Chapter 7 - THE LAST HONEST ACCOUNTING
The boarded-up storefront used to be a travel agency. Its faded sign still promised vacations to places with turquoise water and white sand, although no one had booked a ticket there in years. Behind the dusty glass was a narrow office, a pair of broken swivel chairs, and the fireproof cabinet that Samuel Price had described.
I saw the photographs after the police finished documenting the search. I was glad I hadn't gone. The staircase to the basement had collapsed in one corner, and mold streaked the walls. The evidence team had worn protective gear just to retrieve the cabinet, while I still got winded climbing the two flights to my apartment.
Inside the cabinet were six folders, a red leather ledger, and a handwritten letter signed by Anthony Moretti. The ledger listed transfers from waterfront businesses to shell companies, with dates, amounts, and initials. Some entries bore Victor Sloane's signature. Others carried the approval stamp of the Moretti group's executive office.
The letter was addressed to Luca.
Alvarez permitted him to read a scanned copy after the original had been preserved. I sat beside him at the station, with Dad on my other side. Luca's hands were steady as he unfolded the printout, but his voice was not when he began to read.
“Luciano, you may hate me for what I've done, and you will have reason. I allowed people to use our company for things I should have stopped the moment I learned of them. I told myself I was keeping our workers employed. I told myself I could repair it quietly. Every excuse became another lock on a door.”
He stopped. The next page contained the names of contractors who had taken payments to ignore safety violations, conceal theft, or intimidate witnesses. Some were already dead. Some held positions of influence. One name appeared more often than any other.
DOMINIC MORETTI.
Luca pushed the letter away. “My uncle.”
Dominic was Anthony's younger brother and the man who had taught Luca how to negotiate contracts after the funeral. He had been at every family wedding, every birthday, every anniversary. I had seen him at the engagement dinner, kissing Vanessa's hand and praising the flowers.
“Dominic signed the approvals,” Dad said, staring at the page.
“Does that make him the person behind the explosion?” I asked.
Alvarez shook her head. “It makes him a major person of interest. We have to distinguish what the records establish from what witnesses believe.”
Luca read the final paragraph aloud.
“If anything happens to me, do not let Dominic convince you that loyalty requires silence. He knows why the warehouse inspection failed. He knows who ordered the doors chained. I pray you never learn what I was too weak to prevent.”
His voice broke on the last word. He covered his face with one hand, the way my father did when grief ambushed him in a crowded room.
I wanted to touch Luca's shoulder, but I waited. After a moment he reached for my hand, and I gave it to him.
Alvarez told us Dominic's accounts and communications were being examined under new warrants. Victor Sloane was still missing. Nicholas Ferraro had hired a criminal defense attorney and was no longer speaking voluntarily. Vanessa's phone had been found in an abandoned motel room, but there was no sign of her.
“Could Dominic be helping Sloane hide?” I asked.
“Possibly,” Alvarez said. “We have financial evidence connecting their companies. That's not the same as knowing where they are.”
Dad tapped the copy of the ledger. “Look at this entry. Two days before the explosion. ‘Emergency closure — north exit.’ The amount is followed by D.M.”
Alvarez leaned closer. “We'll ask the accounting expert to examine it.”
I thought of Anthony's letter and the way it described each excuse as a new lock. He had meant the words figuratively. Somewhere in the warehouse, a real door might have been locked because someone had paid for it.
After the meeting Luca asked me to walk with him by the river. It was sunny but cold, and the wind scattered dry leaves along the path. He kept his hands in his coat pockets as we passed office towers reflected in the water.
“Dominic was there when my father died,” he said. “He held me while I cried. He told me Victor was a good man and that accidents happen.”
“People who love us can lie,” I said. “People who don't love us can tell the truth. That's the worst part.”
He looked toward the river. “I keep thinking about all the times I asked him for advice. When my mother died, when I took over the company, even when I decided to marry Vanessa.”
“What did he say about Vanessa?”
