Sebastian Comes Home
Chapter 09 - Sebastian Comes Home
The darkness lasted six seconds.
Long enough for fear to choose its victims.
Adele moved Lily behind the brick column. Damian took Clare by the wrist and drew her down beside the desk before she could argue. Somewhere near the back entrance, a gun slid from a holster with a soft, practiced click.
Then the emergency lights came on, washing everyone in red.
Lucia's voice was gone from the speakers.
Only static remained.
Damian released Clare the moment the lights returned, as if remembering she was not someone he had permission to hold.
"You have a brother," Clare said.
It was not a question.
"Sebastian."
Adele muttered something in Italian that did not require translation.
"You failed to mention him."
"I was hoping to continue failing."
Clare stood. "Where is he?"
A man answered from the stairwell.
"Closer than he should be, apparently."
Sebastian Vale entered with his hands raised and a smile that had probably ruined lives without needing a weapon. He was younger than Damian by a few years, leaner, fairer, with expensive rain on his coat and charm arranged over him like a silk lining.
Two of Damian's men aimed guns at his chest.
Sebastian looked offended. "Family reunions in this house have deteriorated."
Damian did not lower his weapon.
Clare had not seen him draw it.
"Why are you here?" Damian asked.
"Because someone broadcast Lucia Bell's voice through a building I still own twenty-seven percent of, and because our niece is alive, and because you have once again confused brooding with leadership."
Lily stepped out from behind Adele before Clare could stop her.
Sebastian's face changed.
Not theatrically. Not with the obvious hunger Clare had expected from another dangerous man. His expression opened, and grief moved through it like light under a door.
"Marisa's eyes," he said softly.
Lily folded her arms. "Everyone keeps saying things like that."
"Because dead women leave evidence in living faces."
Damian's gun remained steady.
"Lucia said not to trust you."
Sebastian looked at the speaker, then back at his brother. "Lucia never trusted me. Sensible woman. But if she wanted to warn you, she would not use a public channel unless someone forced her."
"Or unless you did," Damian said.
Sebastian's smile faded. "I have done many unforgivable things, brother. Taking Lucia Bell is not one of them."
Clare watched him the way she watched patients who insisted they were fine. The body always told the truth before the mouth surrendered.
Sebastian was afraid.
Not of Damian.
Of something arriving behind him.
"Who has her?" Clare asked.
Sebastian looked at her properly for the first time.
"You must be Nathan's widow. He was irritatingly decent."
"I asked who has Lucia."
"Maeve Laurent."
Lily made a small sound.
Clare felt the answer settle into place with a terrible neatness.
Kovac had threatened them. Laurent had moved inside the hospital. The camel-coated woman had used Lily's old name like a knife. But perhaps the obvious monster was only muscle. Perhaps the elegant doctor with charity photos and board seats had always been the mind.
Damian said, "Kovac called Clare himself."
"Of course he did," Sebastian replied. "Victor enjoys theater. Maeve enjoys outcomes."
"Why warn us now?"
Sebastian removed a folded page from his coat and tossed it onto the desk.
A copy of a death certificate.
Name: Lily Bell.
Date of death: tomorrow.
Cause: complications following self-inflicted injury.
Clare's breath left her body.
Lily stared at the page without moving.
"They are not moving her," Sebastian said. "They're erasing her."
Damian went still in a way that made everyone else seem reckless.
Adele stepped closer to Lily. "No one is erasing anyone in my kitchen."
"This isn't your kitchen," Sebastian said.
"Every room where a frightened child stands becomes my kitchen. Be quiet."
For reasons Clare could not explain, that was the sentence that nearly undid her.
Sebastian accepted the rebuke with a small bow.
"Maeve controls three private clinics, two recovery homes, and enough police favors to turn the city blind for an hour. She will use Lucia to pull Clare out. She will use Lily to pull Damian into open conflict. Then she will use the bodies to justify whatever story she wants."
Clare looked at Damian. "The memory card."
"Still offline," he said.
"Maybe that's why Lucia broadcast. Maybe she knew the only way to stop Laurent is to release what's on it."
Sebastian laughed once. "And die under federal seal?"
"I didn't say give it to the feds," Clare said.
Both Vale brothers looked at her then.
Good, she thought. Let them learn.
"Nathan hid evidence in a nurse's badge because nurses go everywhere and no one important sees us. He used patient records because the whole system runs on them. If Laurent built this through hospitals, we expose her through hospitals. Not with guns. With charts. With timestamps. With medication orders. With consent forms she forged and insurance claims she needed signed."
Sebastian's smile returned slowly, this time with respect.
"I like her."
Damian did not look away from Clare.
"So did Nathan," he said.
The sentence should have hurt. Instead it steadied her.
Rebecca arrived twenty minutes later, escorted by two Vale men and wearing someone else's coat over her scrubs. One cheek was swollen. Her eyes were ruined from crying.
She saw Lily alive and covered her mouth.
"I can get you into Laurent's restricted archive," Rebecca said. "But only from inside St. Anne's. Before midnight. After that she'll lock down the system."
Clare looked at the false death certificate again.
Tomorrow.
The story was trying to close around Lily before morning.
Damian said, "No. Clare is not going back."
Clare lifted her eyes to his.
"You don't get to decide that."
"They'll be waiting."
"Then they'll see me coming."
Lily stepped forward. "I'm going too."
Everyone turned.
She looked terrified. She looked seventeen. She also looked like her mother, whoever Marisa had been.
"If they're writing my death," Lily said, "I want to see the hand holding the pen."
May you like
At midnight, Clare Donovan walked back toward the hospital that had accused her of kidnapping, with Lily hidden under a volunteer's coat and both Vale brothers following in the dark.
None of them saw Rebecca slip her phone into her pocket after sending one final message.
