Chapter 2 - THE DEAD MAN WHO STILL OWNED EVERYTHING
My father answered on the seventeenth ring.
“Myra?”
I nearly collapsed.
“Dad.”
“What's wrong?”
“Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Mom?”
“Sleeping.”
I looked at Leo.
“Lock the doors.”
Silence.
“Myra?”
“Do it.”
Something in my voice convinced him.
I heard movement.
Then Dad said:
“Who told you?”
My stomach dropped.
“Told me what?”
Silence.
“Dad.”
Another pause.
“Are you with Leo?”
That answered enough.
“Yes.”
My father exhaled.
“I told him never to involve you.”
“He didn't. Nico did.”
“What happened?”
“I know about Anthony.”
Silence.
“I know about the gun. The ledger. Thomas Bianchi. Carlo.”
Dad stopped breathing for what felt like several seconds.
Then:
“Come home.”
Leo shook his head.
I ignored him.
“I'm coming.”
“Myra, come alone.”
Leo heard.
“No.”
Dad heard him too.
“Leo?”
“Yes.”
“You stay away from my house.”
Leo's expression changed.
“Thomas—”
“I mean it.”
Dad disconnected.
I stared at Leo.
“What was that?”
“He doesn't trust me.”
“Should he?”
Leo accepted the question.
“Not completely.”
At least one honest answer.
Nico stood near the doorway.
“I'll drive you.”
“No.”
“Myra.”
“You covered up my father's shooting.”
“I can explain.”
“You already did.”
I put on my heels.
My feet suddenly felt ridiculous in silver stilettos while my entire life collapsed.
Leo handed me a car key.
“Take the Escalade.”
“I have my own car.”
“Anthony knows it.”
I hesitated.
Good point.
“Nobody follows me inside.”
Leo nodded.
Nico protested.
“Dad.”
“You heard her.”
That may have been the first time all night a Casaro man understood no.
Forty minutes later, I entered my parents' house.
Dad was waiting at the kitchen table.
Mom stood beside him wearing her robe.
Neither looked surprised.
That hurt.
“How long?”
Mom's eyes filled.
“Myra—”
“How long have you both been lying to me?”
Dad gestured toward the chair.
“No.”
I remained standing.
“Tonight everyone keeps asking me to sit down before destroying my life.”
Mom almost smiled.
Dad didn't.
“You know about Carlo?”
“Yes.”
“He isn't alive.”
“Leo thinks he is.”
“Leo has spent twenty years seeing ghosts.”
“What do you think?”
Dad looked at his hands.
“I think someone wants us to believe Carlo is alive.”
That was different.
He opened a cabinet.
Removed a coffee tin.
Inside was a key.
He handed it to me.
“What does this open?”
“Safe-deposit box.”
“Ledger?”
“No.”
“What?”
“Insurance.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Can anyone in this family use normal words?”
Dad looked wounded.
Fair.
“You're right.”
He took a breath.
“In 1999, I discovered Carlo was stealing from Casaro Shipping.”
That matched Leo.
“I also discovered he was paying two police officers, a union official, and an accountant to move money.”
“Anthony?”
“Anthony was seventeen.”
“So no.”
“No.”
Dad continued.
“Carlo learned I had copied records. He ordered someone to scare me.”
“By shooting through your apartment?”
“Yes.”
Mom reached for his hand.
Dad continued.
“I planned to disappear. Before I did, I learned Carlo intended to kill Leo because Leo wanted the company cleaned up.”
“So you warned Leo.”
“Yes.”
“And saved his life.”
“Maybe.”
“Leo says definitely.”
Dad shrugged.
“He likes debts.”
That sounded exactly like something Dad would say.
“What happened to Carlo?”
“His car went over an embankment.”
“Body?”
“Burned.”
Convenient.
“Did you see it?”
“No.”
“Then how can you know?”
“I can't.”
There it was.
The honest version.
“What happened eight months ago?”
Dad looked toward Mom.
She nodded.
“An accountant named Peter Larkin contacted me.”
“From Casaro Shipping?”
“Former employee. He was dying from lung cancer. He said Carlo's original laundering structure never stopped.”
“CP Heritage?”
Dad looked surprised.
“You know that name?”
“Yes.”
His face tightened.
“That company shouldn't exist anymore.”
“It does.”
I told him about Chloe.
