Chương 14
“They said it was supposed to scare him.”
“Who is they?”
She looked toward Caleb.
“He came to me through a man I owed money.”
“Name.”
“Victor Sanz.”
Gabriel’s expression sharpened.
“Do you know him?”
Dominic asked.
Gabriel nodded.
“Loan shark with organized-crime ties in Queens.”
Rebecca laughed weakly.
“That makes him sound almost professional.”
“Why did he connect you to Caleb?”
“Because I told him where Claire worked.”
I flinched.
Rebecca saw it.
“That was the first betrayal.”
I said nothing.
“I was drunk.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“I know.”
“Good.”
Her eyes filled.
“I needed money.”
“So you sold information about my job.”
“Yes.”
“And Lily.”
“No.”
“Rebecca.”
“I never meant for Lily to be involved.”
“But you told them where we lived.”
Her face crumpled.
“Yes.”
I looked away.
The anger felt too large to touch.
Dominic stood.
“What did Caleb actually want from the archive?”
Rebecca glanced at Martin.
Martin stared at the floor.
She answered.
“A file proving Michael Trent was ordered to carry that gun.”
“By whom?”
Rebecca looked at Caleb outside.
“He said Dominic’s father had covered for someone higher.”
Dominic’s face tightened.
“Who?”
“Your uncle.”
Dominic did not move.
“Salvatore?”
Rebecca nodded.
“Caleb said Salvatore had been running weapons through one of the trucking companies.”
Ethan looked up.
“Uncle Sal?”
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Go with Claire.”
Ethan hesitated.
“Dad.”
“Please.”
That word moved him.
He crossed to me.
I put my free arm around his shoulders.
Rebecca continued.
“Caleb wanted the file because Salvatore is still alive and still connected.”
Gabriel swore under his breath.
“And Martin?”
Martin finally spoke.
“I wanted proof.”
Dominic looked at him.
“You also helped poison my son.”
“I didn’t know Caleb changed the dose.”
“Rebecca did?”
Martin’s eyes closed.
“She found out.”
Rebecca nodded.
“When I went into cold storage, Caleb gave me the vial.”
My stomach turned.
“I thought it was diluted.”
“Then why put it on the cake at all?”
She looked at me.
“Because I was stupid.”
“No.”
I felt my voice rise.
“You were desperate, selfish, and willing to risk someone else’s child.”
Rebecca recoiled.
I did not stop.
“Do not hide inside stupid.”
Tears ran down her face.
“You are right.”
“I know.”
Lily whispered into my neck.
“Mommy mad.”
“Yes.”
Rebecca looked at her.
“I’m sorry, Lily.”
Lily did not answer.
Rebecca lowered her head.
“I opened the vial.”
She swallowed.
“It smelled wrong.”
Dominic looked sharply at her.
“You could smell it?”
“Barely.”
“What did you do?”
“I put almost all of it on a prep plate and smeared only a tiny amount onto the cake.”
Dr. Harris’s test had still shown concentration.
I felt sick imagining what the original dose had been.
Rebecca rubbed her tied wrists together.
“Then I heard Caleb tell Martin the boy might not make it past the first bite.”
Martin looked up.
“That’s when I knew.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“And neither of you stopped the party.”
Rebecca flinched.
“I tried.”
“You whispered.”
“I was scared.”
“My son was eight.”
“I know.”
“You had time.”
“I know.”
“You could have walked into that ballroom and screamed.”
Rebecca had no answer.
Dominic turned away from her.
For the first time, I understood that there would be no neat redemption for my sister.
Saving Lily had not erased what she had done.
Warning too late was still warning too late.
Fear explained some of it.
It forgave nothing.
Sirens became audible in the distance.
I looked at Dominic.
“You called the police?”
“Gabriel did after the children were taken.”
Gabriel nodded.
“State police and county detectives.”
Dominic looked toward Caleb.
“This stopped being containable a long time ago.”
Rebecca gave a humorless laugh.
“That may be the healthiest thing anyone in this family has said.”
Dominic glanced at her.
“You are not family.”
“No.”
She looked at me.
“I know.”
Paramedics arrived first.
Dr. Harris met them in the corridor.
Daniel was carried out on a stretcher, awake and complaining that nobody would let him sit up.
