Chapter 3 - The Recipe with No Flour
Roman took them to the Duke house in Squirrel Hill, a limestone mansion hidden behind old trees and iron fencing. Claire had expected something cold and imposing. Instead, the house held warm lamps, worn rugs, and the faint smell of coffee. It felt less like a fortress than a family home that had learned to hide its bruises.
Claire hated that she noticed the difference.
Lily went upstairs with Ellis stationed outside her room. Mateo remained in the hall. Susan poured whiskey into a glass and did not drink it.
Roman placed the note on the dining table. “Tell me about the ledger.”
Susan looked older without her lipstick’s confidence. “Your father kept a black book containing payments, names, favors, and debts. Some were criminal. Some were political. Some were merely ugly.”
“And Daniel Bennett?”
“Daniel maintained a duplicate.”
Claire folded her arms. “Why?”
“Because he discovered your father planned to use the ledger to control everyone who had ever owed him.”
Roman’s voice went quiet. “My father was dead when I found out.”
“You were twenty-three. You found the primary ledger in the warehouse and burned it.”
“I burned the pages that named innocent people.”
“You burned the evidence.”
“I destroyed the weapon.”
Susan’s laugh was soft and bitter. “That is what you told yourself.”
Claire studied Roman. “Did Daniel help you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know if my father helped you?”
Roman turned toward the window. “Daniel disappeared before I found the book. I was told he had taken money and run.”
Claire felt the room tilt. Her whole childhood had been built around that lie, though she had never known it was one.
“Who told you?” she asked.
“My father’s attorney.”
“And you believed him?”
“I was busy surviving.”
That answer stopped her. It was not an excuse. It was an admission.
Upstairs, Lily called out. The three adults froze. Ellis’s footsteps moved quickly, followed by a thud. Roman ran for the staircase. Claire followed, ignoring his order to stay back.
They found Lily beside her open bedroom window. A small drone had crashed against the sill, its camera blinking red. Ellis held a thin wire between two gloved fingers.
“Someone was listening,” he said.
Lily’s face had gone white. “It came from the school parking lot.”
Roman took the device. “Did you touch anything else?”
“Only the window.”
Claire noticed Lily’s backpack on the floor. A corner of the lining had been torn open. “What is missing?”
Lily shook her head. “Nothing.”
Claire crouched beside the bag. Beneath a math book was a battered notebook with a blue cover. “Is this yours?”
Lily grabbed it. “Yes.”
Roman looked at the notebook. “Why would anyone search for that?”
“They didn’t,” Claire said. “They searched the lining. Someone planted something.”
She reached inside the torn seam and found a memory card taped beneath the fabric.
Roman’s expression changed. “Lily, where did you get that?”
“I didn’t.”
“Then someone put it there.”
Claire examined the card. “Can we read it?”
“Not here.”
The answer was becoming Roman’s favorite sentence again.
Claire stood. “I’m done being transported between secrets.”
Roman stepped in front of the stairs. “The card may contain information that could get Lily killed.”
“Then let me help protect her.”
“You are a baker.”
Claire’s eyes narrowed. “And you are a man who burned a ledger instead of finding a safer way to expose it. We all have complicated résumés.”
Susan almost smiled.
Roman stared at Claire for a long moment, then handed her the card. “We’ll view it together.”
In the study, Roman inserted the card into an encrypted laptop. A single video appeared. The image showed Daniel Bennett in a dim warehouse, thinner and frightened, speaking directly to the camera.
“If Claire ever sees this,” he said, “tell her I left to keep her alive.”
Claire stopped breathing.
Daniel continued. “The Duke family did not destroy my records. Someone inside the family is still using them. Susan knows where I hid the key to the truth.”
The video ended.
Roman looked at his mother. “You said you didn’t know where Daniel went.”
Susan’s eyes filled with tears she refused to shed. “I said I didn’t know where he was now.”
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Claire turned to her. “What did you do to my father?”
Susan whispered, “I helped him disappear.”
