Chapter 7 - The Man Who Stood at the Funeral
Marco Bellini arrived at Dominic's office shortly after midnight, still wearing the charcoal suit he'd worn to a meeting downtown. He found the house unusually quiet. Two guards he did not recognize stood near the staircase. Another watched the garden entrance. He noticed every change, because noticing had kept Dominic alive for fifteen years.
“New security?” he asked.
Dominic stood behind his desk. “Sit down.”
Marco glanced at Naomi, who occupied a chair beside the fireplace. “Am I under investigation?”
“Yes.”
The answer landed without ceremony. Marco remained standing.
Dominic played the warehouse recording. Richard Carlisle's voice filled the room, followed by Marco's. The recording ended. Nobody moved.
“Explain,” Dominic said.
Marco rubbed his face. “Sofia asked me to meet Carlisle. She wanted me to hear what he was planning.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because she asked me not to. She thought someone in your organization was feeding Carlisle information. She didn't know who.”
“You could have told me after she died.”
“I should have.”
Dominic had heard that sentence from people who wanted forgiveness without consequences. He said nothing.
Marco opened his jacket slowly and placed a battered envelope on the desk. “This is the copy of the ledger Caleb Parker gave me. I kept it because I didn't know who could be trusted with the original.”
Naomi did not touch it. “Where is the original?”
“Caleb hid it before he disappeared. He wouldn't tell me where.”
“Why did the security contractor alter the toll-camera log under your authorization?” she asked.
Marco's expression changed. “Because I ordered the footage preserved. The contractor replaced it instead. I found out two days later.”
“And you never reported that?”
“I reported it to a detective who was taking money from Carlisle. Within a week, the witness I identified had vanished.”
Dominic remembered Marco at Sofia's funeral, standing so rigidly beside the grave that he had looked like a man carved from stone. He had mistaken that silence for loyalty. Perhaps it had been guilt. Perhaps both.
“Do you expect me to believe you protected my daughter by hiding evidence?” Dominic asked.
“No.” Marco looked him directly in the eyes. “I expect you to hate me for what I failed to do.”
Naomi examined the envelope with gloved hands. The pages contained account numbers, initials, and dates corresponding to shipments. Several payments had gone to shell companies. One payment appeared beside the initials M.B.
“Marco Bellini?” Dominic asked.
Marco shook his head. “That's what I thought at first. I spent eighteen months trying to trace it.”
“What did you find?”
“A judge named Martin Baines.”
Naomi looked up sharply. Baines had signed the warrant that closed the investigation into Sofia's accident. He had also approved the seizure of Caleb Parker's notebook, which police later claimed was missing.
“Why bring this now?” she asked.
“Because somebody just tried to take the music box. Carlisle knows Sofia left a copy. If he knows that, the people protecting him will start cleaning house.”
Dominic's phone vibrated. Emily's name appeared on the screen. He answered and put the call on speaker.
“Caleb called me,” she said. “He says Marco has the ledger.”
Marco's shoulders sagged with relief. “He's alive.”
Emily heard him and fell silent.
“Emily,” Dominic said, “Marco is here with Naomi. We have a copy. We need Caleb to tell us where he hid the original.”
“Why should he trust any of you?”
It was a fair question. Dominic looked at Marco, then at the page marked M.B.
“He shouldn't,” Dominic answered. “Not until we earn it.”
The following morning, Dominic met Emily at Naomi's temporary office. It was a small brick building with scratched wooden desks and a coffee machine that made terrible coffee. Emily appreciated its ordinary ugliness. There were no marble floors and no servants waiting for instructions.
“Is Isabella okay?” she asked.
“She asked for you.”
Emily lowered her gaze. “I miss her.”
Dominic set a small paper bag on the table. Inside was the second shoe from her old pair, the one Vanessa hadn't broken. Emily stared at it.
“I kept it,” he explained. “I thought you might want the pair back, even if one is ruined.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't want to decide which parts of your life are worth keeping.”
Emily looked at him carefully. He seemed tired, his dark hair untidy, the tattoos at his wrists visible beneath his rolled sleeves. He was still the man who owned the estate, the shipping interests, and a reputation that frightened people. Yet he had begun asking questions instead of giving commands.
“Thank you,” she said. “But I don't want to go back to working for you.”
“I know.”
“I want to find my brother. After that, I want to choose my own future.”
“You should.”
The simplicity of his answer unsettled her more than an argument would have.
Naomi joined them with a new lead. Caleb's phone had connected briefly to a tower near an abandoned freight terminal outside Joliet. The terminal belonged to a company that had once leased space to Carlisle Freight.
“We can ask him to meet us somewhere safer,” Naomi said. “But we need a message he will believe came from you.”
Emily thought of the notebook Caleb had carried everywhere as a teenager. When she was twelve, he'd taught her a ridiculous code for leaving notes in their mother's kitchen.
“Tell him the blue truck still needs a new radio,” she said. “He'll know.”
By afternoon, a response arrived: THE RADIO WORKS. CHECK THE SPARE TIRE.
Emily felt a smile break through her fear. Caleb had used the same reply when he wanted her to look under the old pickup's seat for birthday presents.
Naomi arranged a meeting at a public hospital parking garage, with independent agents positioned nearby. Dominic offered to stay away. Emily accepted.
But that evening, as she prepared to leave, an envelope appeared beneath her cousin's door. There was no return address. Inside lay a photograph of Dominic and Sofia on their wedding day.
On the back, someone had written: ASK HIM WHAT HAPPENED AT THE RIVER WAREHOUSE THREE DAYS BEFORE SHE DIED.
May you like
Emily studied Dominic's smiling face in the photograph. She wanted to believe his grief. She wanted to believe his effort to help her was real.
Then she realized the question she had avoided since meeting him: What if Dominic had known about the operation long before Sofia discovered it?
