Chapter 4 - THE PROSECUTOR'S DAUGHTER
Z
Samuel Bennett arrived at Gabriel’s mansion at 6:20 that evening.
He came alone.
That surprised everyone.
Gabriel’s men searched him twice.
He surrendered his phone, watch, belt, and government-issued firearm without complaint.
Then he entered the library and looked directly at me.
He was sixty-one.
Silver hair.
Dark blue suit.
The kind of controlled face I had seen dozens of times on television whenever a corruption indictment made the news.
For years, Samuel Bennett had been described as Gabriel Hayes’s greatest enemy.
Now he looked at me like I was a ghost.
“My God.”
I stood.
“Am I your daughter?”
No greeting.
No polite conversation.
I had wasted enough hours.
Samuel looked at Gabriel.
“Get out.”
Gabriel laughed.
“No.”
“This is family.”
“She’s under my protection.”
“I didn’t ask for your protection,” I said.
Gabriel glanced at me.
“Noted.”
Samuel’s face tightened.
“You always did mistake possession for loyalty.”
Something dangerous moved through Gabriel.
But I stepped between them.
“Stop.”
Both men looked at me.
That was the strangest part.
They actually stopped.
I faced Samuel.
“Answer me.”
He sat slowly.
“Yes.”
One word.
Twenty-four years of my life rearranged itself around it.
“My mother told me my father left before I was born.”
“I did.”
“Why?”
Samuel looked toward the windows.
“Because people were trying to find me.”
“Who?”
“Your grandfather got involved with Michael Hayes.”
Gabriel’s father.
Samuel continued.
“Thomas was an accountant. He kept records for several organizations. Michael discovered that money was being moved through legitimate construction companies to finance people far more powerful than neighborhood criminals.”
“Who?”
Samuel’s mouth tightened.
“Judges. Contractors. Police officials. Politicians.”
Gabriel leaned against a bookshelf.
“And Daniel.”
Samuel met his eyes.
“Yes.”
Gabriel showed no visible reaction.
But I saw his hand tighten.
Samuel explained that Michael Hayes had wanted out.
He stole copies of the financial records as leverage.
Thomas Bennett helped him.
Then Michael disappeared.
Thomas died months later in what police called a robbery.
Rosa ran with Gabriel.
My mother was already pregnant with me.
Samuel had been a junior prosecutor secretly helping federal investigators.
“If Daniel learned Elizabeth was carrying my child, he would have known I had access to the investigation.”
“So you abandoned us.”
“I left to keep you alive.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Everybody in this story keeps saying that.”
Samuel flinched.
Good.
“Rosa stayed near Elizabeth because she knew where Thomas hid part of the evidence.”
“The storage unit?”
“No.”
“Then where?”
Samuel looked at me carefully.
“That’s what everyone has been trying to learn.”
Gabriel stepped forward.
“Paulie was poisoned two weeks ago. Someone then tried to poison me. Benny’s diner burned after Norah mentioned Rosa. Someone shot at us inside the storage facility.”
Samuel’s face changed.
“You found Rosa’s letters?”
“Yes.”
“Then Daniel knows too.”
“How?”
“Because the storage unit wasn’t secret.”
I stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
Samuel looked ashamed.
“I was watching it.”
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
“You knew it existed.”
“I paid the account after Elizabeth died.”
I stood abruptly.
“You paid for it?”
“Yes.”
“So you knew where I was all these years?”
Samuel said nothing.
My eyes burned.
“You watched me work two jobs?”
“Norah—”
“You knew Mom was sick?”
“Yes.”
“You knew she died?”
His silence was unbearable.
“And you never came.”
“I believed distance kept you safe.”
I slapped him.
The sound echoed through the library.
Nobody moved.
Samuel slowly turned his face back toward me.
“I deserved that.”
“Don’t make me feel better by agreeing.”
I walked out.
I didn’t know where I was going.
The mansion was enormous.
Eventually I found a balcony overlooking the gardens.
Rain had stopped.
The city lights blurred beyond the gates.
A few minutes later, Gabriel joined me.
“Go away.”
“No.”
“Do you ever listen?”
“Occasionally. Usually when people say something useful.”
I laughed despite myself.
Then hated that he could make me.
“My father watched my entire life from a distance.”
Gabriel stood beside me.
“My mother watched mine from a distance.”
I looked over.
