Chapter 5 - NO SAFE ADDRESS
The video was twenty-three seconds long.
Clara sat in front of a blank wall wearing a borrowed navy sweater. No makeup. No jewelry. No visible location. Damian stood behind the camera, not beside her.
That had been her condition.
If she was going to become bait, she would not look owned.
She stared into the lens.
“My name is Clara Hayes. I was employed in the Costello household on the night of the attack. I removed Oliver and Owen Costello from the nursery after armed men entered the home. I heard enough that night to know the attack did not come from outside the family. Victoria Costello knows what happened. She knows what was said before she left. If anything happens to me, copies of my statement will go to law enforcement and the press.”
She paused.
Then added the line Damian had not written.
“And if you are watching this, Victoria, you know exactly where you left your sons.”
The recording ended.
Damian lowered the camera.
“That last part was not in the script.”
“I know.”
“It was good.”
“I know.”
Margaret, sitting near the fireplace with a blanket over her knees, smiled.
“That’s my daughter.”
Damian sent the video through three journalists, two attorneys, and a retired federal agent he said he trusted.
Clara did not ask what “trusted” meant in his world.
Within forty minutes, television networks were repeating her name.
Within an hour, someone leaked an older photograph of her leaving the Costello estate with grocery bags.
Within two hours, the internet had decided she was either a heroic nanny, Damian’s secret mistress, a kidnapper, a government witness, or all four.
Clara stared at a phone screen.
“This is why I don’t use social media.”
Margaret looked over her shoulder.
“Someone says you’re twenty-nine.”
“I’m twenty-seven.”
“Be grateful. Usually the internet makes women older.”
Damian walked in.
“Turn that off.”
Clara looked up.
“You sound like my father.”
“I’m trying not to imagine killing strangers over comments.”
“That is not reassuring.”
He took the phone from the table and placed it face down.
“Victoria saw the video.”
“How do you know?”
“Vale contacted one of my attorneys.”
“And?”
“He threatened a defamation suit.”
Clara blinked.
“His clients tried to burn babies alive and he’s worried about defamation?”
“Lawyers like familiar weapons.”
“What did you say?”
“I told my attorney to invite discovery.”
She stared at him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means if Vale sues, we ask under oath where Victoria was that night, who paid for the boat, who accessed the security system, and why his authorization codes opened the east passage.”
Clara smiled despite herself.
“That was almost clever.”
“Almost?”
“Don’t get arrogant.”
His expression softened.
The twins were on a quilt nearby. Owen was trying to roll over. Oliver had discovered his own feet and seemed personally offended by them.
Damian sat on the floor.
Clara watched.
Two days ago she would not have believed Damian Costello knew how to sit on a floor.
He reached for Owen.
The baby rolled away.
Damian stared.
Clara laughed.
“He rejected you.”
“He’s six months old.”
“He has instincts.”
Damian tried again.
Owen grabbed his finger.
The victory on Damian’s face was so small and so genuine that Clara looked away before he noticed she had seen it.
Her phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone froze.
Damian held out his hand.
Clara shook her head and answered on speaker.
“Hello?”
Victoria spoke immediately.
“You lied.”
Clara’s pulse quickened.
“About what?”
“You never heard me order anything.”
“No.”
Damian’s head snapped toward her.
Clara continued.
“But you just admitted you know what order I meant.”
Silence.
Margaret covered a smile.
Victoria’s breathing sharpened.
“You think you’re smart.”
“No. I think you’re scared.”
“I am not scared of a servant.”
“Then why are you calling?”
Another silence.
Clara could almost hear Victoria losing control.
Finally she said, “Damian is using you.”
“Maybe.”
“He uses everyone.”
“Maybe.”
“When this is over, he will send you back to polishing silver.”
Clara looked at Damian.
He did not move.
“That would still be more useful than abandoning two babies during a home invasion.”
Victoria inhaled sharply.
“You don’t know what happened.”
“Then tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“Won’t.”
“You think I wanted those men in my house?”
“I watched you pack jewelry while your sons screamed.”
Victoria’s voice cracked for the first time.
“They told me the boys were already gone.”
Clara’s anger sharpened.
“Briggs told you they were upstairs.”
“They told me he was lying.”
“Who?”
No answer.
“Vale?”
Silence.
“Carlo?”
The line changed.
Not a sound exactly.
A reaction.
Clara leaned forward.
“Carlo told you Damian would die in Boston, didn’t he?”
Victoria whispered, “You need to leave him.”
“Where are you?”
“Leave with the boys if you can.”
“Why?”
“Because Carlo doesn’t want Damian dead anymore.”
Damian’s eyes narrowed.
Victoria continued.
“He wants him alive long enough to watch everything disappear.”
“What does that mean?” Clara asked.
“It means the house was only the beginning.”
A noise sounded behind Victoria.
A door.
She gasped.
Then the line went dead.
Damian stood.
“Trace.”
A technician in the next room was already working.
Clara grabbed Damian’s sleeve.
“She sounded afraid.”
“She should be.”
“That is not what I mean.”
“I know.”
“Do you think she lied about the boys being gone?”
Damian looked at Oliver and Owen.
“I think Victoria believes whatever keeps Victoria alive.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the only one I have.”
The technician appeared.
“Call bounced. No location.”
Damian cursed.
Then every light in the house went out.
Darkness.
Clara’s body reacted before thought.
She dropped to the floor and reached for the twins.
Damian was already there.
“Backup power,” he called.
Nothing happened.
A guard’s voice came from the hallway.
“Generator’s not responding.”
