Chapter 4: A Name He Didn't Want to Say
The compound was not what Claire expected.
She'd imagined something cinematic — iron gates, guards with earpieces, the kind of place that announced its own danger.
What she got was a large house on a quiet street in Lincoln Park, set back from the road behind a line of old oak trees.
It looked like the kind of home where a professor lived.
Or a surgeon.
The inside told a different story.
Not in the furniture.
Not in the art.
In the people — the way they moved through the hallways with purpose and silence, the way every door she passed was closed, the way no one looked at her directly except to assess her.
A woman named Vera met them at the entrance.
She was in her fifties, silver-haired, with the posture of someone who had spent decades being the most competent person in any room.
"Ethan is with Dr.
Hale," Vera said to Roman.
"Warming well.
Pulse is steady."
Roman exhaled once.
"I want to see him in ten minutes."
"He's asking for her." Vera's eyes moved to Claire.
Roman stopped walking.
"He's asking for the nurse," Vera said simply.
"He's been saying her name since they brought him in."
Claire looked at Roman.
He didn't look back at her.
"Ten minutes," he said, and walked toward a closed door at the end of the hall.
Vera turned to Claire.
"Come with me.
Let's get you dry clothes and something warm.
You look like you're about to fall over."
"I'm fine."
"You're not." Vera said it without cruelty.
"But you will be."
She was given a room — small, clean, with a bathroom and a folded stack of clothes that were close enough to her size that she didn't ask questions.
She changed quickly.
Her hands had stopped shaking by the time she pulled on the dry socks.
She was still lacing the borrowed shoes when the knock came.
"Miss Bennett." It was Roman's voice.
"When you're ready."
She opened the door.
He was leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed, looking at the floor.
When she stepped out, he straightened.
"Ethan's stable," he said.
"Dr.
Hale says another ten minutes in that water and it would have been different."
Claire nodded.
"I owe you an apology," he said.
"For the riverbank.
For the car."
"You thought I'd hurt your son."
"I thought you might have."
"And now?"
He reached into his coat and handed her his phone.
The screen showed a new image — clearer than the first, taken from a lower angle.
The woman's face was visible this time.
She was in her mid-thirties.
Dark hair pulled back.
Sharp features.
She was looking down at Ethan on the bridge with an expression that wasn't panic.
It was calculation.
"Do you know her?" Claire asked.
"Her name is Daria Voss." Roman's voice was flat.
Controlled in a way that cost him something.
"She worked for me for four years.
She left my organization eight months ago.
I thought it was clean."
"Was it?"
"Apparently not."
Claire handed the phone back.
"Why would she go after Ethan?"
Roman was quiet for a moment.
"Because she couldn't go after me," he said.
"And she knew Ethan was the only thing that would make me stop thinking clearly."
The hallway felt smaller suddenly.
"She wanted you to make a mistake," Claire said.
"She wanted me to make the wrong enemy." He looked at her directly.
"She knew my security would respond to the river.
She knew the camera angle.
She wore a coat similar to yours deliberately.
She wanted me to come after whoever pulled Ethan out."
Claire's stomach turned over slowly.
"She set me up."
"Yes."
"She pushed a child into a river in November," Claire said, "to frame a stranger and destabilize you."
"Yes."
The word landed like a stone.
"Where is she now?" Claire asked.
Roman's expression shifted.
Something moved behind it that she didn't have a name for yet.
"That," he said, "is what I need to find out."
He started walking.
Then he stopped and looked back at her.
"Ethan wants to see you.
Second door on the left." A pause.
"After that, I'd like you to stay.
Tonight.
Until I know Daria Voss is located."
"You're asking me."
"Yes."
"That's different from the car."
"Yes," he said again.
"It is."
He walked away before she could answer.
May you like
Claire stood in the hallway for a moment.
Then she turned toward the second door on the left.
