Chapter 2 - Blood and Debts
The cold outside my apartment building cut straight through my scrub top, but I couldn't feel it.
Detective Miller had told me to find a safe place to stay until forensics finished processing the scene. He advised me to go to a hotel or a close friend's house. Instead, my hands acted on muscle memory, gripping the steering wheel of my modest sedan until my knuckles turned white.
I drove straight to Oakridge Drive.
It was an older suburb on the east side of town, filled with split-level ranch houses and manicured lawns that hid decades of quiet resentment. The house belonged to my father, Thomas Bennett. But for the last eighteen months, it had also been the hideout for Julian.
Julian was twenty-four, five years younger than me, and the golden child who could do no wrong. When he crashed his first car at eighteen, Dad called it an unavoidable patch of black ice. When he dropped out of business school after two semesters, Dad said the professors were jealous of his entrepreneurial spirit. And when his startup logistics firm went bankrupt six months ago, dragging three credit cards into collections, Dad told me it was my duty as a sister to help him carry the burden.
I pulled into the driveway. Julian's silver truck wasn't there. Only my father's aging sedan sat under the carport.
I didn't knock. I used my key, stepping into the hallway that smelled faintly of stale coffee and cedar shavings.
My father was seated at the kitchen island, his reading glasses perched at the end of his nose, scrolling through his tablet while sipping black coffee. When he heard my footsteps, he didn't even look up.
"Claire," he said casually, turning a page on his screen. "I thought you were working a double."
"Someone broke into my apartment, Dad."
The words dropped between us like lead weights. My father paused, his coffee cup hovering an inch above the marble counter. Slowly, he set it down.
"What did you say?"
"My apartment," I said, my voice shaking with rage and exhaustion. "Someone smashed through the door lock while I was in the ER. They tore the mattress off my bed, emptied my drawers, and stole my mother's jewelry box."
My father didn't stand up. He didn't gasp. He didn't rush over to check if I had been hurt. He simply leaned back against his stool, took off his reading glasses, and folded his hands across his stomach.
"Well," he sighed heavily, shaking his head. "If you’d helped your brother, none of this would have happened."
The air left my lungs as if someone had struck me with a hammer.
"What?" I whispered. "What does Julian have to do with my apartment being robbed?"
"Julian is in a lot of trouble, Claire," my father said, his voice dripping with condescension, as if he were explaining simple addition to a small child. "Real trouble. He borrowed money to keep his firm afloat. People with aggressive terms. We begged you last week to co-sign a loan for forty thousand dollars so he could clear his slate, and you sat right there and told him no."
"Because I don't have forty thousand dollars!" I shouted, tears finally stinging the corners of my eyes. "I work eighty hours a week cleaning vomit and blood off stretchers! I pay my own rent, my own student loans, and half of your prescription medication every month! Julian bought an eighty-thousand-dollar truck and went to Cabo twice while his company was crumbling!"
"He is your brother," my father barked, his face darkening with sudden fury. "Family protects family. Those men he borrowed from don't wait for polite payment schedules, Claire. They told Julian if he didn't produce collateral by Friday, they were going to come after what belonged to this family."
A chill ran down my spine. The pieces of the puzzle began clicking together with sickening clarity.
"Collateral," I murmured. "The cherrywood box."
My father avoided my eyes, looking toward the window. "Your mother kept the original deed to this property. And whatever savings bonds her grandmother left behind. Julian needed something to show good faith until his new venture pays off."
"Dad," I said, stepping closer, my fingernails digging into my palms. "Did you give Julian my apartment key?"
Silence filled the room. The only sound was the low hum of the refrigerator.
"Dad. Answer me. Did you give him my spare key?"
Before he could speak, my phone began to vibrate violently in my coat pocket. The caller ID flashed with a number I had saved less than forty minutes ago: Detective Miller - Precinct 4.
I pressed the phone to my ear, my eyes locked on my father's cowardly face.
"Ms. Bennett?" Miller's voice was grim, devoid of the cautious professionalism from earlier. "Where are you right now?"
"I'm at my father's house," I said flatly.
"I need you to listen to me carefully," Detective Miller said, background chatter and dispatch radios cutting through the line. "We found something on your bedroom floor near the base of the radiator. Forensics just lifted it."
My heart hammered against my ribs. "What was it?"
"It’s not your brother's," Miller said. "It's an unspent nine-millimeter casing stamped with a serpent emblem. And painted on the back of your bedroom door, behind the jackets you had hanging there, was a phone number and a name."
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"Whose name?" I whispered.
"Victor Vance," the detective replied. "Does that name mean anything to you, Claire? Because Vance is the primary target of an active federal narcotics and racketeering task force—and right now, his people think you have something that belongs to him."
