Chapter 3 - THE STORAGE UNIT IN QUEENS
The police should have handled it.
I said that first.
Leo agreed.
My father did too.
Nico didn't.
That alone told me how differently he understood danger.
He wanted to go directly to the storage unit.
Leo called him an idiot.
Dad called him something worse.
I almost enjoyed that.
Eventually, Detective Maria Reyes arrived.
She was a longtime friend of Aaron Wells, the detective who disappeared after taking Dad's statement.
Dad had contacted her privately weeks earlier.
She knew part of the investigation.
Not everything.
Nobody knew everything.
That was apparently the problem.
Reyes examined the key.
“Don't touch the unit.”
Nico argued over speakerphone.
“If Carlo is alive, he'll empty it.”
Reyes replied:
“Then we'll document that.”
“You don't understand these people.”
She smiled coldly.
“I've arrested three generations of these people.”
I liked her immediately.
Police obtained emergency authority to secure the storage facility while prosecutors worked on a warrant.
By morning, they opened Unit 417.
No guns.
No bodies.
No piles of cash.
Boxes.
Hundreds of files.
Old photographs.
Corporate records.
Cassette tapes.
A desktop computer from another century.
And one framed photograph.
Carlo Casaro.
Alive.
Taken recently.
Gray hair.
Older face.
Same scar Leo remembered beside his eyebrow.
He stood on a dock beside Anthony Marano.
Date embedded in the digital print:
Four months earlier.
Leo sat down when he saw it.
“My brother.”
Not relief.
Not fear.
Grief.
Twenty-five years of grief suddenly turned into betrayal.
Carlo had allowed Leo to bury him.
Allowed their mother to die believing one son was gone.
Allowed his own children—
“Children?” I asked.
Leo looked at me.
“Carlo had a daughter.”
“Where is she?”
“Died young.”
“How?”
“Overdose.”
Leo looked toward the photograph.
“Or that's what we were told.”
Nobody trusted death certificates anymore.
Detective Reyes found financial records connecting CP Heritage Holdings to Anthony.
And Chloe.
But Chloe's role was different than we assumed.
Her name appeared only recently.
She had been receiving payments.
Not controlling them.
Why?
Anthony was paying her.
For information about me.
I remembered every coffee.
Every sleepover.
Every time she hugged me while Dad was in surgery.
My stomach turned.
Then police found videos.
Surveillance.
Dad.
Mom.
Me.
Nico.
Leo.
Anthony had been watching all of us.
One video showed Chloe placing a tracking device beneath my car.
I had to leave the room.
Betrayal by a boyfriend hurt.
Betrayal by a best friend felt different.
Nico had wanted access to my body because of a bet.
Chloe had wanted access to my entire life.
But then Reyes found another recording.
Chloe sitting alone in a car.
Crying.
Speaking into her phone.
I can't keep doing this. Myra doesn't know anything.
Anthony's voice:
Then make her know something.
I won't hurt her.
Your father owes Carlo. You inherited the bill.
Chloe:
My father is dead.
Anthony:
Debts survive people.
That sentence sounded like the disease infecting every family in this story.
Inherited debts.
Inherited loyalty.
Inherited fear.
Leo watched silently.
Then said:
“No more.”
Everyone looked at him.
“My father taught us debts were sacred.”
He looked at me.
“I taught Nico the same.”
Nico stood near the wall.
“For what it's worth—”
“Nothing,” I said.
He stopped.
Good.
Leo continued.
“That's how men like Carlo keep controlling children after they're grown.”
He looked at his son.
“And apparently how I taught mine to believe women could become wagers.”
Nico looked embarrassed.
Leo did not rescue him from it.
That mattered.
Then Detective Reyes found the most important file.
A handwritten journal.
Carlo's.
Entries ended only six months earlier.
He described everything.
The fake death.
The financial empire.
Anthony.
Robert Parker.
And my father.
One entry:
Thomas remains the only man who can authenticate the original transfer records. Without him, Leo cannot prove which assets are legitimate.
Another:
The daughter may be useful. N is already close enough.
N.
Nico?
I looked at him.
His face changed.
“What?”
Reyes showed him.
Nico shook his head.
“That isn't me.”
“Who else?”
“I don't know.”
Leo stared at the entry.
Then:
“Natalia.”
“Who?”
“My niece.”
Carlo's daughter.
The supposedly dead daughter.
Natalia Casaro.
N.
Leo had been told she overdosed fifteen years earlier.
No body viewed.
Closed casket.
Of course.
Reyes searched records.
Natalia had another identity.
Natalie Cross.
Forty-one.
Corporate attorney.
Manhattan.
I recognized the name.
My stomach dropped.
“She handled Dad's hospital foundation paperwork.”
Everyone looked at me.
“What?” Leo asked.
“Natalie Cross.”
I remembered her perfectly.
Elegant.
Kind.
She had approached after Dad's surgery.
Said she represented an anonymous donor.
Helped arrange payment of bills.
Leo stared.
“I paid the hospital directly.”
“Yes.”
“But Natalie brought the documents?”
“Yes.”
His face hardened.
“Then she knew.”
“Knew what?”
“Exactly how much I paid.”
Detective Reyes understood first.
“Could she access reimbursement records?”
“Yes.”
Leo turned toward me.
“Myra, I paid your father's bills.”
“I know.”
“No. Listen.”
He grabbed the financial records.
“If Natalie processed them through the foundation, she may have reimbursed the hospital afterward.”
I frowned.
“So?”
“So my payment may have been returned.”
We checked.
Leo's company had paid $487,000.
Three weeks later, the hospital refunded $487,000 to a Casaro charitable account.
Then CP Heritage paid the hospital.
Meaning—
Leo had not actually paid Dad's bills.
Not finally.
Someone else had.
Carlo.
I felt sick.
“Why?”
Reyes answered.
“To create leverage.”
Carlo could claim he saved Dad.
Or manipulate records.
Or track him.
Leo looked furious.
“My debt was intercepted.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Can everyone stop calling medical care a debt?”
He looked at me.
“You're right.”
Again.
Small progress.
Then my father arrived.
He saw Natalie Cross's photograph.
And nearly collapsed.
“Dad?”
He pointed.
“No.”
“What?”
He knew her.
Not as Natalie.
As a child.
Carlo's daughter.
“Natalia.”
Dad sat.
“She was there the night Carlo supposedly died.”
“What?”
“Carlo came to my apartment three hours before the crash.”
“Why?”
“He wanted the original ledger.”
“And Natalia?”
“In the car.”
“How old?”
“Sixteen.”
Dad covered his face.
“She saw everything.”
“What everything?”
My father looked at Leo.
May you like
Then whispered:
“I shot Carlo.”
