The Man Who Managed His Grief
Chapter 05 - The Man Who Managed His Grief
Dominic Vale received Ethan in the glass conference room on the forty-third floor of Blackwood Tower. The room had been designed to make everyone who entered feel small: a long table of black walnut, a view of the river, and a wall of framed photographs showing Daniel Blackwood shaking hands with senators, judges, and men whose names never appeared in newspapers. Dominic stood beside the window in a charcoal suit, his silver hair combed neatly back. He looked like a man preparing to comfort a grieving friend.
“I heard about Claire,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Ethan set the copied incident report on the table. “You called my wife when her father was dying.”
Dominic’s expression did not change. “I was trying to help. She was upset, and you were in a meeting that concerned the safety of the entire organization.”
“You told her I had asked not to be disturbed.”
“You had asked for fewer personal interruptions.”
“I never asked you to keep my wife from me.”
Dominic sat down. “You may not remember every instruction you give, Ethan. That is why you have people around you.”
Ethan had heard versions of that argument since he was a boy. Dominic had always been the man who remembered what Ethan forgot, who explained what Ethan’s father meant, who turned every doubt into a reason to trust him more. For years, Ethan had been grateful. Now he saw how easily gratitude could become dependence.
“I want to know what happened at Halsted Street in 1998,” Ethan said.
A flicker crossed Dominic’s eyes. It was gone almost before Ethan could be sure he had seen it.
“Thomas Bennett stole company records and set a fire to cover his tracks. Your father tried to protect him because he’d known him for years. Two men died. The police closed the case.”
“The police report was paid for before the fire was called in.”
“Old clerical errors are not evidence of a conspiracy.”
“Then you won’t mind if I give the report to an independent investigator.”
Dominic’s mouth tightened. “You’re letting grief make you reckless. Claire has always been good at finding the soft place in you and pressing until you mistake guilt for love.”
Ethan stood. “Do not speak about my wife.”
“Your wife has left you. She’s in Seattle with records stolen from this family, and you’re willing to throw away everything your father built because you can’t stand the thought that she might be right about you.”
The words landed because they were partly true. Ethan had spent his life believing that protecting the family meant protecting its secrets. Claire had asked him to choose the truth even if it cost him the name he carried. Dominic knew exactly how to make that choice feel like betrayal.
“What do you want?” Ethan asked.
Dominic folded his hands. “A vote of confidence from the board. You step away from day-to-day operations until you’ve dealt with your personal problems. I’ll keep the legitimate businesses stable. You can take a few weeks, find your wife, work out your marriage. When you’re ready, we can discuss your return.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then the board will decide whether you’re fit to lead.”
Ethan looked around the room. Every framed photograph seemed suddenly dishonest. His father had been smiling in all of them, a man who appeared to have nothing to hide.
“Did you know Lydia Bennett was alive?” he asked.
For the first time, Dominic did not answer at once.
“Lydia died in a fire,” he said.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Dominic rose. “You should be careful. You’re opening doors that were closed for a reason.”
“Who closed them?”
“Your father. And he had his reasons.”
Ethan left the conference room without signing the papers. He could feel Dominic watching him through the glass. The old instinct to turn around and make the man afraid fought with a newer, more difficult instinct: to gather evidence, to let other people examine it, to accept that being right did not give him the right to decide the punishment.
In the elevator, Julian handed him a small folder. “I found the original call logs. There’s something else.”
The folder contained a list of payments made to a medical account under the name Lydia Bennett. The payments began twelve years earlier and stopped two weeks before Thomas died. They had been routed through Northline Consulting, the same company named in the ledger. A final transfer had been approved by Dominic’s office.
“Why would Dominic pay for Lydia’s care?” Ethan asked.
“I don’t know. But the account was connected to a private clinic outside Portland. I called the clinic. They refused to give me information, but the administrator asked whether I was calling on behalf of Mr. Vale.”
