Chapter 5
Vincent did not lower the gun completely.
Mrs. Dalca did not seem offended.
Rainwater ran from her coat onto the marble floor.
I stared at the envelope in her hand.
My name.
Eleanor Romano’s handwriting.
A woman officially dead for twenty-nine years had written to me three months ago.
“Open it,” Vincent said.
Mrs. Dalca looked at me.
“It is yours.”
I took it.
The paper was old-fashioned, cream-colored, sealed with clear tape rather than wax. My bandaged fingers were clumsy, so Vincent tore the edge for me.
Inside was one sheet.
Grace,
If Anna kept her promise, you know nothing about me.
That is how she wanted it.
If you are reading this, the people who buried the truth have started moving again. I need you to enter Romano House because Vincent will not believe a stranger, and he must not receive the black ledger from anyone connected to the old circle.
Find it first. Hide it. Let him discover it in public, where no one can quietly remove him before he sees it.
Do not trust the person who seems most helpful.
Do not come looking for me.
E.R.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
Vincent took the page.
His eyes moved slowly over the handwriting.
“That explains the dinner.”
I looked at Mrs. Dalca.
“You moved the ledger beneath the fruit pedestal.”
“Yes.”
“You wanted me to expose it.”
“I wanted Vincent to see it with witnesses.”
“You could have handed it to him.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Eleanor specifically warned against that.”
Vincent looked up from the letter.
“She said not to trust the person who brings the black ledger.”
Mrs. Dalca nodded.
“So you used Grace.”
The housekeeper’s face tightened.
“I used the only opening I had.”
“You put her in danger.”
“I did not know Celeste had involved Adrian.”
“You knew Celeste was involved.”
“Yes.”
“And still brought Grace here.”
“I believed the danger was financial.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Financial danger cut my arms open.”
Mrs. Dalca looked at the bandages.
“I am sorry.”
“That doesn’t answer why my mother agreed to any of this.”
“She didn’t.”
I frowned.
“You said she asked you.”
“She asked me years ago that if Eleanor ever contacted me, and if you were grown, I should help you learn the truth only if Eleanor believed the danger had returned.”
I stared.
“That is not the same thing.”
“No.”
“Then stop making it sound like my mother sent me here.”
Mrs. Dalca lowered her eyes.
“You are right.”
Vincent folded Eleanor’s letter.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said she is alive.”
“I said the letter arrived three months ago.”
“Postmark?”
“Albany.”
“Return address?”
“None.”
“Who delivered it?”
“Postal service.”
“Did you verify the handwriting?”
“I compared it to old household records.”
“That proves someone copied it.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you so certain?”
Mrs. Dalca looked at him.
“Because there was something else.”
She reached into her coat again.
This time she pulled out a small velvet pouch.
Inside was a child’s bracelet.
Blue beads.
Silver clasp.
Vincent stopped breathing.
“My mother gave me that.”
“You remember?”
“I wore it until I was eight.”
He took it.
On the clasp was a tiny V.
“When I was sent to boarding school, Dad told me it had been lost.”
Mrs. Dalca nodded.
“Eleanor had it.”
Vincent looked at the letter again.
“So she had access to something only my mother should have.”
“Unless someone stole it from her.”
“Yes.”
Nothing was certain.
That seemed to be the Romano family motto.
Anthony sat down against Carlo’s tomb.
“I need to tell you the rest.”
Vincent looked at him.
“The rest of which lie?”
Anthony accepted that too.
“In 1997, after Anna gave me the copies, I went to Carlo.”
“You told him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He hit me.”
Matteo raised his eyebrows.
Anthony almost smiled.
“He thought I had betrayed Eleanor by stopping Anna.”
“Had you?”
“Yes.”
The simple answer quieted Vincent.
Anthony continued.
“I told him someone threatened the child. Carlo said that was exactly why we had to go public. Then Victor Bellini arrived.”
“At the house?”
“At Carlo’s office.”
“Why?”
“He had photographs.”
My stomach tightened.
“Of Grace?”
Anthony shook his head.
“Of Vincent.”
Vincent’s face went still.
Anthony looked at him.
“Walking to school. Playing soccer. Sleeping in the back seat of a car.”
Vincent’s voice was flat.
“He threatened me.”
“He threatened both children. He told Carlo that Eleanor was alive and would remain alive if Romano Shipping stayed quiet.”
“And my father agreed.”
“Yes.”
Vincent turned toward Carlo’s tomb.
His grief was changing.
Not disappearing.
Complicating.
That can be crueler.
It is easier to hate a monster than a frightened parent.
“What happened after?”
“Carlo cleaned house quietly. He shut down shell companies where he could. Paid people off. Moved you constantly. Sent you overseas for school. He convinced himself he could dismantle the network without exposing it.”
“Did he?”
“Partly.”
“Who ran it?”
Anthony’s eyes shifted to the red ledger.
“I never knew.”
Vincent opened to the pages of names again.
“What did the symbols mean?”
Anthony looked at the marks.
“I eventually learned the circle meant paid. The cross meant compromised.”
“And the black square?”
“I don’t know.”
Matteo said, “Dead?”
No one answered.
I turned pages.
Several names with black squares had dates beside them.
I recognized one.
A former judge who had died in a boating accident.
Another.
A customs officer killed in a robbery.
My skin went cold.
“Maybe.”
Vincent looked at Mrs. Dalca.
“Your ring.”
She looked at her right hand.
The silver lion.
“Carlo gave it to me.”
“Why?”
“I worked for him thirty years.”
“Executives got those.”
“And three senior household employees.”
“Who?”
“His driver. His estate manager. Me.”
“Where are the others?”
“Dead.”
“Convenient.”
