Chapter 5 - THE ROAD TO NORTH BRIDGE
The man who had called Rosa Alvarez was named Samuel Price. He had been an insurance investigator before leaving the profession, and he now lived in a modest house overlooking a frozen lake in northern Illinois.
He answered Rebecca's call on the third ring. When she mentioned Caroline Moretti, he fell silent long enough that I thought the line had dropped.
“I wondered when someone would finally ask,” he said.
Two days later, Luca, Rebecca and I met him at a public library. I had offered to remain at the mansion with Sophia, but she was spending the afternoon with Margaret, and I wanted to know what Caroline had been trying to protect.
Samuel was a lean man with a gray beard and a voice that sounded as though it had been scraped raw by regret.
“Caroline hired me to review suspicious claims against a small transport company,” he said. “The company carried money and documents for Bellini businesses. Some vehicles were allegedly being damaged to trigger insurance payouts. I found a pattern of questionable claims.”
“Were you supposed to meet her the day she died?” Luca asked.
“Yes. At a café near North Bridge. She had records linking the transport company to trust transfers. I was going to advise her on preserving the evidence.”
“Why didn't you tell the police?”
“I did. I gave a statement saying we had an appointment. The officer told me they'd add it to the file. Later, when I requested a copy, my statement wasn't there.”
Rebecca wrote that down. “Do you still have the original correspondence?”
Samuel took out a portable drive and a folder. “Emails. Calendar invitation. My own notes. I kept everything after the crash.”
Luca opened the folder with trembling hands.
“I need to ask you something,” he said. “Did you think her car had been deliberately damaged?”
Samuel answered carefully. “I suspected the crash deserved more investigation than it received. Suspicion isn't proof. I couldn't establish a mechanical cause from what the police gave me, and I won't pretend I could.”
“I appreciate that,” Luca said, though his voice sounded strained.
Samuel looked at him. “I was afraid after she died. An unknown caller told me my daughter would be safer if I forgot Caroline's name. I kept quiet after that. It's something I regret every day.”
“Have you told investigators about the threat now?” Rebecca asked.
“Yes. I gave them what I still had. I hope it's enough to reopen the questions.”
Outside the library, sleet swept sideways across the parking lot. Luca stood with his hands in his coat pockets, staring at the road.
“I keep thinking about the last morning,” he said.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Caroline was distracted at breakfast. Sophia had a loose tooth and wanted her mother to pull it. Caroline laughed and said she couldn't because she'd cry harder than Sophia. I told her she was worrying too much about whatever paperwork she was reading.”
He swallowed.
“Before she left she asked if I trusted Richard Bellini. I said he was a business contact, not a friend. She told me to keep it that way. I kissed her on the forehead and promised we'd talk that evening.”
I said nothing. Some grief didn't need a comforting speech.
“She called me twice,” he continued. “I missed both calls.”
“You didn't know it was goodbye.”
“No. But she was trying to tell me something. I wish I'd listened.”
We drove home through traffic, the city rising around us in wet gray blocks. I watched the reflection of my face in the window. My injured palm was nearly healed, but I still felt the sudden tug of the necklace whenever I closed my eyes.
At the mansion, Sophia was waiting with an armful of schoolbooks.
“Megan, can you help me with history?” she asked.
“Absolutely.”
Luca watched us from the hall. “Your dad could help, too.”
Sophia looked at him. “You hate history.”
“I dislike memorizing dates. That's different.”
She smiled a little, and the ordinary exchange seemed to ease something in his face.
We settled at the kitchen table. Sophia was writing an essay about family stories, a cruel coincidence considering the week we'd had. She tapped her pencil against the page.
“Does the essay have to be happy?” she asked.
“No. It has to be honest and appropriate for the assignment.”
“What if I don't want everybody to know?”
“Then you can write about a family tradition instead. Your mother's Christmas breakfast, maybe.”
She brightened. “She always burned the first pancakes.”
“On purpose?”
“Daddy said no. Mommy said yes.”
We spent an hour recalling burnt pancakes, bright wrapping paper and the ridiculous paper crown Caroline had insisted Luca wear each Christmas morning. Sophia laughed so hard she knocked her pencil onto the floor.