Ethan studied the page. “We don’t contact the clinic again. We send this to Margaret and the investigator.”
Julian nodded, then hesitated. “There’s something I should tell you about the calls. Dominic didn’t just ask me to screen them. He told me Claire’s father was unstable and might be trying to draw you into an old dispute. He said if I interrupted the meeting, he’d have me removed from the office. My daughter’s medical insurance is tied to my position. I was afraid.”
Ethan looked at him. “You could have called me from another phone.”
“I could have.” Julian’s eyes lowered. “I didn’t. I told myself that keeping my job meant keeping my daughter safe. It also meant leaving your wife alone when she needed you. I’m sorry.”
Ethan wanted to tell him that fear explained nothing. Then he remembered how often he had used fear to make other people obey him. “You’ll give your statement to the investigator. After that, you can decide whether you still want to work here.”
Julian looked surprised. “You’re not firing me?”
“I haven’t decided what I think of you. I’m trying not to confuse that with what the evidence says.”
That evening, Ethan drove to the address of the old Northline office. The building had been converted into a storage facility, but the basement still held a row of locked cabinets from the original business. The investigator had arranged access through the current owner. Inside one cabinet, they found payroll records from 1998 and a handwritten note signed by Victor Vale, Dominic’s father.
If anything happens to me, Thomas knows why. Daniel promised he would stop using the warehouse for the private shipments. He has not. I will not let them put the blame on my boy.
Ethan read it twice. Victor Vale had not been a stranger caught in the wrong place. He had been part of the operation, perhaps trying to leave it. The fire had killed him, and Thomas had been blamed. Dominic had grown up believing the Blackwoods had destroyed his father and escaped consequence.
The note did not excuse what Dominic had done. It did explain why he had spent decades making sure the Blackwoods could never feel safe.
There was a second page beneath the note. It listed two women who had been present at the warehouse on the night of the fire: Evelyn Blackwood and Lydia Bennett. Beside Lydia’s name, someone had written: WITNESS REMOVED — NOT CONFIRMED DEAD.
Ethan felt his pulse thudding in his throat. The woman he had seen in the car might not have been a stranger after all. She could be the witness everyone had agreed to forget.
His phone rang. Claire’s name appeared on the screen. He answered without speaking.
“I heard you met Dominic,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you the fire was your fault?”
“He told me my father closed the door.”
Claire was quiet for a moment. “That’s what he told my father, too. He said if Thomas had stayed loyal, two men would still be alive.”
Ethan looked at the note from Victor Vale. “Dominic’s father was involved in the shipments.”
“I know. My father found that out too late.”
“Claire, I think your mother was at the warehouse that night.”
“I know she was.”
He closed his eyes. “You knew?”
“My father told me the truth the night before he died. Lydia didn’t die in the fire. She was taken away under a false name because she had seen who ordered it. He spent twenty-five years trying to find her, and Dominic spent twenty-five years making sure he never could.”
Ethan looked down at the phrase on the paper: WITNESS REMOVED — NOT CONFIRMED DEAD.
“Then why did you leave Chicago without telling me?”
“Because I found a second note. It said Dominic had learned where she was, and the only person he still feared was my father. When Dad died, I knew the last thing protecting my mother was gone.”
Before Ethan could answer, Claire’s voice dropped to a whisper.
“I just received a message from an unknown number. It’s a photograph of my mother outside a clinic in Oregon. The date is yesterday.”
Ethan stared at the old records. Dominic had been paying for Lydia’s care, then stopped the payments just before Thomas died. He had not merely hidden her. He had been deciding when she could be found.
Claire said, “Ethan, there’s something else in the photograph.”
“What?”
“My mother is holding a newspaper. The headline is about your father’s death. The date on it is three days after the funeral.”
May you like
A chill moved through him.
If Lydia had been alive after Daniel Blackwood was buried, then she might know what had happened to him, too—and whether his death had been another story Dominic had written for the family.
