Chapter 2 - THE NAME ON THE PHOTOGRAPH
I thought Michael would deny it.
Instead, he stared at the signature so long that Zach noticed the silence.
“Dad?”
Michael folded the photograph and put it inside his jacket.
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
Zach frowned.
“I worry.”
“I know.”
We arrived at a brownstone hidden behind iron gates in Brooklyn Heights.
I had expected chandeliers, armed men, and something out of a gangster movie.
Instead, there were toy dinosaurs on the entry table.
A half-finished Lego castle covered the living-room rug.
And a six-year-old's red sneaker sitting upside down beneath a grand piano.
Zach ran inside.
“I'll show Aurora my room!”
“Doctor first,” Michael said.
Zach stopped.
His smile vanished.
“No.”
That was when I remembered why he had run away.
Michael crouched.
“We made an agreement.”
“You said no needles.”
“I said I'd ask.”
Zach looked at me desperately.
“Fiancées can veto doctors.”
“They absolutely cannot,” Michael said.
I crouched beside Zach.
“Maybe your dad's scary, but doctors are scarier?”
“Yes.”
“Then I'll stay with you.”
He considered this.
“Promise?”
I held out my pinky.
“Promise.”
Michael watched us.
Something complicated passed across his face.
An hour later, a pediatric cardiologist examined Zach upstairs.
The word cardiologist made my stomach tighten.
Michael noticed.
“Congenital arrhythmia,” he said quietly. “Usually manageable. He hates testing.”
The fear behind his voice didn't match the feared man from the restaurant.
For the first time, I saw a father.
Not Michael Moretti.
Just Michael.
After Zach fell asleep, Michael brought me into his study.
The photograph waited on his desk.
“Whose signature is it?”
I asked.
“My uncle.”
“Why would your uncle want me?”
“He died five years ago.”
My skin prickled.
“Then somebody forged it.”
“Maybe.”
He opened a drawer and removed an old ledger.
“My uncle Carlo used that signature on private business.”
“Meaning illegal business?”
Michael looked at me.
“Meaning business I inherited and spent years dismantling.”
I wasn't sure whether I believed him.
He continued.
“Your father's name was Daniel Bell?”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“Accountant. Mostly small businesses.”
Michael's expression changed.
“What?”
“Was he ever employed by Moretti Shipping?”
“No.”
Then I remembered.
My father had worked nights during my last year of high school.
He never told me where.
He called it temporary consulting.
Michael opened a laptop.
A scanned payroll record appeared.
Daniel Bell.
For eighteen months, my father had been listed as an internal auditor for Moretti Maritime Holdings.
I stared at the screen.
“He never told me.”
Michael pulled up another document.
Three days before my father's supposed car accident, he had filed a confidential internal report.
Twenty-seven million dollars had vanished from Moretti accounts.
The report named one suspected thief.
Carlo Moretti.
Michael's dead uncle.
My throat went dry.
“My dad discovered your uncle was stealing?”
“Looks that way.”
“And then he died.”
“Yes.”
I stood abruptly.
“You think Carlo killed him?”
“I think your father's death deserves another look.”
Before I could answer, the study door opened.
Zach stood there clutching his stuffed shark.
“I couldn't sleep.”
I wiped my face before he could see.
He walked straight to me.
“You're crying.”
“No.”
“You're bad at lying.”
Michael's mouth twitched.
Zach crawled onto the sofa beside me.
Then he said something that made both adults go completely still.
“I've seen her before.”
Michael turned.
“What?”
Zach pointed at me.
“Aurora.”
My heartbeat stumbled.
“Where?”
He hugged the shark.
“In Grandpa Carlo's secret room.”
Michael's face lost all color.
“Zach, Carlo died before you were born.”
“I know.”
May you like
He pointed toward the hallway.
“That's why it was weird that he had her picture.”