Then her smile faded.
“At school people are going to say Vanessa was Mommy's sister. What do I tell them?”
“You can tell them it's private. Or you can ask your counselor to help you decide what to say. You don't owe other kids your family's pain.”
Sophia looked at me seriously. “Did I do something bad by telling Daddy about the pearls?”
“No. You were honest.”
“Vanessa said honest girls make families fall apart.”
My breath caught. “She was wrong.”
“Then why does everything feel broken?”
I considered my answer. “Sometimes the broken part was there before anyone saw it. Telling the truth doesn't break it. It lets people begin fixing it.”
She looked down at her page, then wrote a new sentence about her mother's pancakes.
The next morning, a newspaper reported that Luca's engagement had ended after allegations of financial misconduct. The article included a blurred photograph of the soup-soaked necklace and described me as a servant who had interfered in a private family argument.
My father called immediately.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
“Don't read the comments.”
“I wasn't going to.”
He knew me too well. I'd already read three and regretted all of them.
At noon, Vanessa appeared on a local entertainment program in a prerecorded interview. She claimed she had merely tried to preserve Caroline's jewelry and that Luca had become unstable under the pressure of grief. She said she'd always regarded Sophia as her own daughter.
I switched off the television before Sophia could see it.
Later that day Detective Mara Castillo visited the mansion with her partner. She was calm, direct and careful not to promise more than she knew.
“We're reviewing the financial trail and the circumstances of Caroline's death,” she told Luca. “I can't say yet whether the collision was criminal. What I can say is that the original investigation appears to have omitted information it should have considered.”
“Did someone remove Samuel's statement?” he asked.
“We're looking into that too. We will need certified records, not just copies gathered by private employees.”
“Whatever you need,” Luca said.
Castillo turned to me. “You reported an injury during an encounter with Vanessa. Would you be willing to give a formal statement?”
“Yes.”
She glanced at my bandage. “We can arrange it with a victim advocate present. You also have the right to independent counsel.”
I thought about the frightened woman I'd been at the dining table, desperate not to lose my paycheck. I wished I could go back and tell her that speaking wouldn't be easy, but that silence wasn't the only way to survive.
“I'll give the statement,” I said.
That evening Rebecca received a response to a preservation request sent to an old transportation company. An employee had located archived visitor footage from the day Caroline died. Most had been routinely overwritten, but one exported clip had been retained as part of an earlier insurance review.
We watched it in Luca's office, with Detective Castillo on a secure call.
The video showed Caroline entering a parking garage at 2:17 in the afternoon. She wore a navy coat and carried the same brown leather satchel I'd seen in her photographs.
A second figure approached.
Blonde hair. A red jacket. A familiar face.
Vanessa Bellini.
Caroline stopped. The two women argued, their voices lost to the silent recording. Vanessa reached for the satchel, and Caroline pulled it away.
Then Vanessa moved close enough to say something beside Caroline's ear.
Caroline stepped backward as if struck.
I looked at Luca. He was staring at the screen, perfectly still.
“The collision was less than an hour later,” Rebecca said.
Castillo spoke from the call. “We'll need the complete source file and custody records. Don't publish this.”
But Luca seemed not to hear her.
On the screen, Caroline walked away. Vanessa took out a phone and placed a call.
Daniel Ortiz froze the image and enlarged the timestamp.
Rebecca checked it against Victoria's diary.
It was the same minute Victoria had written one sentence beside Caroline's name:
RICHARD KNOWS SHE'S COMING.
May you like
I watched the frozen picture of the two women who had shared a mother but apparently very little else. Caroline's expression wasn't one of surprise at meeting a stranger. It was the expression of someone hearing a familiar betrayal confirmed. Behind her, ordinary drivers came and went, opening doors, carrying bags, living their afternoons without knowing they were passing through the last hours of somebody else's life. That detail haunted me most. Nothing in the garage looked dramatic. The light was flat and cold. The painted arrows pointed toward the exit. Caroline followed them, still holding her satchel, believing she had enough time to get where she needed to go.
END OF CHAPTER 5
