Chapter 5
Nolan was the youngest of the eight brothers.
Still old enough to know better.
Young enough that guilt reached his face before the others learned how to hide theirs.
“What happened next?” I asked.
Arthur spoke first.
“Nolan is weak.”
I looked at him.
“Good.”
Arthur frowned.
I turned back to Nolan.
“Keep being weak.”
He swallowed.
Clara stood after hitting the table. She was bleeding from her lip and holding one hand over her stomach.
She told Arthur she would call me.
Elias laughed.
Arthur gave her the phone.
“She didn’t call you,” Nolan said.
“What did she do?”
“She called Antonio.”
I looked beside me.
Antonio’s face changed.
“I never got a call.”
“She didn’t connect.”
Nolan continued.
Clara typed something instead.
A message.
Then Grant—no, wrong story. Need maintain Bennett. Let's say Marcus—grabbed phone. Hmm.
“Marcus took it.”
Marcus looked away.
That explained the unsent recording.
“What did she type?”
Nolan stared at the floor.
“I don’t know.”
Antonio already had the phone.
He opened the unsent drafts.
One message.
Three words.
WINTER CHAPEL. MOTHER.
Arthur closed his eyes.
I noticed.
“What does that mean?”
Nobody answered.
I had heard Clara mention a chapel once. An old Bennett property beside the mountain house where her mother used to pray when Arthur’s dinners became too violent for children to sit through.
Clara’s mother, Helena Bennett, had been dead nine years.
Antonio looked at Arthur.
“You know.”
Arthur’s mouth tightened.
I stood.
Arthur smiled bitterly.
“You’re leaving your wife for a ghost?”
“No.”
I looked through the ICU glass.
“I’m following the thing she nearly died trying to tell me.”
The mountain house was an hour away.
The chapel stood behind it.
Antonio stayed with Clara.
I took six Vale men and Nolan.
Arthur objected.
That told me Nolan mattered.
On the drive, Nolan said nothing until the city disappeared behind us.
Then he whispered:
“My mother hated that chapel.”
“Why?”
“She hid things there.”
“What things?”
Nolan looked at me.
“Things about Dad.”
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That was the first time the mystery stopped being only about what Arthur did to Clara.
It became about what Clara’s mother had known before she died.