Mrs. Dalca removed the ring.
Inside were initials.
C.R.
Vincent inspected it.
Adrian had said someone from the company wore one.
That did not clear her.
It only widened the list.
My phone buzzed.
Everyone jumped.
I pulled it from my pocket.
Unknown number.
One message.
YOU FOUND YOUR MOTHER’S BOX.
My heart stopped.
Vincent saw my face.
“What?”
I showed him.
Another message arrived.
NOW ASK WHY SHE DIED.
I stared at the screen.
My mother had died of cancer.
I had held her hand in a hospice room.
I remembered the smell of antiseptic.
The morphine pump.
Her thin face.
There was no mystery there.
Or I had never thought there was.
Vincent took the phone.
“Do not reply.”
A third message.
ANNA WASN’T SICK UNTIL SHE OPENED THE 2007 ENVELOPE.
I stopped breathing.
“That’s not possible.”
“When was she diagnosed?” Vincent asked.
“2008.”
“What kind?”
“Liver cancer.”
Anthony frowned.
“How old?”
“Forty-three.”
Mrs. Dalca’s expression changed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing.”
She looked at me.
“Your mother never drank.”
“No.”
“Any family history?”
“No.”
Vincent said carefully, “Cancer happens without either.”
“I know.”
I hated that my voice broke.
“I’m not turning my mother’s illness into another conspiracy.”
No one argued.
Then the phone rang.
Unknown number.
Vincent answered on speaker.
“Who is this?”
Silence.
Then a woman’s voice.
Old.
Weak.
“Vincent?”
He went completely still.
Mrs. Dalca gripped the edge of the tomb.
Anthony whispered, “No.”
The woman said, “You sound like Carlo.”
Vincent’s lips parted.
“Who are you?”
“You know.”
“No. I don’t.”
A soft breath.
“Your seventh birthday. You hid under the kitchen table because your father hired a clown.”
Vincent’s face changed.
No one else seemed to understand.
He did.
“You bit him,” the woman said.
Matteo turned away, stunned.
Vincent whispered, “Mom?”
The word barely existed.
The voice on the phone cracked.
“Yes.”
He sat down.
For the first time all night, Vincent Romano looked like a child.
“Where are you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re listening.”
“Who?”
“The person who killed Carlo.”
Every face turned toward his father’s tomb.
Vincent gripped the phone.
“My father died of a stroke.”
“No.”
A long static hiss.
“He was murdered.”
Anthony whispered, “Eleanor—”
The woman stopped.
“Anthony is there?”
Vincent looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Tell him I forgive him.”
Anthony covered his face.
The woman continued.
“But do not trust him with the red ledger.”
Anthony looked up sharply.
Vincent’s voice hardened.
“Why?”
“He made one more deal after Anna ran.”
Anthony stood.
“That’s not—”
“Quiet,” Vincent snapped.
On the phone, Eleanor’s breathing became rough.
“Grace.”
I felt cold.
“I’m here.”
“I’m sorry about your mother.”
“What was in the 2007 envelope?”
Silence.
“Eleanor?”
“A powder.”
My stomach dropped.
“What powder?”
“I don’t know.”
“You sent it?”
“No.”
“Victor did.”
“What did it do?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did it cause her cancer?”
“I don’t know.”
I closed my eyes.
At least she did not pretend certainty.
The phone crackled.
“Listen to me. Celeste is dangerous, but she is not the person you are looking for.”
Vincent stood.
“Who is?”
Eleanor began to answer.
A loud bang sounded through the phone.
Then a gasp.
“Mom?”
Another bang.
The call broke into static.
“Mom!”
We heard movement.
A door.
A man’s voice in the distance.
Then Eleanor whispered one final sentence.
“He knows you opened Carlo’s grave.”
The line went dead.
Nobody moved.
Vincent immediately called back.
No connection.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Matteo said, “Trace it.”
Vincent was already dialing security.
Then we heard a new sound.
Not from the phone.
From inside Carlo’s tomb.
A vibration.
Faint.
Electronic.
All of us stared at the marble sarcophagus.
Vincent stepped closer.
The sound came again.
Buzz.
Buzz.
Something inside his father’s grave was ringing.
Matteo whispered, “You have got to be kidding me.”
Vincent put his hand against the marble lid.
Anthony grabbed his arm.
“Don’t.”
Vincent looked at him.
“Why?”
Anthony’s face was terrified.
“Because Carlo made me promise nobody would ever open it.”
Vincent stared at him.
Then at the tomb.
The buzzing stopped.
A second later my phone received another message.
OPEN IT.
Vincent’s eyes met mine.
He placed both hands beneath the marble lip.
“Matteo.”
His cousin stepped beside him.
Together they pushed.
The lid moved with a low stone grind.
Anthony backed away.
Mrs. Dalca crossed herself.
The opening widened.
Vincent raised his flashlight.
Inside was a coffin.
Black.
Polished.
He opened the lid.
For one second no one breathed.
Carlo Romano was there.
Gray suit.
White hair.
Hands folded.
Dead six months.
Vincent’s face tightened.
Then the phone inside the coffin buzzed.
It rested beneath Carlo’s left hand.
Vincent reached in and took it.
One unread message glowed on the screen.
A video file.
He pressed play.
Carlo appeared.
Alive.
Sitting in his study.
The date in the corner was two days before his death.
“If Vincent is watching this,” Carlo said, “then I ran out of time.”
Vincent’s hand shook.
Carlo leaned toward the camera.
“My death will be made to look natural.”
Anthony closed his eyes.
Carlo continued.
“The person responsible has been inside this family for thirty years.”
A pause.
May you like
“And Vincent has trusted him his entire life.”
The video cut to black.
