Chapter 8 - THE SON MRS. GABLE NEVER BURIED
Mrs. Gable’s son Peter worked as Julian’s driver.
He vanished the night of the crash.
Dominic told her Peter fled after helping Julian steal company money. No police report was filed. No salary or bank account was touched again. Mrs. Gable kept working at the estate because Dominic promised he would tell her if Peter contacted the family.
“He kept you waiting,” Clara said.
The housekeeper sat in the empty staff dining room, hands wrapped around cold tea. Without the ledger and rigid posture, she looked older than fifty-nine.
“Waiting was the leash,” she replied.
She admitted Dominic ordered her to hire Clara, monitor her mail, and drive her into exhaustion. He wanted proof of pregnancy and access to anything Julian left behind. Mrs. Gable resented Clara because Dominic suggested Julian abandoned Peter to save her.
“You saw me collapse in the sleet.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I was pregnant.”
“Yes.”
The simple answers left no room for false redemption.
Maximilian asked why she did not expose the garage switch.
Mrs. Gable opened her ledger. Between staff hours were dates, vehicle plates, and payments Dominic ordered her to record then forget. One plate belonged to the burned car identified as Julian’s.
Before opening Peter’s envelope, she told them about her son’s last morning. He complained that his uniform collar scratched his neck and stole two pieces of toast from the staff kitchen. Mrs. Gable scolded him for crumbs. Their final words were about a stain on his sleeve.
“For six months,” she said, “I kept imagining a better goodbye. Then I punished you because grief wanted someone weaker than Dominic.”
Clara’s anger did not soften, but it became more precise. Pain could explain the direction of cruelty without making cruelty necessary.
Peter had driven it away from Pier Seventeen at 12:32 a.m.
“My son was in that car,” she whispered.
The dental identification came from Dominic’s physician, not the state lab. Investigators had accepted the private comparison because the body was badly burned.
Peter Gable might be the man buried under Julian’s name.
Mrs. Gable handed Clara an envelope Peter left beneath a loose floorboard before his final shift. She had been too frightened to open it.
Inside was a storage receipt and a note:
If I disappear, Mr. Julian was trying to save us. Do not believe Mr. Dominic.
Mrs. Gable covered her face.
Her cruelty had been built from a lie, but the pain did not excuse it. Clara told her so.
“I know,” she said. “Tell me how to help anyway.”
The storage locker contained Peter’s dash-camera drive. Footage showed Julian leaving the harbor in Clara’s old sedan while Peter drove Julian’s car as a decoy. A black SUV forced Peter through the guardrail.
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The SUV belonged to Russo Estate Security.
Its assigned driver was Adrian Vale.