Damian pulled a flashlight from a drawer.
Clara heard Margaret whisper a prayer.
Then, outside, three engines started at once.
Damian’s face changed.
“Vehicles.”
A guard looked through the curtain.
“Boss, all three SUVs just started by themselves.”
Clara felt ice move through her.
“How?”
Damian understood before anyone answered.
“The systems are compromised.”
“Again?” Clara said.
“Not the house. The vehicles.”
One SUV began rolling down the driveway without a driver.
Then another.
The third accelerated toward the front porch.
“Move!”
Everyone ran.
The SUV struck the stone steps with a violent crash.
Glass shattered.
The twins screamed.
Clara crouched over them while Damian shielded all three with his body.
No explosion came.
Only the alarm horn blaring continuously.
“Remote access,” Briggs shouted. “They can control the cars.”
Damian looked at Clara.
“No more safe houses.”
“What?”
“Every property, every vehicle, every security system connected to me can be found or compromised.”
“So where do we go?”
He looked genuinely uncertain.
That terrified her.
Then Margaret spoke from the hallway.
“I know a place.”
Everyone turned.
Margaret adjusted the blanket around her shoulders.
“My sister had a cabin in Vermont. She died eight years ago. The deed is still in probate because our family is terrible at paperwork.”
Damian stared.
“Does anyone know Clara is connected to it?”
“No. Clara has never been there.”
“Internet?”
“Barely electricity.”
“Road access?”
“One road, unless you know the old logging trail.”
Damian looked at Clara.
She almost smiled.
“For once,” she said, “you’re going to hide in a place my family owns.”
They left before dawn in vehicles borrowed from a local construction company.
No armored glass.
No tracking systems.
No Costello plates.
Damian rode in a muddy pickup truck with a cracked passenger mirror.
Clara sat beside him holding Oliver while Margaret and Owen rode behind them with Briggs.
After an hour, Damian looked at the dashboard.
“The check-engine light is on.”
“It has probably been on since 2019.”
“This is unsafe.”
Clara looked at him.
“You own cars people shoot at.”
He considered that.
“Fair.”
By noon they reached the cabin.
It stood beside a frozen pond, small enough that Damian could have fit its entire first floor inside his old dining room.
The pipes groaned.
The kitchen cabinets did not match.
The bedrooms had quilts instead of imported linen.
Clara opened a closet and found canned soup older than the twins.
Damian walked through the house in silence.
“Well?” she asked.
“It’s perfect.”
She stared.
“You mean that.”
“No cameras. No staff. No digital locks. No one in my organization knows it exists.”
He looked around.
“I haven’t felt this safe in years.”
That sentence stayed with her.
That night, snow began falling.
Margaret slept early. Briggs took the first watch outside. The twins refused to settle in the unfamiliar room.
Clara rocked Owen while Damian walked Oliver through the kitchen.
“You’re holding him too stiffly,” she said.
“I’m trying not to drop him.”
“He is a baby, not unstable explosives.”
“I have more experience with explosives.”
“That explains a lot.”
He adjusted his arm.
Oliver rested his cheek against Damian’s chest.
For several minutes, neither adult spoke.
Then Damian said, “Why did you take the job?”
“What job?”
“At my house.”
“Money.”
“Only money?”
“My mother’s treatment.”
He nodded.
“The agency said the family was private, demanding, and paid well.”
“They warned you?”
“They said the last housekeeper lasted nine days.”
“She stole a watch.”
“No, she didn’t.”
Damian looked at her.
Clara smiled.
“She quit because Victoria threw a vase at her.”
His eyes closed.
“I was told about the watch.”
“Of course you were.”
He looked at Oliver.
“How much did I not know about my own house?”
“Do you want the polite answer?”
“No.”
“A lot.”
He accepted it.
Clara looked at him across the tiny kitchen.
“Why were you always gone?”
“Because I thought keeping danger away from the house was the same as being a good father.”
“And now?”
“Now I know danger was already inside it.”
Oliver’s eyes closed.
Damian lowered his voice.
“I spent years building walls around them.”
Clara looked at the cracked window frame, the cheap curtains, the old radiator knocking in the corner.
“And they were safest when I carried them through a hole in one.”
His eyes met hers.
Something moved between them.
Not romance exactly.
Recognition.
Two exhausted people in a kitchen neither had chosen, holding children who had rearranged every rule.
Then Briggs knocked once and entered.
“Boss.”
Damian stiffened.
“What?”
Briggs held a small object between two gloved fingers.
A black plastic disk no larger than a button.
“Found this under the pickup.”
Clara’s stomach dropped.
“Tracker?”
Briggs nodded.
“Fresh adhesive.”
Damian handed Oliver to Clara.
“When was it placed?”
“Could have been at the construction yard. Could have been on the road.”
“Can it transmit?”
“It already did.”
Clara looked toward the dark windows.
Snow fell silently beyond them.
No headlights.
No engines.
Nothing.
That was worse.
Damian reached for his coat.
“Wake everyone.”
Clara’s heart hammered.
“Where do we go now?”
He looked at the tracker in Briggs’s hand.
For the first time since she had met him, Damian Costello had no answer.
Then a baby monitor on the counter crackled.
A woman’s voice came through it.
Soft.
Close.
“Don’t leave.”
Clara stopped breathing.
The voice continued.
“If you step outside, Carlo’s men will see you.”
Damian grabbed the monitor.
“Elena?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
“Where are you?”
“Closer than you’d like.”
Damian looked toward the windows.
May you like
Elena whispered through the speaker.
“And I’m not the one who put the tracker there.”
