Chapter 4 - SOPHIA'S LAST NIGHT
Vincent didn’t tell stories like most people.
There was no dramatic beginning.
No excuses.
Just facts.
“Sophia was dating Marcus Reed.”
The name meant nothing to me.
But the way Vincent said it made my skin crawl.
“Who was he?”
“Son of a businessman I trusted.”
“You didn’t like him?”
“I liked him enough.”
Vincent stared into his coffee.
“That was the problem.”
Marcus had money, education, perfect manners, and the ability to become charming whenever powerful people were watching.
Sophia began withdrawing from friends.
Changing clothes to cover marks.
Canceling dinners.
Vincent noticed.
But every time he asked, Sophia smiled.
“She knew what you would do,” I said.
“Yes.”
“She was protecting you from yourself.”
His eyes lifted.
That answer hurt him.
“I think so.”
The night Sophia died, she had called Vincent twice.
He missed the first call.
On the second, she left no message.
Three hours later, her car was found near the East River.
The official conclusion was that she had driven after drinking.
Vincent never believed it.
“What happened to Marcus?”
“He disappeared.”
“And Carlo?”
“He helped me search for him.”
I felt something cold settle in my stomach.
“Caleb worked for Carlo then.”
“Yes.”
“Did Caleb know Sophia?”
“I don’t know.”
I stood and walked toward the counter.
My head hurt.
Not from the concussion.
From memory.
“There’s something I never told police about Caleb.”
Vincent waited.
“Sometimes he woke up screaming.”
“What did he say?”
“Usually nothing I understood.”
I tried to remember.
Then one sentence returned so clearly I could hear Caleb’s voice.
“She wasn’t supposed to take it.”
Vincent stood.
“What?”
“He said it more than once.”
“Take what?”
“I don’t know.”
The first year of our marriage, I had assumed it was about a former girlfriend.
Later, I stopped asking questions because questions made Caleb angry.
Vincent’s phone rang.
His investigator had found an old employment file.
Caleb Ward had been Carlo DeLuca’s personal accountant.
But there was an attached security report from eight years earlier.
One paragraph had been redacted.
Vincent called someone and demanded the original.
Twenty minutes later, the file arrived.
He read it.
Then handed it to me.
The night Sophia Castellano died, Caleb Ward had signed into a DeLuca-owned parking garage at 11:42 P.M.
Sophia’s car entered the same garage eleven minutes later.
May you like
Neither appearance had ever been mentioned in the police investigation.
And according to the security log, Sophia never drove her car back out.
