Chapter 7 - The Road Through the Rain
The search for Bell led us to a motel off Interstate 95. He had checked in under his real name, which was either carelessness or an invitation. I suspected the latter when I noticed a second car parked behind the building with its engine running.
Dante asked me to stay in the vehicle. I told him I would, but I would not stay uninformed. We called the local police and waited for officers to arrive before approaching the room.
Bell was inside with a bruised cheek and a suitcase full of receipts. He claimed Giselle had threatened his grandchildren if he refused to sign the false trust papers. I wanted to believe him. Then I saw the expensive watch on his wrist and remembered Teresa's broken body.
“Did you know what would happen to her?” I asked.
He stared at the carpet. “I knew they wanted her quiet.”
It was the answer I had feared. He had chosen silence while someone else paid for it. Bell agreed to surrender the original payroll instructions and give a sworn statement, but only if his grandchildren were moved to safety. Dante arranged protection through the authorities rather than his own armed men.
Outside, the second car pulled away. The officers followed. For several minutes we stood beneath the motel awning listening to the rain drum against the pavement.
“You don't have to come to every meeting,” Dante said to me.
“I know. But I want to decide that for myself.”
He nodded. There was no argument, no attempt to buy my obedience with a better position. The difference unsettled me more than a romantic speech would have.
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That night, the prosecutor assigned to the case called. Bell's documents linked the Delacroix company to the Boston ambush, but the evidence also implicated someone inside Dante's inner circle. The final payment had been authorized using Dante's own security credentials.
Dante listened in silence. Then he said, “Someone has been wearing my name like a mask.”
