Chapter 2 - The Empty Mansion He Thought He Wanted
For the first two weeks after Claire disappeared, Vincent told himself he was irritated.
Not worried.
Not hurt.
Irritated.
Claire had always been stubborn.
Quietly stubborn, which was worse.
She rarely raised her voice.
She simply made decisions and somehow forced the entire room to adjust around them.
When she finished college, Vincent offered her an office at the Moretti Foundation.
She refused.
“I don’t want people wondering if I got the job because I sleep with you.”
Vincent stared at her across the breakfast table.
“You do sleep with me.”
“That is exactly the problem.”
He eventually found her consulting work through a company he did not own.
He never told her he had quietly checked the company’s finances for six months.
Claire would have called that controlling.
Vincent called it reasonable.
Now she was gone.
And reasonable no longer meant anything.
The first month, he ordered discreet searches.
The second, discreet disappeared from the instructions.
By the third, men who normally investigated stolen cargo and financial fraud were reviewing security footage from interstate bus stations.
Vincent’s chief of security, Gabriel Russo, entered his office one evening carrying another folder.
Vincent did not look up.
“Tell me you found her.”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
Gabriel placed the folder down.
“We found the route she used for the first thirty-six hours.”
Vincent immediately opened it.
Chicago.
Milwaukee.
Minneapolis.
Then nothing.
“She knew what we would check,” Gabriel said.
Vincent studied timestamps.
“She took buses.”
“Yes.”
“No cameras after Minneapolis?”
“Plenty. None we can confirm are her.”
“She changed her appearance?”
“Maybe.”
“No.”
Gabriel waited.
Vincent tapped the photograph.
“Claire hates dyeing her hair.”
Gabriel stared.
Vincent looked up.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Say it.”
“You know an impressive amount about someone you described as company.”
The office became still.
Gabriel immediately regretted it.
Vincent closed the folder.
“Get out.”
Gabriel did.
Vincent remained alone.
He looked at the photograph again.
Claire in faded jeans.
White T-shirt.
Hair tied back.
One suitcase.
He recognized the clothes.
The realization hit him slowly.
She had worn those clothes the first day they met.
He sat back.
Why?
A knock came.
Sophia entered without waiting.
Vincent’s mouth tightened.
“You need to stop doing that.”
“I used to walk into your room without knocking.”
“That was thirteen years ago.”
Sophia smiled.
“Some things haven’t changed.”
Vincent looked at her.
For several weeks after Claire left, Sophia had behaved as though the old life had simply resumed.
Breakfast in his dining room.
Her clothes in the east wing.
Invitations arriving with both names.
Associates treating her cautiously.
The problem was Vincent felt almost nothing.
He had spent years remembering Sophia as unfinished history.
The girl he loved before his father was killed.
Before war.
Before blood.
Before becoming the man Chicago feared.
She represented twenty-two.
Summer.
A version of himself that no longer existed.
When she returned, he had confused memory with desire.
Then Claire left.
And memory could not make the mansion feel alive.
Sophia crossed the office.
“You’re searching for her again.”
Vincent said nothing.
“You promised this week would be about the Whitmore agreement.”
“I promised nothing.”
“My father is bringing investors tomorrow.”
“Then entertain them.”
Sophia stared.
“You’re embarrassing me.”
Vincent almost laughed.
The word.
Embarrassing.
He thought of Claire unbuttoning that dress in front of everyone.
Something ugly twisted inside his chest.
“Leave.”
Sophia frowned.
“Vincent.”
“Leave.”
She did not.
Instead, she walked to the desk.
“You told me she meant nothing.”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Then why have you spent five months looking for her?”
He did not have an answer he could tolerate.
Sophia continued.
“She probably found someone else.”
Vincent’s eyes lifted.
The temperature in the room changed.
Sophia noticed.
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“That bothers you.”
Vincent stood.
“Do not test me.”
“Why? Because Claire might be sleeping with another man?”
He came around the desk.
Sophia did not retreat.
“You chose me.”
Vincent stopped.
“Did I?”
Her expression changed.
“You threw her out.”
The words sounded more accurate.
More brutal.
Vincent looked toward the windows.
Chicago burned beneath them in white and gold.
Five months.
Where was Claire?
Did she have enough money?
Was she safe?
Had she gotten sick?
Was someone treating her badly?
Had someone treated her well?
That final thought disturbed him in a way he refused to examine.
Sophia watched him.
“She left because she wanted attention.”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Claire doesn’t do that.”
“You seem to know her well now.”
Vincent turned.
He knew Claire hated cilantro.
Loved old houses.
Read the final page of mystery novels first when she became anxious.
