Chapter 6: The Man in the Doorway
Dominic had Marcus Rourke's last known address within the hour.
He made three calls from the hallway outside the ballroom, speaking in a low voice with the particular efficiency of a man who has spent years solving problems that cannot be solved through official channels.
When he came back in, he had a name, an address in Yonkers, and a second name — a woman named Patrice Odom who had worked as Rourke's office manager until eight months ago and had left under circumstances that Dominic described only as "motivated."
Charles was sitting in a chair near the fireplace.
He had not been restrained.
He had not been threatened.
He simply had not been left alone, and he seemed to understand, with the precision of a man who had spent his career reading rooms, that the perimeter around him was absolute.
Isabella was still at the table.
She had not asked to leave.
She had not spoken much.
She sat with her hands folded and her eyes moving between Vincent and the letter on the table, and once, when Emily passed near her on the way to the kitchen with Grace, she said, very quietly, "I didn't know."
Emily stopped.
"I know," Emily said.
And then she followed her mother out.
Dominic drove to Yonkers himself.
He took two men with him.
Vincent stayed at the estate and read Sofia's letter three more times.
The letter was not emotional in the way he might have expected.
Sofia had not written it in grief or fear, though both must have been present.
She had written it the way she approached most things — directly, with the particular clarity of someone who has decided that sentiment is a luxury she cannot afford right now.
She listed dates.
She listed amounts.
She described conversations.
She named names.
She had also written one paragraph at the end that had nothing to do with evidence.
*I know you accepted the file eventually.
I know what that cost you.
I need you to understand that I never left you.
I never chose to leave.
Whatever they told you, whatever they arranged, whatever it looked like from where you were standing — I was trying to come back to you.
I was always trying to come back.*
Vincent set the letter down after the third reading and did not pick it up again.
He called his federal contact himself.
A man named Hargrove, who had been a quiet resource for the Moretti family for eleven years — not corrupt, not owned, but realistic about the geography between legitimate law enforcement and the kind of problems that sometimes required a different kind of resolution.
Hargrove listened without interrupting.
When Vincent finished, there was a pause.
"How solid is the documentary record?" Hargrove asked.
"Solid enough that she was willing to walk into your building with it."
"And Bellamy is currently in your custody."
"He's sitting in my ballroom."
Another pause.
"I'll need everything.
The letter, the photograph, the voicemail, the trust documents.
And I'll need Bellamy cooperative or I'll need him formally.
One or the other."
"Understood."
"Vincent." Hargrove's voice shifted slightly.
"The photograph.
The date on the newspaper."
"Yes."
"That's a starting point, not an answer."
"I know."
"People in those situations—" Hargrove stopped.
Started again.
"Rourke is a professional.
He doesn't make problems.
He manages them.
That can mean a lot of things."
"I know what it can mean," Vincent said.
"Find her."
He hung up and stood at the window that faced the river.
The light was going.
The water below was the color of old iron.
Dominic called at nine forty-seven.
"Rourke's not at the Yonkers address.
Hasn't been for four months.
But Patrice Odom talked."
"What did she say?"
"Rourke had a property.
Private.
Outside of Rhinebeck, about sixty miles north.
He used it for — she called it long-term contract work.
She said she processed payments for it for two years and then the payments stopped and Rourke told her the contract had concluded."
Vincent's hand tightened on the phone.
"When did the payments stop?"
"Fourteen months ago," Dominic said.
"Same time Bellamy lost contact."
The same timeline.
The same cutoff.
Concluded.
"Dominic."
"Already moving."
"Take Hargrove's people.
Don't go without them."
A pause.
"You sure?"
"Yes." Vincent looked at the river.
"Whatever we find up there — it needs to be found the right way."
In the ballroom, Charles Bellamy heard Vincent's footsteps returning down the hall.
He straightened in his chair.
He had spent the last two hours calculating.
He was still calculating.
He had options.
He always had options.
But when Vincent walked back through the door, something in his face made Charles stop calculating.
"There's a property outside Rhinebeck," Vincent said.
Charles looked at the fire.
"Is she there, Charles?"
Charles said nothing for a long moment.
Then, without looking up: "I told Rourke to keep her comfortable.
I told him that specifically."
"Comfortable," Vincent repeated.
"It was never supposed to go this far.
The timeline moved faster than—"
"Is she alive?"
Charles pressed his hands together.
May you like
"I don't know," he said.
"I genuinely don't know."
