Brian's Price
Chapter 06 - Brian's Price
Brian Cole did not look like a villain when Luke dragged him into the old records room.
He looked like a man who had not slept in two days and had spent both of them regretting the exact wrong things. His coat was soaked through with melted snow. One lens of his glasses was cracked. Blood marked the corner of his mouth, but he seemed more frightened of Vincent than of the pain.
Claire wanted to hate him cleanly.
It would have been easier.
“You used my badge,” she said.
Brian looked at the floor.
“You let them make me look guilty.”
“I was told no one would get hurt.”
Claire laughed once. It sounded ugly in the stone room.
“People who say that always know someone will.”
Vincent stood a few feet away, silent enough to make every breath in the room seem too loud. Luke had taken Brian's phone, keys, and wallet. Father Mateo waited upstairs with Edith, refusing to leave his church even after Vincent offered to have men guard it.
“Who paid you?” Vincent asked.
Brian swallowed.
“I don't know her name.”
Vincent said nothing.
“I don't.” Brian's voice rose. “She wore a red scarf. Silver hair. Nice gloves. She knew about my gambling debt. She knew the agency was going to fire me. She knew my daughter was applying to college.”
“Helena Hayes,” Vincent said.
Brian shook his head too quickly. “That's what I thought too. But the woman in the scarf wasn't in charge.”
Claire leaned forward. “Then who was?”
Brian looked at her, and something like pity crossed his face.
“Someone who knew your grandmother would run to Saint Agnes.”
The room went cold again.
“Why me?” Claire asked. “Why use my badge? Why my uniform?”
Brian pressed both hands over his face. “Because you were supposed to be believable.”
“As what?”
“A frightened girl. A poor girl. A girl no one would believe if the video made it look like Vincent Hayes cornered you in an elevator.”
Vincent's face did not move, but the silence around him sharpened.
Brian continued. “They were going to release the video before the board vote. Then your badge logs would surface. It would look like you sabotaged the elevator to trap him, and then he threatened you. Two scandals at once. Investors panic. Board removes him. Helena steps in as interim chair.”
“That explains my aunt,” Vincent said. “Not the vault.”
Brian looked down.
“After the vote, the old files disappear forever.”
“Where are they?”
“I don't know.”
Luke moved one step closer.
“I swear,” Brian said. “But I heard a name.”
“What name?” Claire asked.
Brian hesitated.
“Mateo.”
Father Mateo's voice came from the doorway. “Not me.”
Everyone turned.
The priest stood at the bottom of the stairs with Edith behind him, her blanket clutched tight around her shoulders.
“Not me,” he repeated. “My brother.”
Vincent looked at him. “Your brother died twenty years ago.”
“No,” Father Mateo said. “He disappeared twenty years ago. There is a difference rich families find convenient.”
His brother's name was Arturo Reyes. He had been a driver for the Hayes family before Salvatore, before the new men, before Vincent inherited a company built partly on buildings and partly on fear. Arturo drove Gloria Hayes the night she supposedly died in a car accident.
He vanished before police could question him.
“My brother called me last week,” Father Mateo said. “First time in eighteen years. He asked if I still had access to the old vault.”
“Why didn't you tell me?” Vincent asked.
“Because men like you do not ask questions until someone forces you to need the answer.”
Claire expected Vincent to snap.
He didn't.
Maybe because the priest was right.
Father Mateo handed him a folded slip of paper. “Arturo gave me this address. I was supposed to bring Mrs. Bennett there tonight. I thought I was protecting her.”
Vincent opened the paper.
Claire saw the words before he folded it again.
BLUE DOOR MOTEL.
Luke checked Brian's phone. “Boss.”
On the screen was a message sent from Brian's number to an unknown contact.
She has the old woman. Hayes is with them. Send Luke.
Luke's face hardened.
“I didn't send that.”
Vincent looked at him, then at the message, then at his bodyguard.
For the first time, Claire saw doubt enter the room like a fourth person.
Brian backed away from Luke. “I told you. It's not just Helena.”
Before anyone could answer, Luke's phone buzzed on the stone table.
A new text appeared from a blocked number.
May you like
GOOD DOGS ALWAYS RETURN TO THE HAND THAT FED THEM.
Attached was a photograph of Luke's younger sister leaving a dialysis clinic alone.