Slept with one foot outside the blanket.
Cried at documentaries about elderly dogs.
Refused to wear perfume when she had headaches.
Called her father’s old voicemail once every year on his birthday even though the number no longer belonged to him.
He knew how she sounded when laughing in another room.
He knew the exact expression she made when lying about being tired.
He knew she always stole the olives from his plate.
He knew she disliked elevators if they were too crowded.
He knew she kept cash hidden inside books because poverty had taught her digital money could disappear.
Apparently he knew everything except how much losing her would cost.
Sophia crossed her arms.
“You made your choice.”
Vincent looked at her.
“No.”
He finally said the truth.
“I made a mistake.”
Sophia’s face hardened.
That evening, Vincent went upstairs to Claire’s room for the first time since she left.
The staff had not touched it.
His order.
He had called it security.
Nobody believed him.
Her jewelry remained inside drawers.
Dresses lined the closet.
Books remained on shelves.
One coffee cup sat on the desk where Claire had left it the morning Sophia returned.
Vincent walked into the closet.
Then stopped.
The champagne dress hung there.
Claire had changed after he told her she could leave wearing it.
Of course she had.
The dress remained exactly where she placed it.
Something in Vincent’s chest tightened.
He touched the fabric.
Twelve thousand dollars.
The cheapest thing in the room.
Yet he had used it to tell Claire that even the clothing touching her skin belonged to him.
He closed his eyes.
A memory returned.
Claire at the fundraiser wearing the dress.
Vincent had arrived late.
She stood near the staircase talking to a board member.
When she saw him, she smiled.
Vincent remembered thinking she looked beautiful.
He had never said it.
Instead, he asked why she was wearing heels that looked uncomfortable.
Claire rolled her eyes.
“You bought them.”
“Then I made a bad purchase.”
“You make those?”
“Rarely.”
She laughed.
He had kissed her shoulder later inside the car.
Still never said beautiful.
Vincent opened a drawer.
Empty.
Another.
Empty except for jewelry.
Then he saw an old photograph behind a box.
Claire and Vincent.
Taken three years earlier.
She was laughing.
He was looking at her rather than the camera.
Vincent sat on the floor.
For perhaps the first time in twenty years, Vincent Moretti did not know what to do.
He had solved hostile takeovers.
Survived assassination attempts.
Negotiated with men who would rather bury him than shake his hand.
Claire Bennett had defeated him by simply leaving.
Gabriel entered ten minutes later.
He stopped when he saw Vincent sitting inside the closet.
Neither commented on it.
“We found something.”
Vincent stood instantly.
“What?”
“A woman matching Claire’s description stayed at a roadside motel outside Fargo five months ago.”
Vincent grabbed his coat.
“Plane.”
“It’s five months old.”
“I don’t care.”
“Vincent.”
He stopped.
Gabriel chose his words carefully.
“She paid cash. Used the name Emma Carter. Stayed six hours.”
“Camera?”
“Old footage was overwritten.”
“So nothing.”
“Almost.”
Gabriel handed him a photocopy.
The motel clerk had kept a handwritten registration card.
Emergency contact.
Blank.
Vehicle.
Blank.
Destination.
Blank.
But beneath the name, in Claire’s handwriting, was one note.
Please do not give information about me to anyone who asks. I am leaving voluntarily.
Vincent stared.
Voluntarily.
She had anticipated him.
Not only the search.
The assumption that she might need rescuing.
Claire had made sure strangers knew she did not.
Vincent folded the paper.
“Continue west.”
“We are.”
Gabriel hesitated.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Claire withdrew forty-eight thousand dollars before leaving.”
Vincent looked up.
“From which account?”
“That’s the problem.”
“We never knew the account existed.”
For the first time, something close to pride mixed with pain.
Claire had prepared.
Maybe not for that specific night.
But for independence.
She had built an exit.
Without him.
Vincent looked again at the note.
“Find where she earned the money.”
Gabriel nodded.
“Already working on it.”
The answer arrived two days later.
Claire had spent three years consulting anonymously for small nonprofit organizations.
Financial planning.
Grant coordination.
Operational restructuring.
She had built professional relationships Vincent knew nothing about.
One organization was in Portland.
Another Seattle.
Another small town in Montana.
Vincent looked at the map.
“Which one did she contact most recently?”
“None after leaving.”
“Before?”
Gabriel checked.
“A women’s housing nonprofit in Whitefish, Montana.”
Vincent stared.
Montana.
He remembered something.
Years earlier, Claire had seen a magazine on his private plane.
Mountains.
A lake.
Wooden houses.
She stared at one photograph.