He closed his eyes.
“I should've known.”
“What?”
“Chloe's father.”
My heart stopped.
“Her father?”
“Robert Parker worked for Carlo.”
I sat down.
Finally.
“Chloe told me her father sold insurance.”
“Afterward.”
Another inherited lie.
Dad explained Robert Parker had been one of Carlo's couriers.
When Carlo supposedly died, Robert vanished from organized crime.
Raised Chloe normally.
Or tried.
Anthony Marano's father had also worked for Carlo.
Two children inheriting unfinished business.
“What did Larkin give you?”
“A password.”
“To what?”
“An encrypted archive.”
“Where?”
“That's the problem.”
Dad smiled grimly.
“The archive doesn't exist online anymore.”
“Then?”
“Larkin said Carlo created physical backups.”
“Ledger?”
“Partly.”
“Where?”
“He didn't know.”
“Then why were you meeting Leo?”
“To warn him that someone had reactivated Carlo's companies.”
“And Nico followed you.”
“Yes.”
“Anthony followed Nico?”
Dad nodded.
“He confronted me in the alley.”
“What did he want?”
“The password.”
“Did you give it?”
“No.”
“He shot you?”
Dad looked at me.
“It wasn't an accident.”
My throat tightened.
“He aimed at you?”
“Yes.”
Nico had lied again.
“Why didn't you tell police?”
“I did.”
“What?”
“I identified Anthony from photographs after surgery.”
I stared.
“Then why wasn't he arrested?”
Dad's face hardened.
“Because the detective handling my statement disappeared.”
“What?”
“Detective Aaron Wells.”
Mom whispered:
“Three days later.”
“Missing?”
“Yes.”
I looked at Dad.
“And you still let me date Nico?”
That question landed.
He looked ashamed.
“I didn't know Nico was connected to the shooting until later.”
“When?”
“Six weeks ago.”
“Why didn't you tell me then?”
“I planned to.”
“You planned?”
“Myra—”
“No. Everyone plans to tell me the truth after it stops being useful to lie.”
Mom started crying.
I hated seeing it.
I was still angry.
Both could coexist.
Then Dad said:
“I was afraid.”
That silenced me.
My father rarely admitted fear.
“Of Nico?”
“No.”
“Leo?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
“Carlo.”
“You said you don't know he's alive.”
“I don't.”
Dad stood.
“But six weeks ago, I received this.”
He retrieved an envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
Me.
Leaving Nico's apartment.
Written across it:
THOMAS, YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED DEAD TOO.
My skin prickled.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
Dad said:
“Carlo used that phrase twenty-seven years ago.”
“What phrase?”
“Stayed dead.”
He explained.
After Dad entered protection, Carlo sent a message through Robert Parker.
Tell Thomas to stay dead.
I stared at the photograph.
“Who knows that?”
“Very few people.”
“Leo?”
“Yes.”
“So Leo could have sent it.”
Dad nodded.
“Exactly.”
That was why he didn't trust him.
My phone rang.
Nico.
I declined.
Again.
Declined.
Third time.
Then a voicemail arrived.
I played it on speaker.
“Myra, Anthony contacted me. Chloe is with him. He says he'll trade her for the key Thomas has.”
Dad went pale.
The safe-deposit key.
“How does Anthony know?”
Mom whispered.
Then Dad said something worse.
“He doesn't.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“Nobody outside this house knows about that key.”
The room went silent.
Nico had just revealed information he could not possibly know.
Unless—
I called him.
He answered instantly.
“Myra.”
“How do you know about the key?”
Silence.
“Nico?”
“I can explain.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Myra—”
“How?”
Another silence.
Then:
“Because I put it in Thomas's coffee tin.”
My father stood so fast his chair fell backward.
“What?”
Nico continued.
“Six weeks ago.”
Dad grabbed my phone.
“You were in my house?”
“I needed somewhere Anthony couldn't access.”
“What does the key actually open?”
Nico's answer changed everything again.
“Not a safe-deposit box.”
Dad stared.
Nico continued.
“Thomas, someone switched your key.”
Dad looked at the brass key in his hand.
His face drained.
“What does this one open?”
Nico whispered:
“A storage unit in Queens.”
“What's inside?”
“I don't know.”
“Whose unit?”
Nico hesitated.
May you like
Then said:
“Carlo Casaro's.”
