Chapter 4 - THE RIGHT-HAND MAN
Nolan Price had always smelled of expensive soap and peppermint.
He wore gray suits without a wrinkle, knew the birthday of every major investor, and sent cheerful messages when a staff member's paycheck was delayed. For almost a year, I'd believed his apologies because he looked so much like a man who had never needed to steal anything.
Now investigators were looking for him in connection with Daniel Ortiz's death.
I stared at my phone after Maria's voicemail ended. Enzo was still on the line.
"Nolan sits at your right hand," I said. "Daniel warned his wife about him."
Enzo didn't deny it. "He has for seven years."
"And you trusted him."
"I did."
"More than you trusted the people whose wages he handled."
His breath caught. "Yes."
It was such an unguarded answer that I almost didn't know what to do with it. I was used to powerful men defending themselves until every complaint became someone else's misunderstanding. Enzo sounded like a man staring at a door he'd left unlocked for years.
"Tell Agent Keene," I said. "Don't tell your people to go after Nolan. Tell the investigators."
"I already called Ward."
"Good."
Then I ended the call. My hands had begun shaking, and I was too tired to let anyone hear it.
At the temporary apartment provided through victim services, Mom was sitting on the sofa with her medicine organizer open on the coffee table. Eli had taped a sheet of notebook paper beside the door: NEW ADDRESS, NEW RULES. Underneath he'd drawn a crooked picture of a fortress. It was supposed to make us laugh.
"They haven't found the man who sent the picture?" Mom asked.
"Not yet."
She patted the cushion beside her. "Come sit down before you fall down."
I eased onto the sofa and let her examine the clean dressing across my upper back. The wound still ached when I moved, but the doctor said it was healing. Mom touched my cheek, and for a moment I was twelve again, frightened by a thunderstorm and convinced she could protect me from everything.
"You have spent your whole life worrying about me," she said. "Who worries about you?"
I opened my mouth and found no answer.
"You are allowed to be afraid," she continued. "You're allowed to want another job. You're allowed to leave those people to their lawyers and their money."
"Daniel didn't get to leave."
She lowered her hand. "And I will not lose you because you feel you have to finish what he started."
I leaned against her shoulder, careful of my stitches. We sat that way until Eli brought us tea in mismatched mugs borrowed from the apartment kitchen.
The next afternoon, Keene called with news about Beacon Storage. Investigators had obtained a warrant based on financial records, Daniel's photograph, and information from a former storage employee. Inside the rented unit they'd found boxes of vendor invoices, a damaged hard drive, and Daniel's old car, stripped of its license plates.
"His car?" I repeated. "But the insurance records said it was destroyed."
"Those records appear to have been falsified," she said. "We're treating the vehicle as potential evidence."
I looked at my mother across the room and turned toward the window so she wouldn't see my face.
"Was there a blue folder?"
"There was a blue document case, empty except for a child's drawing. It may have been left there deliberately."
"A drawing?"
"A lighthouse. With nineteen written beneath it."
Lucia. Daniel's daughter. I pictured her small hand moving a crayon across paper while her father stood nearby pretending he wasn't frightened. He had wanted his wife and daughter to be safe. His last clue had been something a child could recognize.
"Can Maria see it?" I asked.
"When we finish processing it, we'll discuss that with her."
Another call came that evening, this time from Miriam Hale. She asked whether I would accept a meeting with Enzo at a neutral location, with anyone I chose present. He wanted to give me copies of the employee account statements she'd obtained from his finance office.
"Why me?" I asked.
"Because you identified the wage irregularities, and because he believes you should know how his business handled staff concerns. But you don't owe him a meeting."
I chose to go. Keene knew where I would be, and Eli insisted on coming as my guest. We met in a private room at a downtown law office. The windows overlooked a gray river carrying scraps of autumn leaves past dark buildings.
Enzo stood when I entered. No one bowed. No guard announced us. He wore a navy sweater instead of a suit and looked strangely out of place among the ordinary chairs.
