Chapter 3 - The Dead Man’s Number
At eight the next morning, I sat across from Carmine in his private office.
I had never been allowed inside before.
Nobody on the household staff was.
The room overlooked the Hudson through enormous windows. Dark wood. Leather chairs. No family photographs except one.
Two young men stood beside an old fishing boat.
One was Carmine.
The other looked enough like him to be his brother.
Anthony.
Carmine placed a printed phone record on the desk.
“The number used to contact Mrs. Bell was Anthony’s private line.”
“How?”
“Someone kept it active.”
“Rocco?”
“We’re checking.”
I touched the bruise beneath my jaw.
“Why would anyone use your dead brother’s number to get me hired?”
“That’s what I intend to find out.”
A knock interrupted us.
A man entered carrying a laptop.
Carmine introduced him as Matteo, his security chief.
Matteo looked at me.
Then at Carmine.
“We found something.”
He turned the laptop around.
Security footage.
Eleven months earlier.
The estate service entrance.
There I was, walking inside for my first interview.
Thirty seconds later, a black sedan passed through the frame.
Matteo froze the image.
“Registered to Rocco.”
I stared.
“He was watching me?”
“Looks that way,” Matteo said.
Carmine leaned back.
“Check St. Vincent’s.”
“We already did.”
Matteo opened another photograph.
My heart stopped.
The blonde woman.
“That’s her.”
Carmine looked at me.
“The hospital woman?”
“Yes.”
“You’re certain?”
“Absolutely.”
Matteo placed a file on the desk.
“Her name is Diane Mercer.”
Carmine went rigid.
“You know her?” I asked.
“She worked for Anthony.”
“As what?”
“Accountant.”
Matteo corrected him.
“More than that.”
He opened the file.
“She was Anthony’s confidential bookkeeper.”
Carmine’s expression darkened.
“She disappeared after he died.”
My confusion turned into fear.
“What does any of this have to do with me?”
Matteo pulled out another document.
“Your mother’s name was Evelyn Carter?”
“Yes.”
He looked at Carmine.
Carmine nodded.
“Tell her.”
Matteo slid a photocopy toward me.
It was an old payroll record.
MORETTI IMPORTS.
Employee: Evelyn Carter.
I stopped breathing.
“My mother never worked for you.”
“She did,” Matteo said.
“No. She was an office administrator.”
“For a Moretti shell company.”
I stood.
The movement hurt my ribs.
“You knew?”
Carmine shook his head.
“I was running operations overseas then.”
I looked at the photograph of Anthony.
“What did she do?”
Matteo answered.
“Accounts payable.”
“That’s impossible.”
“She worked directly under Diane.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Carmine stood.
“Claire.”
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“My mother hated organized crime.”
“That may be why she left,” Matteo said.
I looked at him.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Nobody answered.
“What?”
Matteo glanced at Carmine.
Carmine finally spoke.
“Anthony was stealing from the family.”
I stared.
“Millions.”
“And my mother?”
“We think she discovered it.”
My legs felt weak.
Carmine pulled out a chair.
This time I sat without arguing.
Matteo continued.
“Three years ago, Anthony died in what everyone believed was a car accident.”
“Believed?”
“We now think the crash was arranged.”
“By whom?”
“We don’t know.”
Carmine looked toward the window.
“But Anthony left something behind.”
“What?”
“A ledger.”
“Where is it?”
“Missing.”
I understood before he said anything else.
“You think my mother had it.”
Carmine nodded.
“And somebody put me inside this house because they thought she gave it to me.”
“Yes.”
I laughed once.
It sounded broken.
“My mother gave me recipes and unpaid hospital bills.”
Matteo leaned forward.
“Did she give you anything before she died?”
“No.”
“Documents?”
“No.”
“Jewelry?”
I stopped.
Carmine noticed.
“What?”
“My necklace.”
My fingers went automatically to my chest.
The small gold pendant I had worn every day since my mother died.
Matteo stared.
“May I?”
I removed it.
He examined the pendant.
“Claire, this opens.”
“I know. There’s a picture inside.”
Matteo pressed the edge differently.
A second compartment clicked open.
Something tiny fell onto Carmine’s desk.
A microSD card.
Nobody spoke.
I stared at it.
“My mother put that there?”
Carmine reached toward it.
Then stopped.
He looked at me.
“It belongs to you.”
That mattered.
More than it should have.
I picked up the card.
“What happens if this is the ledger?”
Carmine’s answer was immediate.
“We find out who killed Anthony.”
“And why Rocco attacked me?”
“Yes.”
I looked at the card.
“Then open it.”
Matteo inserted it into an isolated laptop.
Files appeared.
Hundreds.
Transactions.
Names.
Dates.
Photographs.
Then one video.
My mother appeared on the screen.
Alive.
Healthy.
Terrified.
My hand flew to my mouth.
She looked directly into the camera.
“If Claire ever sees this, then I failed to keep her away from them.”
I started crying before I could stop myself.
Carmine didn’t move.
My mother continued.
“Anthony Moretti discovered that someone inside his family was trafficking money through charities and hospital foundations. He tried to expose it.”
Carmine stared at the screen.
“He wasn’t stealing,” he whispered.
My mother continued.
“He was collecting evidence.”
Then she said a name.
The entire room froze.
“Rocco Moretti.”
Carmine’s face went cold.
But my mother wasn’t finished.
“Rocco isn’t working alone.”
A photograph appeared.
Carmine stepped toward the screen.
“No.”
The second man standing beside Rocco was older.
Gray-haired.
Elegant.
A man I had seen eating dinner at Carmine’s table every Sunday.
Matteo whispered:
“Salvatore.”
Carmine’s uncle.
May you like
And the second-most powerful man in the Moretti family.
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