Chapter 5: Claire's Protocol
By nine that morning, Dominic knew three things.
Claire Bennett had not been seen at the estate since the previous evening.
Her personal vehicle was still in the garage — which meant she had left in something else, with someone else, and had done it quietly enough that the night staff noticed nothing.
Her rooms had been cleaned.
Not searched — cleaned.
Surfaces wiped, drawers emptied in an orderly way, the kind of departure that looked like a woman who had simply packed for a trip rather than a woman running.
A single perfume bottle remained on the vanity.
Dominic's attorney, a sharp-eyed woman named Grace Alderman, picked it up with two fingers and set it in an evidence bag without being asked.
"She's done this before," Grace said.
"What makes you say that?"
"The closet.
She left enough clothes to suggest she's coming back.
But the things that matter — jewelry, documents, the small laptop she kept in the bedside drawer — all gone.
This is a practiced exit."
Dominic stood in the doorway of Claire's room and looked at the perfume bottle in the evidence bag.
He had given her that perfume.
Paris.
Eighteen months ago, when he had still believed the life he was building with her was real.
"How long have you known something was wrong?" Grace asked.
"I didn't.
Not consciously."
"But?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"Mia used to bring coffee to my study every morning at seven.
About four months ago she started bringing it at six-thirty.
I thought she was being efficient.
I didn't ask why."
Grace waited.
"Claire had started coming to the study at seven.
Mia was making sure I had already been there and left before Claire arrived." He paused.
"She was protecting me and I didn't even know it."
Grace wrote something in her notebook.
"I need to know about Raymond Holt."
"He's a former investigator.
Hudson Valley district.
He ruled my wife's death accidental four years ago.
The folder Mia found contains a wire transfer record and a signed contract connecting him to Claire's network."
"Original documents?"
"Original.
Mia sealed them in plastic the night she found them.
She was waiting for me to come home."
Grace looked up from her notebook.
"She took a significant risk holding onto those."
"She took a bigger risk than you know.
She had Harper with her the entire time."
A brief silence.
"I want Holt located," Dominic said.
"Quietly.
I want to know where he is before Claire reaches him."
"I can make a call.
But Dominic — if we're going to use these documents, we need to do this correctly.
Officially.
If you move on Holt the way I think you're considering, anything in that folder becomes unusable."
He looked at her.
"I know," he said.
"That's why I called you first."
Grace nodded slowly.
She picked up her phone and walked to the window.
Dominic left her to it.
He walked down the corridor to the east bedroom and knocked twice.
The lock turned from the inside.
Mia opened the door.
She was wearing a clean shirt that was two sizes too large — someone had found it for her.
Harper was asleep on the bed behind her, one arm wrapped around a pillow.
"How are your wrists?" he asked.
"Dr.
Reyes wrapped them.
She said nothing is broken."
"Good." He looked past her at Harper.
"She finally slept."
"About an hour ago.
She wouldn't sleep until I was sitting where she could see me."
He nodded.
He started to turn away.
"Dominic."
He stopped.
Mia's voice was careful, the way it always was — precise, never wasted.
"The note at the back of the folder.
*The wedding is the deadline.* I've been thinking about what that means."
"So have I."
"If Claire needed the wedding to happen before you found out — then whatever she was planning required you to still be her fiancé when it happened.
Legal access.
Inheritance.
Something that only exists inside a marriage."
He had reached the same conclusion at four in the morning.
"There's a trust," he said.
"Elena's estate.
It passed to me, but the terms require a named beneficiary within five years of her death.
The five-year mark is eight weeks away.
If I remarried before that date, the trust would transfer jointly."
Mia's expression didn't change.
But her hand tightened slightly on the door frame.
"How much is in the trust?"
"Enough," Dominic said, "that someone would lock a woman in a cellar to get to it."
Down the hall, Grace's voice rose slightly — the tone she used when she had found something.
Dominic turned back toward the study.
Behind him, the east bedroom door locked again.
May you like
Two quiet clicks.
Mia making sure.
