Chapter 3 - The House Above the Hardware Store
Emily’s father lived in the apartment where she had grown up, above a hardware store that smelled of cedar, machine oil, and winter coats drying near the radiator.
Dominic had once offered to buy Frank Bennett a larger house.
Frank had told him the stairs still worked.
Now Dominic stood at the bottom of those stairs holding a grocery bag and wondering whether he had ever understood the man.
Frank opened the door before he knocked.
“She’s resting.”
“I brought a few things.”
“You bring explanations?”
“Yes.”
“For her or for yourself?”
Dominic looked down at the bag.
“Both, probably.”
Frank stepped into the hallway and closed the apartment door behind him.
There were gray patches in his beard Dominic didn’t remember. Six months of avoiding family dinners had apparently erased more than evenings.
“My daughter called me three weeks ago,” Frank said. “Asked whether her old room was still hers.”
Dominic said nothing.
“I thought you’d had an argument. She said she was tired.”
Frank’s voice roughened.
“I should’ve asked better questions.”
“This wasn’t your fault.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
Dominic accepted the correction.
From inside, Emily called, “Dad?”
Frank opened the door.
She stood in the kitchen wearing an old college sweatshirt, her hair twisted into a loose knot.
For a second, Dominic saw the woman who used to steal his socks and sing badly while making coffee.
Then she saw him, and her expression closed.
“I won’t stay,” he said.
“Okay.”
He put the groceries on the counter.
Crackers. Soup. Ginger tea.
Emily glanced inside.
“Your mother told you.”
“Yes.”
“You could have asked me.”
“Yes,” he said again.
The repetition sounded inadequate because it was.
He took a folded sheet from his coat.
“This is everything I know about the threats. Dates, messages, photographs. I removed names that belong to employees, but nothing about you.”
She didn’t reach for it immediately.
“Why now?”
“Because you should have had it six months ago.”
Emily opened the paper.
Her face changed as she read.
“You had photographs of me outside my father’s store?”
“Yes.”
“And you let me keep coming here without telling either of us?”
“I increased surveillance around the building.”
Frank’s jaw tightened.
“You put men outside my business?”
Dominic met his eyes.
“Yes.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
Emily laid the paper flat.
“You keep saying you wanted to protect me. But every choice gave you more information and me less.”
Dominic had prepared an apology in the car.
It had sounded sincere there.
Now he understood that a polished apology was another way to manage a difficult room.
“I liked being the person who knew what to do,” he said. “When I didn’t know, I kept acting like I did.”
Emily watched him.
“And I made you pay for it.”
Her eyes filled, but she didn’t look away.
“I kept wondering what was wrong with me.”
“There was nothing wrong with you.”
“You don’t get to fix that sentence just by saying its opposite.”
“I know.”
She sat down heavily.
He wanted to cross the kitchen.
He stayed where he was.
“My attorney’s name is Rachel Kim,” Emily said. “She’s handling communication about the separation.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not making decisions about our marriage while I’m scared.”
“Okay.”
“And I want the independent security company to assess this building. Dad gets to approve anything involving the store.”
Dominic nodded.
Frank folded his arms.
“What about the people threatening her?”
“I’m bringing in an outside investigator.”
“Another man who works for you?”
“No.”
That answer had taken Dominic most of the night to reach.
His own organization had handled every threat so far.
Every failed lead.
Every reassurance that Emily was safe.
Perhaps the problem wasn’t that he hadn’t looked hard enough.
Perhaps he had kept looking through the wrong people.
His phone vibrated.
A message from his longtime security chief, Adrian Cole.
We need to discuss Bennett’s building. Exposure risk is unacceptable.
Dominic stared at it.
He had told no one he was visiting Frank.
Slowly, he turned the phone facedown.
Emily noticed.
“What happened?”
He considered saying nothing until he understood more.
Then he pushed the phone across the table.
“Someone knows I’m here.”
Frank read the message.
Emily’s face drained.
“Doesn’t he track your car?”
“Not this one.”
Dominic had driven Catherine’s sedan.
A sound came from downstairs.
The store’s bell.
Then the telephone began ringing.
Frank answered, listened, and went very still.
When he hung up, Emily stood.
“Dad?”
Frank looked at Dominic.
“The delivery driver says someone canceled tomorrow’s shipment.”
“Who?”
“Apparently,” Frank said, “my daughter’s husband.”
Dominic hadn’t canceled anything.
Outside, a truck rolled slowly past the windows.
May you like
For the first time, Emily saw him frightened.
This time, he let her.
