Chapter 2 - MARGARET HAD BEEN KEEPING A SECOND SET OF RECORDS
Claire wanted to take Owen home.
I said no.
She glared at me.
“You don’t get to decide where my child sleeps.”
“No.”
I rolled my chair closer.
“But someone photographed you outside your apartment yesterday.”
Her face changed.
“You checked?”
“Tomas did.”
Security footage from her building showed a dark sedan parked outside three nights in a row.
Same plate each time.
Registered to a shell company.
Owner:
Northlake Property Services.
I knew the name.
Luca had used Northlake for warehouse acquisitions.
Claire sat down.
“So I can’t go home.”
“Not tonight.”
“I’m not staying here forever.”
“I didn’t ask forever.”
She looked toward Owen, playing with a wooden spoon on the kitchen floor as though nothing in the world had changed.
Then:
“I hate this house.”
“Most people do.”
She looked at me.
“Not because it’s big.”
I knew.
Because everyone inside was afraid.
Hours later, Tomas found Margaret.
Alive.
She had walked into a police station in Evanston.
No injuries.
No kidnapping.
She had abandoned her car intentionally.
Why?
“She says someone was following her.”
“Who?”
“She won’t say over phone.”
Margaret returned after dark under escort.
The moment she saw me holding the crash report, she closed her eyes.
“You found it.”
“You put it there.”
“Yes.”
Claire looked at her.
“You could have just handed it to him.”
Margaret laughed weakly.
“No. I couldn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Adrian has spent twenty-two years surrounded by men who would kill to keep him from asking the right question.”
I stared.
“Who tampered with my father’s car?”
“I don’t know.”
Not good enough.
“You suppressed the report.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Your father told me to.”
The room went silent.
“My father was dead.”
“Not yet.”
Margaret sat.
Two days before the crash, Dominic Moretti came to her office.
He had received a warning.
Someone had accessed the family garage.
A mechanic loyal to him noticed marks around the steering assembly.
Dominic ordered a full inspection.
Then changed his mind.
Why?
Because he wanted to catch whoever was doing it.
“He drove the car anyway?”
“No.”
Margaret shook her head.
“The car was repaired.”
My chest tightened.
“Then how did it fail?”
“Someone got access again.”
So the first attempt failed.
The second succeeded.
“Who knew?”
Dominic.
Margaret.
Head mechanic:
Victor Raines.
And Dominic’s younger brother—
Matteo Moretti.
My uncle.
Dead now.
Heart attack eight years ago.
Then Margaret said:
“Your father suspected Matteo.”
My hands went cold.
“My uncle?”
“They were fighting over control.”
The Moretti businesses were smaller then.
Transport.
Security.
Two clubs.
Dominic was expanding legally.
Matteo preferred older methods.
Violence.
Cash.
Protection.
My father wanted him out.
Motive.
But suspicion is not proof.
Then:
“What happened after the crash?”
Margaret went to the impound lot.
Victor Raines inspected.
Found evidence of deliberate tampering.
Prepared report.
Before police received it, Matteo arrived with two attorneys.
He ordered everything sealed.
Claimed family privacy.
Margaret objected.
Matteo said:
“Adrian is sixteen. He already thinks he caused the crash. Let him keep believing ice did it.”
My stomach twisted.
For twenty-two years, I blamed myself.
Because I reached for the radio.
Because Dad looked away.
Because the car moved.
They knew.
They knew I had not caused it.
And let me carry that anyway.
Claire’s voice was soft.
“That’s cruel.”
Margaret started crying.
“I told myself it protected him.”
I looked at her.
“No.”
She nodded.
“No.”
Then she handed Tomas a key.
Safety-deposit box.
Bank downtown.
Inside, she said, were copies of everything she saved.
Crash report.
Photographs.
Dad’s notes.
And one cassette recording.
Dominic dictating concerns before death.
Why wait twenty-two years?
Margaret had tried once.
When I turned twenty-five.
Then Luca’s father—my uncle Matteo—found out.
Threatened her daughter.
So Margaret stopped.
After Matteo died, she thought danger ended.
It didn’t.
Someone began entering her apartment last month.
Nothing stolen.
Just drawers moved.
A message.
WE KNOW WHAT YOU KEPT.
That was why she finally planted report.
She believed direct handoff would expose her.
Ironically, it did anyway.
Then we opened bank box.
Photographs showed steering component cut and reassembled.
Not weather.
The cassette.
Dad’s voice.
Older than I remembered.
Calm.
“If anything happens to me, this is not about Adrian.”
My throat closed.
Then:
“Do not let my son believe he caused it.”
I turned away.
Claire lowered her eyes.
Dad continued:
“Matteo is moving money without authorization. Luca’s father knows I found the accounts.”
Luca was a child then.
His father Matteo.
Then:
“But Matteo isn’t acting alone.”
Who?
Dad named:
“Charles Bennett.”
Claire looked up sharply.
Bennett.
Her surname.
Coincidence?
Maybe.
I stared at her.
“Do you know a Charles Bennett?”
Her face went pale.
“My father.”
The room stopped.
Claire’s father had died when she was twelve.
At least that was what she had always been told.
Dominic’s recording continued:
“Charles Bennett is handling the books.”
I looked at Claire.
Her struggling single mother story had just collided with mine.
“What did your father do?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked terrified.
“He was an accountant.”
Of course.
Then Dad’s voice:
“If Charles disappears, find his daughter.”
Claire stopped breathing.
May you like
Dominic Moretti had mentioned her—
when she was five years old.
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