Chapter 7 - THE DEBT THAT WAS NEVER HERS
Piper had spent five years believing she was terrible with money.
She'd worked overtime.
Skipped meals.
Sold her father's old furniture.
And watched the debt grow anyway.
Now Dominic Rizzo was telling her the loan might never have belonged to her.
“Why would your uncle do that?” she whispered.
Dominic stared at the documents.
“That's what we're going to find out.”
Garrett stood beside the desk.
“The account was created shortly after her father's death. It includes forged authorization forms.”
Piper felt sick.
“My signature?”
Garrett nodded.
She stared at the screen.
The handwriting looked almost perfect.
But the letter P had a loop she never used.
“That's not mine.”
Dominic's voice became dangerously quiet.
“Who processed it?”
Garrett checked the file.
“A woman named Evelyn Marsh.”
Piper frowned.
“I know that name.”
Dominic looked up.
“From where?”
“She worked at the hospital where my father was treated.”
The room went silent.
Piper searched her memory.
Evelyn had been a hospital administrator.
Always smiling.
Always offering to help.
After her father's death, she'd called Piper several times about paperwork.
Then the collection notices began.
Dominic leaned back.
“Your father worked for a trucking company, didn't he?”
Piper nodded.
“Before he got sick.”
“What company?”
“Lakefront Freight.”
Garrett went pale.
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
Garrett looked at Piper.
“Lakefront Freight was one of Vincent's shell companies.”
Piper stared.
“My dad never mentioned that.”
Dominic opened another file.
“What's your father's name?”
“Thomas Lane.”
Dominic typed.
A photograph appeared.
Piper gasped.
Her father stood beside a younger Vincent Rizzo.
They were shaking hands.
The photograph was dated eight years earlier.
Piper covered her mouth.
“Why would my dad know him?”
Dominic examined the file.
“Your father was listed as a logistics supervisor.”
“That doesn't make sense. He drove trucks.”
“Maybe he did more than that.”
Piper shook her head.
“No. My dad was a good man.”
Dominic looked at her.
“I didn't say he wasn't.”
Tears filled her eyes.
She hated how quickly the world was changing.
Her father had been the one person she trusted completely.
He taught her to ride a bicycle.
Made pancakes shaped like animals.
Stayed up helping her with school projects even after working twelve-hour shifts.
He wasn't a criminal.
He couldn't be.
Dominic reached for her hand.
“We're not judging him. We're finding out what happened.”
She nodded.
But her chest hurt.
Later that evening, Piper searched through a box of her father's belongings.
Old photographs.
Birthday cards.
A broken wristwatch.
And a small leather notebook.
She opened it.
Most pages contained ordinary things.
Truck routes.
Fuel receipts.
Grocery lists.
Then she found a folded paper tucked into the back cover.
A handwritten message.
If anything happens to me, find Isabella Rizzo.
Piper stopped breathing.
She read the sentence again.
Then she noticed another line beneath it.
She knows what Vincent did to Dominic's mother.
Piper stared at the page.
Dominic had told her his mother died when he was seventeen.
A heart attack.
A tragedy nobody in the family discussed.
Now Piper wondered whether another death had been hidden behind an official explanation.
She carried the notebook downstairs.
Dominic was sitting beside the fireplace.
When he saw her expression, he immediately straightened.
“What happened?”
Piper handed him the note.
He read it.
His face drained of color.
Then he whispered, “My mother didn't die of a heart attack.”
Piper's heart stopped.
May you like
Dominic looked up.
“She was poisoned.”
