Chapter 5 - The Man Who Waited at Saint Agnes
By eleven, I had told Luca about the text despite the warning. I refused to repeat the mistake Daniel had made by carrying danger alone. Luca read both messages carefully.
“Do you recognize the number?”
“No.”
“Then we treat it as a possible threat,” he said. “Not proof of anything.”
Emma was sitting at the table, twisting the ribbon on her graduation flowers.
“I want to come.”
“No,” I said.
“Mom—”
“I missed your ceremony because I was afraid of losing a job. I'm not risking you because someone sent a text.”
She looked away. “I don't want you going alone.”
“Neither do I,” Luca said.
We compromised. Emma stayed with Ruth and a neighbor we trusted. I met Luca and an independent attorney named Maya Torres outside Saint Agnes, the shuttered neighborhood clinic where Daniel once volunteered.
Maya had practical shoes, a gray coat, and a way of looking at people that made lies seem exhausting. She explained that she represented me and Emma, not Luca. She had already saved copies of the text and voicemail.
“Don't confront anyone on your own,” she said. “If this is a witness, we listen. If it's a trap, we leave.”
At noon, a man stepped out from beneath the church awning across the street. He was thin and elderly, with a red scarf wrapped around his neck despite the mild weather.
“Mrs. Hayes?”
“Yes.”
His eyes moved to Luca, and he almost turned away.
“Who are you?” Maya asked.
“Thomas Keene. I drove supply vans for the old clinic.”
He held up a worn envelope. His hands shook.
“I knew Daniel,” he told me. “He was a good man.”
I wanted to ask whether my husband had suffered. Whether somebody had watched his car in the rain. Whether the last words he heard had been kind.
Instead I asked, “Why are you contacting me now?”
Thomas looked at Luca. “Because your fiancée is using the Hayes name, and because the money started moving again.”
“Again?” Luca asked.
Thomas nodded. He had worked as a driver during the last year of Lucia's medical program. He said Daniel discovered that shipment logs were altered after deliveries. Supplies billed as pediatric equipment never reached the vans. When Daniel confronted management, Thomas was told to keep driving and stop asking questions.
“Did you see who changed the paperwork?” Maya asked.
“No. I only know whose office collected it.”
“Whose?”
“Salvatore Moretti.”
Luca's jaw tightened. But he didn't interrupt.
Thomas gave Maya the envelope. It contained copies of dispatch schedules and a signed statement describing a truck parked near the intersection the evening Daniel died.
“I was driving behind him,” Thomas said. “Not close enough to see everything. I saw that truck leave before the police arrived.”
“Did you tell the investigators?” I asked.
“Yes. They took my statement.”
“Then why wasn't it in the report?”
“I don't know.”
There it was again. The terrible difference between what someone saw and what anyone could prove.
Thomas rubbed his forehead. “I stayed quiet after that. I was scared. My wife was sick. A man told me I'd lose my pension if I kept asking questions.”
“Who?”
“I never learned his name.”
Luca stepped closer. Thomas flinched.
“I'm not here to threaten you,” Luca said. “Tell Maya everything. She can take it to the authorities.”
Thomas seemed to shrink with relief.
As we were leaving, he caught my sleeve.
“Caroline, there is something you should know about the fellowship.”
I froze.
“Go on.”
“Daniel and Lucia wanted to create one for the children of clinic employees. They set aside money before she died.”
“Then Emma's award—”
“May have been built on a real idea,” Thomas said. “But not on that lie about you.”
I glanced at Luca. His face was grim.
A black SUV rolled slowly past the church. It kept moving, but I noticed Thomas press himself against the wall.
“Do you know that car?” Maya asked.
“No,” he whispered. “I just don't like being watched.”
She guided him inside the church office and called a detective she knew through prior financial-fraud cases. Luca arranged for Thomas to have a ride home, after asking whether he wanted one.
Back at our apartment, Emma had been baking cupcakes. She claimed she needed something ordinary to do. The kitchen smelled like vanilla.
“Did you find out?” she asked.
“Some things,” I said. “Not enough.”
She nodded bravely.
Then the news came on Ruth's television.
A photograph of Emma in her graduation gown filled the screen. Beside it was Vanessa, smiling at the award ceremony.
The headline read: LOCAL FOUNDATION HONORS ORPHANED TEEN WITH NURSING SCHOLARSHIP.
Emma dropped the frosting bag.
Beneath the headline, a reporter quoted the Bellini Foundation's statement: The recipient's family history has been confirmed through documents supplied by her legal representative.
“My legal representative?” I repeated.
Maya, who had returned with us, opened the statement on her phone.
Then she showed me the attached record.
It was a death certificate.
May you like
My name was on it.
And according to the document, Caroline Hayes had died six years ago.
