Chapter 5 - WHAT SIENNA WANTED
Clara refused to stay hidden.
Arthur disagreed.
Clara did not care.
The next afternoon she sent a message to Sienna.
Not Julian.
Sienna.
COME ALONE.
Arthur found out after Sienna was already entering the old garden pavilion at the edge of the Vance estate.
He started toward the door.
Clara stopped him.
“No.”
“She used you.”
“So did you.”
Arthur froze.
Clara continued.
“You stay outside.”
He did.
That was harder for him than entering a gunfight.
Sienna walked into the pavilion wearing no jewelry except a small silver chain.
No elegant dress.
No performance.
She looked tired.
Clara stood by the windows.
The rain had stopped, but the world outside remained gray.
Sienna spoke first.
“I’m sorry.”
Clara almost laughed.
“For sleeping with my husband?”
“For what happened.”
“That is a politician’s apology.”
Sienna looked down.
Clara continued.
“You knew someone wanted me.”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“I wasn’t told.”
“Not good enough.”
“I know.”
“Who contacted you?”
“A man who called himself Reed.”
“Real name?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did he look like?”
“I never saw his face clearly.”
Meetings happened in dark cars.
Underground garages.
One abandoned diner after closing.
Always another intermediary.
The Ferryman remained a title more than a person.
Reed claimed he worked for him.
“What did he promise you?”
Sienna’s voice lowered.
“My father.”
Clara studied her.
“Alive?”
“At first.”
“Then?”
“He said my father died eight years ago.”
“So why continue?”
Sienna looked toward the wet garden.
“Because he told me Arthur knew.”
Clara’s jaw tightened.
“My father knew your father survived?”
“That’s what Reed claimed.”
“Did you ask Arthur?”
Sienna laughed bitterly.
“Walk into Arthur Vance’s house and ask whether he secretly kept the man I thought he murdered?”
“You walked into my husband’s bed.”
“That seemed safer.”
Clara hated the answer.
She also understood the logic.
“What did they want from me?”
“Access.”
“To what?”
“You.”
Sienna finally met her eyes.
“They said Arthur would follow you anywhere.”
Clara felt something cold.
“So I was bait for my father.”
“Yes.”
“Was Julian supposed to hurt me?”
“No.”
The answer came fast.
“I swear.”
Clara did not trust oaths.
“Then what?”
Sienna had been told that on the night Julian left, Clara should be brought along if possible.
Not kidnapped violently.
Persuaded.
Julian would tell her Arthur had planned to destroy him.
Sienna would reveal enough of Arthur’s surveillance to make Clara feel betrayed.
They would offer Clara a choice.
Come hear the truth about Gabriel Vance.
Or remain with Arthur’s lies.
Clara stared.
“That might have worked.”
Sienna looked surprised.
Clara smiled without humor.
“That’s what frightens you, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
The plan had depended on Arthur’s actual deception.
That made it stronger.
The Ferryman did not need to invent mistrust.
Arthur had provided it.
“What happens if I came?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expected me to step into a car without knowing where it went?”
“I did it.”
“And look where it brought you.”
Sienna looked away.
Clara noticed her necklace.
A tiny silver key.
“You always wear that?”
Sienna touched it.
“My father gave it to my mother.”
“Before he disappeared?”
“Yes.”
Clara remembered seeing the shape once.
Not on Sienna.
In the Vance estate.
A photograph from childhood.
Her uncle Gabriel standing beside Arthur.
Around Gabriel’s neck hung something similar.
“Take it off.”
Sienna’s expression changed.
“Why?”
“Please.”
Sienna hesitated, then removed it.
Clara examined the key.
One side bore tiny grooves.
The other had two initials.
D.S.
Dominic Sorrento.
Nothing Vance.
But Clara recognized the shape.
“Come with me.”
Arthur was waiting outside.
Clara ignored him.
She led Sienna through the house to an upstairs corridor rarely used.
At the end stood an old display cabinet containing family photographs and small personal objects.
Clara opened it.
Found the picture.
Arthur and Gabriel, twenty years younger.
Gabriel’s necklace.
Same key shape.
Arthur saw it.
His face changed.
“What?”
Clara held Sienna’s key beside the photograph.
Sienna whispered, “Why did your uncle have my father’s key?”
Arthur looked closer.
“It isn’t the same key.”
“Same design,” Clara said.
Arthur opened a lower drawer.
Inside were several old Vance keepsakes.
He removed Gabriel’s personal effects.
A lighter.
A ring.
A small velvet pouch.
No key.
“Where is it?” Clara asked.
Arthur frowned.
“I don’t know.”
“Did he always wear it?”
“Yes.”
Sienna looked at him.
“My father said this key came from a place called Mercy House.”
Arthur slowly raised his eyes.
The name meant something.
Clara saw.
“What is it?”
Arthur turned toward the window.
“Mercy House was where Gabriel took me when we were boys.”
“Why?”
“To meet the man who taught us how to survive our father.”
Clara waited.
“Who?”
May you like
Arthur’s voice became quiet.
“Dominic Sorrento.”
