Chapter 4 - The Night Daniel Died
Marco did not answer immediately.
That frightened me more than the phone call.
Luca stood across from him in the lake house study, rain beating against the windows behind his shoulders. The cheap phone lay on the desk between them like a live grenade.
“What happened the night Daniel died?” Luca asked again.
Marco looked at me.
Then at the men in the hallway.
“Clear the room.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“You don’t give orders in my house.”
“No. But what I’m about to say should not travel through six different mouths before sunrise.”
Luca stared at him for a long second.
Then he nodded.
The guards withdrew.
I moved toward the door too.
“Claire stays,” Luca said.
Marco’s eyes flicked to me.
“Why?”
“Because Sarah put her in this before any of us knew it existed.”
I wished that felt like trust.
Mostly it felt like a target.
Marco sat down.
“Daniel called me the night of the fire.”
Luca remained standing.
“You told me that.”
“I told you he called because he was drunk.”
“You said he was angry about money.”
“He was.”
Marco rubbed both hands over his face.
“But not his money.”
Luca’s voice flattened.
“Start at the beginning.”
Marco looked toward the dark window.
“Daniel had been moving cash through companies I didn’t recognize. I thought he was skimming from you.”
Luca gave a bitter laugh.
“You thought my brother was stealing from me and didn’t tell me?”
“I was trying to confirm it.”
“That sounds familiar.”
His eyes moved briefly to me.
I accepted the hit.
Marco continued.
“Three days before the fire, Daniel asked me to meet him at a bar in Cicero. He was scared. I had never seen him scared before.”
“What did he say?”
“That he had done something stupid for someone he thought could help the family.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“Bellini?”
“I didn’t know that name then.”
Luca pointed toward Sarah’s laptop.
“She did.”
“Yes.”
The word came out heavy.
“Daniel said he had moved money and signed papers. He said the arrangement started as protection for construction permits and union problems. Then the people involved began using his companies to hide money that had nothing to do with your businesses.”
Luca’s eyes sharpened.
“What kind of money?”
“He didn’t know. Or he claimed he didn’t.”
“Drugs?”
Marco shook his head.
“Weapons?”
“I don’t know.”
“Politics?”
“Maybe.”
Marco leaned forward.
“He said he wanted out. They told him people who walk away become examples.”
The rain sounded louder.
“And the night of the fire?” I asked.
Marco looked at me.
“He called at 11:18. Said he was at the Fulton warehouse and had proof. He wanted me to meet him alone.”
Luca’s mouth tightened.
“You went.”
“Yes.”
“You told me you arrived after the fire department.”
“I lied.”
The room changed.
Luca stepped forward.
I saw Marco brace himself.
“How much earlier?”
“Twenty minutes.”
Luca’s voice dropped.
“You saw him alive.”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt him physically.
He turned away.
Marco kept talking, as if stopping would make it impossible to begin again.
“Daniel had a duffel bag full of ledgers and drives. He said Sarah had started asking questions and he was terrified she would go to you before he could clean it up.”
Luca spun back.
“Sarah was already dead.”
Marco went silent.
I felt the air leave my lungs.
“Wait,” I said. “Sarah died almost a year before Daniel.”
Marco nodded.
Luca stared at him.
“Then why was he talking about her asking questions?”
“Because he admitted she had confronted him before her accident.”
The word accident sounded obscene.
“What did he tell her?” Luca asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You were there. What did he say to you?”
“He said, ‘I should have listened to Sarah.’”
Luca’s hands closed into fists.
Marco’s voice roughened.
“He told me the people behind the accounts had made a threat against Sophie. Sarah backed off for a few days. Then she started collecting evidence privately.”
I thought of the memory card.
“Daniel knew?”
“Eventually.”
“Did he know about the letter she gave me?”
“No.”
Luca looked like he wanted to put his fist through the wall.
“Why didn’t he come to me?”
“Because he believed he could fix it.”
“That family disease.”
Marco’s laugh was humorless.
“He was your brother.”
“What happened in the warehouse?”
Marco stared at the desk.
“I told him to give me the bag. He refused. Said there was one person he needed to meet first.”
“Who?”
“He never said.”
“Vanessa?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I don’t.”
Marco stood.
“Then the power went out.”
I felt cold.
“The entire warehouse?”
“Yes. Emergency lights kicked in. Daniel looked toward the loading bay and said, ‘They’re early.’”
Luca went completely still.
“Who was early?”
“I never found out.”
Marco swallowed.
“A bottle came through the office window. It shattered. Fire spread across the floor.”
“Gasoline?”
“Accelerant. Later report said electrical fault because I made sure the report said electrical fault.”
Luca stared at him.
“You changed the fire report.”
“I paid someone to.”
“Why?”
“Because Daniel screamed at me to get the bag out.”
Marco’s voice cracked.
“He said if they knew the evidence survived, they would kill you and Sophie.”
The silence was unbearable.
“You left him,” Luca said.
Marco’s eyes went wet.
“I tried to pull him with me.”
“You left him.”
“The metal shelving collapsed between us. The fire was everywhere. He threw the bag through the office window.”
Luca took another step.
“What did you do with it?”
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“In a storage unit under a false name.”
For a second I thought Luca might hit him.
Instead he whispered, “You had Daniel’s evidence for three years.”
“Yes.”
“And Sarah’s for four.”
“I didn’t know about Sarah’s.”
“But you knew my brother was murdered.”
Marco’s face tightened.