He stared at the city.
“So we both had terrible parents.”
“My mother was scared.”
“So was he.”
I didn’t like hearing that.
Gabriel knew.
“He still failed you.”
That helped more than I expected.
We stood quietly.
Then I asked the question that had been bothering me.
“Why would somebody poison Paulie?”
Gabriel turned.
“What?”
“If Daniel wants the records, why poison your underboss?”
“To destabilize me.”
“Maybe.”
I thought about nursing school.
Symptoms.
Timing.
Exposure.
“The chef tasted Paulie’s risotto.”
“Yes.”
“And died.”
“Yes.”
“But you said Paulie collapsed at the table.”
“Right.”
“How quickly?”
Gabriel frowned.
“Minutes.”
“What about the chef?”
“Later.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Why?”
“If they ate the same poison in the same food, timing should be closer unless dosage differed significantly.”
Gabriel became very still.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying maybe the food wasn’t the only exposure.”
He immediately called Leo.
Within an hour, Gabriel’s men brought everything from Paulie’s last dinner that police hadn’t seized.
Glassware.
Medication.
Cigars.
A silver flask.
Paulie had suffered from heartburn.
He took antacid tablets every night.
The bottle was half-empty.
I looked at the seal.
Broken.
“Were these tested?”
“No.”
Samuel had joined us again.
He put on gloves.
“I can have a federal lab analyze them.”
Gabriel looked at him.
“You expect me to trust your lab?”
Samuel returned the look.
“You currently trust a diner waitress with your dinner.”
“Nursing student.”
I corrected him automatically.
Both men looked at me.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Gabriel said.
The tablets were taken away.
Three hours later, preliminary results came back.
The antacid bottle contained concentrated digitalis.
The risotto contained only traces.
Enough to frighten everyone.
Not enough to kill Paulie quickly.
The chef died because he had tasted from Paulie’s plate repeatedly while checking seasoning.
Paulie had swallowed two poisoned tablets after dinner.
Gabriel sat silently.
“So someone knew his routine.”
Leo nodded.
“Someone inside.”
I thought of the mansion kitchen.
Gabriel’s medicines.
His habits.
His bottled water.
His fear.
“What if nobody was trying to poison you?”
Gabriel looked at me.
“They wanted you to think they were.”
Samuel understood first.
“They needed him weak.”
“Paranoid,” I said.
“Hungry. Suspicious of his own people.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed.
“A leader destroying his organization from inside.”
Exactly.
Then Leo entered.
His face was pale.
“Boss.”
Gabriel stood.
“What?”
“We found Vincent.”
My stomach tightened.
After the interrogation, Vincent had been locked in a guarded guesthouse on the property.
Now the guards were unconscious.
Vincent was gone.
But he had left something behind.
An envelope.
Gabriel opened it.
Inside was an address and a single sentence.
Rosa is alive.
Come without Daniel.
Gabriel stared at the words.
Then at Samuel.
And finally at me.
“No.”
I folded my arms.
“You haven’t even heard what I’m going to say.”
“You’re not coming.”
“She raised me.”
“Norah.”
“She’s the closest thing I had to a grandmother.”
“It could be a trap.”
“Obviously.”
He looked frustrated.
“You’re impossible.”
“And you’re starving, paranoid, controlling, and apparently unable to cook your own dinner.”
Samuel coughed.
I suspected he was hiding a laugh.
Gabriel glared at him.
Then looked back at me.
“Fine.”
“Fine?”
“You stay beside me.”
“I’m not a dog.”
“You stay beside me or you stay here.”
That was the deal.
Two hours later, Gabriel and I stood outside an abandoned Catholic church near the river.
No army.
No convoy.
Only Leo waited several blocks away.
Gabriel pushed open the door.
The church was dark except for candles near the altar.
A woman sat in the first pew.
Silver hair.
Thin shoulders.
A familiar gold necklace around her neck.
Gabriel stopped walking.
The woman slowly turned.
Her face was older.
But I knew her.
“Rosa?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Little bird.”
That was what she used to call me.
My knees almost gave out.
Gabriel hadn’t moved.
Rosa looked past me.
At her son.
Twenty-two years disappeared from her face.
“Gabriel.”
He stood frozen in the aisle.
May you like
And then the most feared man in the city whispered the only word that could make him sound like a child.
“Mom?”