"Ruby," he said. "Eli. Thank you for coming."
Eli shook his hand without smiling. "My sister needs to be able to go home without someone watching our door."
"She does," Enzo said. "I know my money doesn't make that happen."
I sat before I changed my mind.
Miriam opened a binder showing payroll records. Eleven household employees had unexplained delays. Three had been listed as voluntarily resigning despite continuing to work. Four families had not received promised death or disability assistance after workplace incidents.
The figures were terrible because they were ordinary: a thousand dollars here, four thousand there, enough money to keep lights on or pay for prescriptions, moved away from people who had no savings to spare.
"Nolan had direct control of those accounts," Miriam said. "His authorizations require review, but we are also investigating who approved his oversight structure."
"You did," I told Enzo.
He met my eyes. "I signed it."
"You can't ask me to feel sorry for you because a man you hired fooled you."
"I'm not asking."
"Then why are you here?"
He looked toward the river. "Because I wanted you to hear me say it plainly. Daniel may have died trying to tell me something I made too easy to ignore. You were hurt because the people I allowed into my home believed the staff were disposable. Those are consequences of my choices even if I never ordered them."
Miriam remained silent. Eli stared down at his hands.
Finally I asked the question that had been troubling me since the dinner.
"Why were you marrying Serena?"
Enzo gave a humorless smile. "Because I thought joining our families would end a long dispute over the harbor contracts. I told myself it was a responsible decision. I overlooked the way she spoke to people when she thought I couldn't hear."
"She called us furniture," I said.
He flinched. "I know."
"No," I answered. "Now you know."
When I rose to leave, he didn't try to stop me. He offered Eli a business card with Miriam's number, explaining that communication about records and compensation should go through counsel. I accepted the card but not the handshake he held out. He lowered his hand without offense.
For the first time, I felt I had been allowed to say something unpleasant to a powerful man and leave the room afterward. It shouldn't have felt like an accomplishment. It did.
Outside the law office, rain had turned the sidewalk black. Eli held an umbrella over us as we waited for our car. He was staring at a television in a bakery window across the street. A local news channel was showing a photograph of Serena in her beautiful engagement gown. Beneath it ran a headline about a disputed audio recording and an ongoing federal inquiry.
"They're calling you a disgruntled employee," Eli said.
My stomach sank. The anchor read from a statement issued by Serena's lawyer claiming the household staff had been manipulated by Enzo's rivals.
"It's beginning," I murmured.
A moment later, my phone rang. Unknown number again. I almost ignored it, but the caller left a voicemail.
A man's voice, young and breathless, spoke through traffic noise.
"My name is Victor Kane. I made that recording. I know what happened to Daniel. I can't go to the police station because somebody is watching my daughter."
There was a pause, then a muffled sound like a car horn.
"Tell Agent Keene about the original audio files. Bell Tower didn't just edit Enzo's voice. Someone recorded a meeting at Pier Nineteen. And there was a second car."
The voice dropped to a whisper.
"Nolan wasn't alone."
The message ended.
Eli was watching my face. "Who was it?"
I played the voicemail once, then forwarded it to Keene. She called within minutes, instructing me not to arrange a meeting or respond on my own. Investigators would attempt to locate Victor and his daughter safely.
I felt relief, until she added one more thing.
"Ruby, the storage-unit hard drive contains footage from the pier. Our analysts recovered part of it. The second car belongs to the Caruso fleet."
"Whose car?"
She hesitated. "We're confirming the driver."
But I knew what vehicle Enzo used for his private meetings. A black sedan with a distinctive silver crest near the rear window.
"Was he there?" I asked.
"Ruby, please let us establish what the footage shows before drawing conclusions."
May you like
I looked through the bakery window at Serena's photograph on the television, then at my own reflection in the rain-dark glass.
"If Enzo was at that pier the night Daniel died," I said, "everything he's told me may be another lie."
