What Never Arrived

"Your father was Thomas Reed," Bennett said.

The name came back with a photograph: two men standing beside a harbor crane, his father's arm across the other man's shoulders.

Clara nodded.

"He tried to pull your father out of the car at Calumet Harbor. He was shot before he could get him clear."

Bennett remembered the hospital corridor, the blood on his uncle's cuff, Richard Croft arriving with documents three days after the funeral.

"I signed the authorization," he said. "Five hundred thousand dollars to his widow. Richard told me it was delivered."

"It wasn't."

Clara's voice was steady now. He wished she would shout.

"My mother called your offices. At first, they said the money was being processed. Then they stopped putting her through."

"Why didn't she come here?"

Clara stared at him.

The gates. The guards. The men who searched visitors before allowing them near the house.

Bennett heard his own question as she must have heard it.

"I'm sorry," he said. "That was a stupid thing to ask."

She looked away first.

Eleanor moved closer. "I only learned about the missing payment last Sunday. I found Clara looking at Arthur's photograph, and we finally had a conversation we should have had months ago."

"You knew who she was?"

"Not when she was hired. Reed isn't an uncommon name."

Clara kept her eyes on the floor.

"I used the same agency my mother used to work for. I knew they staffed this house. I wanted to see whether anyone here remembered him."

Bennett looked at her bag, the worn seam near the buckle.

"What happened to your mother?"

"She died three years ago. She was forty-nine."

He had no useful response to that.

"We lost the house," Clara continued. "She worked nights at a nursing home and cleaned offices on weekends. I helped when I was old enough. After she died, I found the letters she'd kept. Your office's letters."

"Do you still have them?"

Her shoulders stiffened.

"I do."

"I'm asking because I want to find out what happened. You don't have to hand me the originals."

She studied his face before nodding once.

Eleanor reached for Clara, but a cough stopped her. Bennett crouched beside the wheelchair while Clara fetched water.

For a few moments, all three of them attended to the ordinary business of helping her breathe comfortably.

When Eleanor recovered, she looked furious with her own body.

"Take me back to bed," she said. "And neither of you is allowed to have this entire conversation without me."

They obeyed.

Later, in the hall, Bennett offered Clara a car again. This time he explained that Marcus would arrange a driver she could verify through Mrs. Alvarez.

"You can refuse," he added.

She rubbed her eyes.

"I'd appreciate it tonight."

He stayed back while she put on her coat.

"Did you think I knew?" he asked.

"I didn't know what to think."

"But you stayed."

She looked toward Eleanor's door.

"Your mother asked me whether I wanted tea on my first morning. She remembered how I took it the next day. After a while, it became difficult to keep thinking of her as one of the people who'd hurt us."

Bennett nodded, though the answer made something ache behind his ribs.

"I'll have my attorney contact you. Someone outside the company. You should have your own advice, too."

"I can't afford a lawyer."

"Then we'll arrange a way for you to choose one without having to trust mine."

Clara searched his face.

"I don't want you to buy me a better version of what happened."

He held her gaze.

"Tell them everything. Even if it makes me look worse."

After she left, Bennett called Marcus into the study.

"Richard is to have no private contact with Clara or my mother. Keep him away from the house. Quietly."

Marcus's expression sharpened. "What's happened?"

Bennett told him.

Then he called an outside attorney and requested a review of the Reed payment and everyone who had handled it.

He was reaching for another folder when Eleanor's bell sounded upstairs.

His first instinct was to call a nurse.

Instead, he put down the phone and went himself.