Vincent asked, “You like that?”
She said, “I think I’d like somewhere quiet someday.”
He replied without thinking.
“You’d be bored in a week.”
Claire had smiled.
“Maybe I’d like to find out.”
Vincent stood.
“Prepare the plane.”
Sophia appeared in the doorway.
“You’re leaving?”
“Yes.”
“For her.”
Vincent put on his coat.
“Yes.”
Sophia stared.
“You’re going to chase a woman who abandoned you?”
Vincent stopped.
His voice was quiet.
“No.”
“She didn’t abandon me.”
He looked toward Claire’s empty room.
“I threw her away.”
The jet left Chicago before midnight.
Vincent spent the entire flight studying every piece of information collected over five months.
When the plane landed in Montana, snow covered the runway.
Gabriel had arranged cars.
Investigators.
Property records.
Hotels.
Hospitals.
Vincent searched for four days.
Nothing.
On the fifth, he entered a small café beside a frozen lake because Gabriel wanted coffee.
Vincent hated the place immediately.
Too warm.
Too cheerful.
A bell rang above the door.
An elderly woman behind the counter looked at him.
“What can I get you?”
Vincent showed Claire’s photograph.
The woman stared.
Something moved behind her eyes.
Vincent saw it.
“You know her.”
“No.”
“You do.”
The woman crossed her arms.
“And who are you?”
“Vincent Moretti.”
The name meant nothing to her.
For once, Vincent was grateful.
“What are you to Claire?”
He paused.
That question had become harder than any other.
“My answer depends on whether I’m allowed to lie.”
The woman stared.
Then unexpectedly smiled.
“At least you know.”
Vincent’s heart began pounding.
“You’ve seen her.”
The woman wiped the counter.
“She came through months ago.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m seventy-two years old. Men have been accusing me of things since before you learned how to shave.”
Vincent almost respected her.
Almost.
He put money on the counter.
She pushed it back.
“Wrong woman.”
“What does that mean?”
“If Claire wanted money, she would’ve stayed with you.”
Vincent froze.
The woman knew more than she admitted.
“What did she tell you?”
“That she had spent too many years living in someone else’s house.”
Vincent’s throat tightened.
“She said she wanted somewhere nobody knew her name.”
“Where?”
The woman shook her head.
Vincent stepped closer.
“Please.”
The word surprised both of them.
The woman looked at him for a long time.
Then softened.
“She stayed here three weeks.”
Three weeks.
Vincent felt as though oxygen returned.
“She was safe?”
“Yes.”
“Was she alone?”
The question came out too quickly.
The woman’s eyes sharpened.
“Mostly.”
Mostly.
Vincent hated that word.
“Did she leave with someone?”
“No.”
Relief.
Then shame for feeling relief.
“Where did she go?”
“She never told me.”
Vincent looked around the café.
“Did she say anything?”
The woman thought.
“She talked about the ocean.”
Vincent’s pulse changed.
“What ocean?”
“She said she had never lived near one.”
West Coast.
Vincent stood.
The woman spoke before he could leave.
“Mr. Moretti.”
He turned.
“She cried once.”
Vincent went still.
“Only once?”
“That I saw.”
“What happened?”
“She found that dress online.”
“What dress?”
“The champagne one.”
His blood went cold.
The woman continued.
“Some gossip page posted a photograph of another woman wearing it at a charity event.”
Sophia.
Vincent remembered.
Weeks after Claire left, Sophia had found the dress.
She asked if she could wear it.
Vincent, drunk and furious after another failed search, had said he did not care.
The photograph circulated.
Claire had seen it.
The woman behind the counter looked at him.
“She stared at that picture for maybe ten minutes.”
Vincent could barely speak.
“What did she say?”
The woman’s expression became sad.
“She said, ‘I guess he finally found someone who fit into my place better.’”
Vincent closed his eyes.
The woman continued.
“Then she deleted the page and went to work.”
Vincent opened his eyes.
“Work?”
“Yes.”
“She worked while she was here?”
“Helped me rewrite a grant application for a community housing project.”
Of course she did.
Claire could be heartbroken and still fix somebody else’s paperwork.
The woman looked at him.
“If you find her, do something useful with it.”
Vincent swallowed.
“What?”
“Don’t tell her you missed her.”
He stared.
“Tell her why she should ever trust you again.”
That night, Vincent flew west.
And for the first time since Claire disappeared, he was close.
Not close enough to know where she lived.
Not close enough to see her.
But close enough to understand the search had been wrong from the beginning.
May you like
Finding Claire was not the difficult part.
The difficult part would be becoming a man she had any reason to return to.
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