“I knew someone set the fire. I did not know who. Daniel told me the people involved could reach police, banks, politicians, contractors. I thought keeping you ignorant kept Sophie alive.”
Luca laughed once.
It was the most dangerous sound in the room.
“Everybody keeps protecting me.”
Marco did not defend himself.
Luca turned toward the fireplace.
“Where is the storage unit?”
“Gone.”
He spun around.
“What?”
“I checked it six months ago. Empty.”
Luca stared.
“Six months?”
Marco nodded.
“That’s when Vanessa moved into your house.”
My stomach dropped.
“Did you tell anyone about the unit?”
“No.”
“Then how was it found?” I asked.
Marco’s face changed.
“I used Daniel’s security credentials to register the access account.”
Luca looked toward the prepaid phone.
“The same credentials used tonight.”
Marco nodded slowly.
“Someone must have gotten access to Daniel’s old records.”
“Or someone had them from the beginning,” I said.
They both looked at me.
I thought about the gray-haired man.
“The man who came to my apartment knew Sarah had spent time with me. That wasn’t public. He knew enough to search for a letter before the funeral was cold.”
Luca’s expression hardened.
“He was close.”
“Close to Sarah,” I said, “or close to someone watching her.”
Marco went back to the laptop.
“Let’s identify him.”
He opened the restaurant photo and ran an enhancement program. The image sharpened slightly. The gray-haired man’s face remained partly turned, but a distinctive ring showed on his right hand.
Heavy gold.
Black stone.
Luca leaned closer.
“I’ve seen that ring.”
“Where?” Marco asked.
Luca didn’t answer.
He took out his phone and searched photographs.
After a minute he opened an image from a charity gala.
Vanessa stood beside an older man with silver hair.
The man wore the same ring.
My pulse jumped.
“That’s him.”
Luca stared at the caption under the photograph.
Victor Bellini.
Vanessa’s father.
Marco exhaled.
“Well.”
Luca’s thumb hovered over the screen.
Victor Bellini was not a stranger. His company had built half a dozen luxury developments across Chicago. His foundation sponsored hospitals. His photograph appeared at political dinners.
And four years earlier, he had stood outside my apartment and threatened me.
“I’m sure,” I said.
Luca looked at me.
“Completely?”
“Yes.”
His expression became unreadable.
Marco pointed to the old restaurant photograph.
“Daniel met Vanessa and Victor before Sarah died.”
“And both told me they barely knew him,” Luca said.
I stared at the screen.
“Then Sarah was right.”
“Yes.”
Luca looked toward the brass key lying on the desk.
“But we still don’t know what was in the deposit box.”
Marco picked it up.
“The bank might have logs.”
“At one in the morning?”
“I know a person.”
“Of course you do.”
Marco made a call.
I walked toward the window.
The lake was almost invisible beyond the rain.
My reflection looked like a stranger. Bruised cheek. Split lip. Uniform collar. A woman who had carried a dead person’s warning for four years and somehow ended up exactly where that warning had pointed.
Luca came to stand behind me.
“You should have told me.”
I watched his reflection.
“I know.”
“I could have protected you.”
“Sarah didn’t know that.”
His jaw tightened.
“I would never hurt her.”
“I didn’t say you would.”
“She was afraid to tell me.”
“She was afraid of what would happen after she told you.”
That landed differently.
He looked toward the photograph of Daniel.
“She knew me too well.”
“What does that mean?”
“That I would have gone after whoever threatened Sophie.”
“Yes.”
“And she wanted proof first.”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“You sound like her.”
I shook my head.
“No. Sarah was brave.”
“You came here.”
“Four years late.”
“You came.”
Before I could answer, Marco called us back.
“I got the bank records.”
He set the phone on speaker.
A sleepy male voice explained that the deposit box under Sarah’s maiden name had been inactive for years.
Then opened yesterday.
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“By whom?”
“The authorized co-holder.”
Luca frowned.
“Sarah had a co-holder?”
“Yes.”
“Name.”
Keys clicked in the background.
Then the banker read it.
“Elena Rossi.”
Luca and Marco looked at each other.
I knew the name.
Everyone who worked in the Moretti house knew it.
Elena Rossi had been Sophie’s nanny from birth until Sarah died.
Then she vanished without saying goodbye.
Luca’s face went pale.
“She told me she was moving to Florida.”
The banker continued.
“The box was opened at 10:14 yesterday morning. Contents removed. Account closed.”
“Do you have an address for Ms. Rossi?”
“Current address is in Evanston.”
Marco was already writing it down.
Luca grabbed his coat.
“We go now.”
I looked at the clock.
“It’s almost two.”
“If Elena has what Sarah left, I’m not waiting.”
Marco ended the call.
Then his phone buzzed with a new message.
He looked at the screen.
“Luca.”
“What?”
Marco turned the phone toward us.
A traffic camera still showed a sedan parked across from Elena Rossi’s address.
The driver was visible through the windshield.
Gray hair.
Black stone ring.
Victor Bellini.
The timestamp was twelve minutes old.
Luca’s face went cold.
“Call Elena.”
Marco did.
No answer.
Again.
No answer.
On the third attempt, someone finally picked up.
No one spoke.
Then we heard a woman breathing.
“Ms. Rossi?” I said.
The breathing stopped.
A whisper came through.
“Claire?”
My blood turned cold.
She knew my name.
Before I could answer, Elena whispered:
“Do not come here.”
May you like
A crash sounded in the background.
Then the line went dead.
