Gabriel handed the picture to his security chief.
“Enlarge it.”
Chloe could not breathe properly.
“That picture was taken two days before Leo died.”
Gabriel looked at her sharply.
“Are you sure?”
“I remember because he had just gotten a new job.”
“What job?”
“Temporary delivery work.”
“For who?”
Chloe shook her head.
“He never told me.”
The security chief returned to the room five minutes later with a tablet.
The enlarged photograph filled the screen.
The object behind Leo was clearly visible now.
Same shape.
Same housing.
Same tiny antenna.
The man zoomed farther out.
A delivery truck was parked across the street.
Only half the company logo could be seen.
A black circle.
A silver letter C.
Gabriel went completely still.
Chloe noticed.
“What?”
He said nothing.
“Gabriel.”
Beatrice looked from the tablet to her son.
Then her face collapsed.
She had recognized it too.
Chloe stood.
“Tell me.”
Gabriel finally looked at her.
“That truck belonged to one of my companies.”
The room became silent.
Chloe stared at him.
“My brother died two days after that picture.”
“I know.”
“No.”
She stepped backward.
“You don’t get to say you know.”
Gabriel’s expression tightened.
“I didn’t know him.”
“But somebody working for you might have.”
He did not deny it.
Chloe looked at Leo’s smiling face on the tablet.
Then she remembered the police report.
The drunk driver.
The missing phone.
The witness who disappeared before trial.
All the little things she had forced herself to stop questioning because questions did not bring dead brothers home.
Beatrice reached for her.
Chloe pulled away.
“I need air.”
Gabriel followed her toward the terrace.
“Don’t.”
She spun around.
“If your people had anything to do with Leo—”
“They weren’t my people if they did.”
“You own the company.”
“I own eighty-three companies.”
“That must be convenient.”
His face hardened.
“Yes.”
The answer stopped her.
He stepped closer.
“It is convenient.”
His voice was low.
“It is also cowardly.”
Chloe stared at him.
Gabriel looked toward the dark lawn.
“My father built an organization where nobody asked questions unless the answer made money.”
He looked back.
“I inherited that system and convinced myself changing some of it was enough.”
“It wasn’t.”
“No.”
Behind them Beatrice watched through the glass doors.
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“If your brother died because someone used my company to hide something, I will find out.”
Chloe laughed bitterly.
“And then what?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“That’s the first honest thing you’ve said.”
The terrace lights suddenly went dark.
Gabriel’s head snapped toward the house.
A second later every light inside vanished.
The security chief shouted.
“Power failure.”
Another voice yelled from the driveway.
Then came the sound of tires against gravel.
Gabriel grabbed Chloe’s arm.
“Inside.”
A window shattered somewhere on the east side of the house.
Beatrice appeared in the doorway.
She was signing frantically.
Gabriel could not see her in the darkness.
Chloe could.
Down.
Now.
Chloe screamed.
“GET DOWN!”
Gabriel dropped.
A bullet tore through the glass exactly where his head had been.
Chaos exploded through the room.
Security rushed toward the windows.
Gabriel pulled Chloe behind a stone wall.
Beatrice crouched beside the sofa.
Chloe crawled toward her.
Another window shattered.
Then silence.
Long.
Terrible silence.
Gabriel’s men secured the perimeter within minutes.
The shooter was gone.
But one thing remained.
A white envelope had been thrown through the broken window.
Gabriel opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
Leo Bennett.
Alive.
Standing beside the same Costello truck.
May you like
On the back were six handwritten words.
THE DEAF BOY SHOULD HAVE STAYED QUIET.