One paramedic examined Rebecca.
Another checked Ethan and Lily despite both children insisting they were fine.
Lily objected to the pulse oximeter until Ethan let her put one on his finger first.
“That’s not how it works,” the paramedic said.
“It works now,” Ethan replied.
Dominic almost smiled.
Then the investigators came.
They separated everyone.
Statements took hours.
The estate emptied slowly.
Guests left after being interviewed.
Phones rang constantly.
Employees cried in hallways, smoked behind the laundry building, or sat in stunned silence with paper cups of coffee.
By dawn, the ballroom still held the remains of Ethan’s birthday.
Collapsed balloons drifted near the ceiling.
Half the tablecloths had been removed.
One silver fork remained on the floor beneath his chair.
I found Dominic standing there alone.
He looked older than he had the night before.
“Ethan?”
“Asleep.”
“Lily too.”
I picked up the fork and set it on the table.
Dominic looked at the broken cake plate still inside an evidence bag.
“Rebecca will be charged.”
“I know.”
“So will Martin.”
“I know.”
“Caleb may be facing attempted murder.”
“I know.”
He looked at me.
“Are you going to help her?”
The question hurt because I had no clean answer.
“I’ll make sure she has an attorney.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know.”
I looked toward the windows.
Morning had begun turning the lawn gray.
“I spent years believing love meant rescue.”
Dominic said nothing.
“I don’t believe that anymore.”
“Good.”
I glanced at him.
“That sounded almost cruel.”
“Probably.”
“Rebecca may go to prison.”
“Yes.”
“And I still love her.”
“Yes.”
“I also want to hit her with a chair.”
“That seems reasonable.”
I laughed despite myself.
It came out tired and ugly.
Dominic looked toward the stairs.
“Ethan asked if Lily can come to breakfast.”
“She’ll ask for pancakes.”
“He can survive that.”
“Not if she helps cook.”
“That may be more dangerous than the cake.”
For a moment, neither of us said anything.
Then Dominic’s face changed.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Your employment here.”
My stomach tightened.
“If you’re firing me, please wait until I have coffee.”
“I’m not firing you.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know.”
“That is unusually honest.”
“My house failed you.”
I stared at him.
“Your house almost got your son killed.”
“Yes.”
“And my sister helped.”
“Yes.”
“So maybe we retire the idea of assigning all blame neatly.”
He looked at me for a long moment.
“That sounds difficult.”
“It usually is.”
Three weeks later, Rebecca entered a plea of not guilty while her attorney negotiated cooperation terms with prosecutors.
Martin agreed to provide records about Caleb, Victor Sanz, and the attempt to retrieve the old Moretti archive.
Dominic turned his father’s files over to investigators rather than burying them.
That decision caused arguments I never heard directly but saw afterward in the tightness around his mouth and the unfamiliar cars parked outside his office.
Salvatore Moretti was arrested two months later on charges connected to crimes far older than Ethan.
Nothing about it felt like justice to Martin.
Nothing brought Michael back.
But the truth finally belonged to more people than the men who had hidden it.
Rebecca called me from jail once a week.
Some calls lasted two minutes.
Some lasted fifteen.
I stopped fixing the pauses for her.
Lily asked why Aunt Becca could not visit.
I told her the truth in words small enough for three years.
“She did something dangerous, and grown-ups have consequences too.”
Lily frowned.
“Even aunties?”
“Especially aunties.”
Ethan’s ninth birthday came quietly.
No ballroom.
No hundred guests.
No string quartet.
He asked for pizza, six friends, and a cake from a bakery across town.
Dr. Harris inspected it anyway.
So did Dominic.
So did Lily.
She stood on a kitchen stool with her hands behind her back while Ethan cut the first slice.
“Okay?” he asked.
Lily leaned close.
She studied the frosting with enormous seriousness.
Then she looked at him.
“Okay.”
Ethan took a bite.
Dominic watched him chew.
I watched Dominic.
Only after Ethan swallowed did his shoulders loosen.
Lily reached for her own piece.
I caught her wrist.
“Wait for a plate.”
She sighed.
“You worry too much.”
May you like
Across the table, Dominic laughed.
This time, nobody in the room was afraid of the sound.