“He encouraged it. Said the Bellinis would stabilize the family.” He gave a bitter laugh. “I thought he meant socially.”
I waited while a cyclist passed us. “Do you still want to run the company?”
“I don't know.”
It was the most honest answer he could have given.
At the mansion that evening, Luca called a meeting with his board and outside counsel. I wasn't present, but he told me afterward what he'd decided. Dominic had been suspended from any management role pending the investigation. All relevant records would be preserved and supplied through lawful requests. An independent administrator would oversee the waterfront subsidiary while an auditor examined contracts and worker protections.
“People will say I betrayed my family,” he told me on the telephone.
“Did you?”
“If the evidence is true, I betrayed people by waiting so long.”
“You didn't know everything.”
“No. But I benefited from a system without asking enough questions.”
I respected him more for admitting that than for any title attached to his name.
The next morning a courier arrived at my apartment with a small padded envelope. There was no return address. I didn't open it. I called Alvarez, who had a patrol officer collect it under proper procedures. Inside was a USB drive and a note written on stationery embossed with a hotel logo.
I HAVE THE RECORDING OF THE NIGHT ANTHONY DIED. ASK YOUR BOSS WHAT HE WOULD GIVE TO HEAR IT.
The police examined the drive in a forensic environment. The file contained audio, apparently from a security microphone near the warehouse loading dock. There were voices, a roaring truck engine, and a metallic clank. One voice belonged to Anthony. Another might have been Dominic. The technical team warned that the copy could have been edited and required authentication.
The final seconds of the recording carried a sentence that made Luca grip the chair.
“Get my son out of the way,” the voice said. “Then close the doors.”
I looked toward Dad. He looked equally horrified.
Before anyone could assume whose voice it was, Alvarez stopped the playback. “We'll compare against known recordings and examine the original recording system if possible. Nobody should treat this as conclusive yet.”
“Who sent it?” Luca asked.
“We're tracing the courier's instructions.”
At home I washed two mugs while Dad watched the evening news. Reporters had begun discussing a possible reopening of the warehouse deaths investigation. I could feel the pressure building outside our small apartments, all those strangers eager for an explanation before the evidence had been tested.
My father turned off the television. “Stories like this attract people who want a villain more than they want the truth.”
“Dominic is looking like a villain.”
“Maybe he is. But let the facts earn the word.”
A knock came at the door. Luca stood outside, accompanied by Daniel. He looked as though he hadn't slept.
“Could I speak to you?” he asked.
I let them in. Daniel stayed by the door while Luca removed a folder from his coat. Inside were documents showing a trust my father had never mentioned. Anthony Moretti had established a fund for Martin Reed's family one month before the explosion. After Anthony died, the fund had been quietly frozen on Dominic's instructions.
“Why would your father leave us money?” I asked.
Luca's eyes met mine. “The trust agreement says it was compensation for harm caused by the Moretti companies. He wanted your mother to receive treatment without asking for charity.”
I felt the room sway. Mom had died waiting for a medical procedure we could barely afford. Money might not have saved her, but the possibility was unbearable.
Dad took the pages, his hands trembling. “I never knew.”
Then he read the trustee's name and whispered, “Dominic.”
Luca's phone began ringing. The caller ID displayed his uncle's number.
He answered on speaker.
“Luciano,” Dominic said pleasantly. “You have been asking the wrong questions. If you want to know what really happened to Anthony, come alone to the place where we buried your mother.”
May you like
The line disconnected before Luca could speak. We stood in the kitchen, staring at a phone that had suddenly become heavier than the ledger itself.
I thought about the cemetery, the open paths and the many places a person could hide. Dominic wanted Luca isolated and grieving, exactly as he'd been nine years before. This time, however, there were witnesses who knew the invitation existed, and a detective already tracing the call. I watched Luca lift the phone again, not to summon men with weapons, but to inform Alvarez that his uncle had contacted him. It was one decision. It might be the one that saved him.
