Chapter 8 - What Happened to Mr. Bennett for Nine Months

We reached Pier Nine at 4:22.

Seven minutes late.

The warehouse door was open.

No guards.

No cars.

No Dominic.

Only a chair beneath one hanging light.

Rope on the floor.

A small bloodstain.

And the original recording sitting on the seat.

Vincent picked it up.

Mr. Bennett looked around.

“It is too easy.”

Vincent pressed play anyway.

Static.

Then Dominic’s younger voice.

Fourteen years earlier.

“If you go near Vincent, I will expose everything.”

Raymond answered.

“If you go to Vincent, I lose everything.”

“You already tried to have me killed once.”

“You have no proof.”

“I have the ledger.”

A pause.

Then Raymond laughed.

“You have numbers. I have your son.”

Vincent stopped the recording.

His hand trembled.

He played the next part.

Dominic spoke.

“Vincent knows nothing.”

“Exactly. And he will keep knowing nothing.”

Then something struck the desk.

Raymond’s voice came closer.

“You disappear, he stays safe.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then the next brake line is his.”

The recording ended.

Vincent stood completely still.

For fourteen years, Dominic had let his son believe he had abandoned him.

Because Raymond had threatened Vincent.

That did not make the silence right.

But it made it different.

Mr. Bennett sat on the chair.

He looked suddenly exhausted.

Vincent noticed.

“Charles.”

“I’m all right.”

“No. You aren’t.”

The old man looked at the rope on the floor.

Then at Vincent.

“There is something I should have told you nine months ago.”

Vincent laughed without humor.

“Apparently tonight is the night for that.”

Mr. Bennett nodded.

“Camilla did not make me disappear.”

“You already said that.”

“She did something else.”

Vincent waited.

“She warned me Raymond had learned I was still speaking to Dominic.”

I looked at him.

“Camilla warned you?”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell Vincent?”

“Because I did not trust her motive.”

Vincent stared.

Mr. Bennett continued.

“She gave me a train ticket and cash. I did not use either. Dominic moved me to a property in Vermont.”

“For nine months?”

“Yes.”

“Doing what?”

“Watching Raymond.”

The old man reached inside his coat.

He removed a small notebook.

Dates.

License plates.

Meeting locations.

Payments.

“You spent nine months following him?”

“When you are seventy-six, people stop noticing you.”

Vincent looked through the notes.

One name appeared again and again.

EDWARD VALE.

“Who is that?”

Mr. Bennett’s face darkened.

“Raymond’s banker.”

Vincent turned pages.

The last entry was from yesterday.

VALE — PRIVATE TERMINAL — 7:30 A.M.

Vincent looked up.

“The transfers.”

Mr. Bennett nodded.

“Raymond cannot move them alone.”

“So stopping Raymond does not stop the money.”

“No.”

We had less than three hours.

Then I noticed another line.

Pier Nine.

Not tonight.

Six months earlier.

Beside it:

D.M. + C.R.

I looked at Mr. Bennett.

“Dominic and Camilla met here.”

Vincent took the notebook.

“Why?”

Mr. Bennett looked away.

“Charles.”

“I don’t know.”

It was the first time I believed him when he said that.

A metal door slammed somewhere behind us.

Vincent reached inside his jacket.

“Stay here.”

He disappeared into the loading corridor.

A moment later we heard a voice.

Camilla.

“I told you I was coming.”

Vincent brought her back into the light.

She held a folder.

“I went to Luca.”

Vincent looked at it.

“What is that?”

“The documents Raymond made me sign.”

She handed them over.

Most were corporate forms.

Then one page changed Vincent’s expression.

A life insurance policy.

Insured person:

VINCENT MARINO.

Beneficiary:

CAMILLA RUSSO.

Twenty-five million dollars.

Effective date:

Tomorrow.

Vincent looked at her.

“I never signed this.”

“I know.”

Mr. Bennett stood.

Camilla pointed to the signature.

“Luca says Raymond forged it.”

Vincent’s voice went quiet.

“The wedding was tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“The transfers clear at eight.”

“Yes.”

“And the policy starts at midnight.”

Camilla’s eyes filled.

“Yes.”

Nobody had to say the rest.

Raymond had not only planned to frame Vincent and Camilla for stealing thirty-seven million dollars.

He planned to make Vincent worth more dead than alive.

Vincent looked at the empty chair.

“Where is my father?”

Camilla handed him one final page.

A deed.

The old summer house.

Transferred three weeks earlier.

New owner:

EDWARD VALE.

The banker.

Mr. Bennett whispered:

“The wrong house.”

I remembered the message.

YOU CAME TO THE WRONG HOUSE.

Vincent looked at the deed.

Then at the clock.

“Raymond was not warning us.”

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He folded the paper.

“He was telling us exactly where he took Dominic.”