Chapter 4 - LOCKER 417
I followed him.
Stupid.
I knew it was stupid even while doing it.
But anger is sometimes just fear with forward momentum.
The man pushed through the cathedral doors.
I was ten feet behind him when Victor appeared from the sidewalk.
Not magically.
Not conveniently.
His car had been waiting because I told him where I was meeting Collins.
The man saw Victor.
Ran.
Victor’s driver moved to intercept him.
The stranger shoved the driver into a parked car and sprinted toward Fifth Avenue.
Victor started after him.
I grabbed his sleeve.
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
Immediately.
That mattered more than catching the man.
“Locker,” I said.
“We get the locker.”
Victor nodded.
Grand Central was packed.
Victor wanted security.
I allowed one person.
A woman named Lena Torres.
Former NYPD.
Now head of DeLuca protective services.
No men surrounding me.
No spectacle.
Locker 417 sat behind a row of storage doors in an old private-service section.
The brass key turned.
Inside:
A brown leather briefcase.
A cassette tape.
A flash drive.
And a recipe tin.
I froze.
The tin had belonged to my mother.
Blue flowers.
Dent in the corner.
I remembered it sitting above our refrigerator my entire childhood.
After she died, I assumed it had been lost.
My father had hidden the key inside something I already knew.
Anna knows where the key is, even if she doesn’t know she knows.
The tin was empty now except for one folded napkin.
Written in my father’s hand:
THE PASSWORD IS WHAT ANNA ALWAYS ORDERED ON SUNDAYS.
I laughed through tears.
Victor looked at me.
“What?”
“Chocolate pancakes.”
“Your father used breakfast as encryption.”
“He was dramatic.”
“So are most good accountants.”
I stared at him.
“That sentence made no sense.”
“It sounded better before I said it.”
For the first time, I smiled around him.
Then Lena inserted the flash drive into an isolated laptop.
Password:
CHOCOLATEPANCAKES.
Files opened.
Invoices.
Bank transfers.
Property deeds.
Photographs.
Audio.
My father had documented everything.
Caldwell shell companies.
City officials.
Construction kickbacks.
Then DeLuca names appeared.
My stomach tightened.
“Victor.”
“I see them.”
His father.
Carlo.
Transfers signed by him.
Millions.
Victor did not look away.
Then another name appeared.
Salvatore Greco.
The fourth man in the photograph.
Victor’s godfather.
His father’s most trusted adviser.
Still alive.
Still powerful.
“What did he do?”
We opened an audio file.
My father’s voice.
Then Carlo DeLuca.
MATEO:
Richard knows I copied the accounts.
CARLO:
Then you need to leave New York.
MATEO:
And you?
CARLO:
I can protect Anna and Rosa.
MATEO:
From Caldwell?
A pause.
Then Carlo said:
Not just Caldwell.
From Salvatore.
Victor went completely still.
My father continued:
You told me Salvatore was loyal.
CARLO:
I was wrong.
Then a third voice entered the recording.
Salvatore Greco.
Close.
Calm.
“You should have left when Richard offered you money, Mateo.”
The recording stopped.
Not naturally.
Like someone had grabbed the machine.
We opened the next file.
Nothing.
Then another.
A photograph of my father’s damaged car after the hit-and-run.
On the back of the scanned image, a police evidence note:
VEHICLE REGISTERED TO SALVATORE GRECO FOUND TWO BLOCKS FROM SCENE.
Victor stared.
“My father buried this.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“He knew.”
His voice became hollow.
“Maybe not before Mateo died.”
He closed his eyes.
“But afterward.”
May you like
Carlo DeLuca had tried to save my father.
Then helped hide evidence about the man who may have killed him.
