Chương 9
“I need to speak to Grace,” he said.
“She may not wake for some time,” Morales replied.
“Then we find my mother first.”
His phone rang.
Victoria’s name appeared on the screen.
Everyone in the room went silent.
Morales reached for it.
Dante pulled back. “She’ll know.”
“She may already assume police are listening.”
“No. She assumes I’m afraid of that.”
Price said, “You are.”
“Yes.”
The phone continued ringing.
Morales activated recording equipment and nodded once.
Dante answered.
“Mother.”
Victoria’s voice came through clear and calm. “How is the child?”
He looked at Morales.
“Alive.”
“And Grace?”
“Alive.”
A pause.
“I am glad,” Victoria said.
“No, you’re not.”
“Do not become childish.”
“You put her in a cage.”
“I preserved her life after she attempted to destroy yours.”
“You forged my signature.”
“I used authority you gave me.”
“To run businesses.”
“To protect the family those businesses support.”
“Where are you?”
“Somewhere your father once felt safe.”
Dante’s mind moved through hunting cabins, apartments, church properties, clubs, and old warehouses.
Victoria continued. “The police will show you documents. They will tell Grace that you signed them. She will believe what pain has prepared her to believe.”
“She told me you said I ordered it.”
“I told her the truth she needed in order to stop fighting.”
Dante gripped the phone.
“Two hundred and fourteen days.”
“She was fed. She had medical care. The child survived.”
“You planned to bury her beneath the greenhouse.”
Silence.
It lasted less than a second, but Morales wrote something on her pad.
Victoria said, “Elias has always possessed an imagination when frightened.”
“The concrete arrived yesterday.”
“For foundation repairs.”
“What did you plan to do with Grace after the birth?”
“My plans depended on her condition.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It is the answer adults give when outcomes are uncertain.”
Dante closed his eyes.
“How did you take her?”
“I did not call to discuss history.”
“You drugged her?”
“I called to offer you a future.”
Price shook his head slightly, warning him not to follow her pace.
Victoria said, “Withdraw your statement. Tell the police you discovered Grace during a private medical crisis and misunderstood the circumstances. Your signature validates the care arrangement. Dr. Vale will confirm it. The household will confirm it. I will return, and we will resolve this without strangers dismantling what belongs to your son.”
Dante looked through the glass wall toward the neonatal unit.
“His name is Bennett.”
Victoria’s breathing changed.
“What?”
“He won’t carry Rossi.”
“You are upset.”
“I am done.”
“No, Dante. You are thirty-three years old, standing beneath hospital lights while the police write down your weaknesses. You have never been less done with me.”
She knew him well enough to make cruelty sound like diagnosis.
“What future are you offering?” he asked.
“You take Grace and the child somewhere quiet. The family provides security. You leave management to me. In time, Grace will understand that public accusations would expose your own crimes and place her son’s father in prison.”
“And if I refuse?”
“The documents go to the district attorney before sunrise. The financial records she stole will appear in your office. Dr. Vale will surrender and testify that you hired him. Your men will be told you traded them for immunity. Some will panic. Panic is dangerous around hospitals.”
Morales’s jaw tightened.
Victoria continued, almost gently. “I am trying to keep you alive.”
“You said that about Grace.”
“And she is alive.”
Dante stared at his wife’s ring on his gloved finger.
“Where are the original financial records?”
“I have copies.”
“So do I.”
The lie came easily.
Victoria went silent.
Dante saw Morales’s eyebrows lift.
He continued. “Grace didn’t take the only set.”
“You never made copies.”
“Father taught me not to trust one ledger.”
“No. Your father taught you to trust me.”
“He was wrong.”
Another pause.
When Victoria spoke again, the warmth was gone.
“Meet me at Saint Orsola’s in one hour. Come alone. Bring Elias’s ledger if the police have not taken it. I will give you the originals, Dr. Vale, and a statement that clears Grace of every psychiatric claim.”
“In exchange for what?”
“Your silence. Your cooperation. And the child’s name.”
The call ended.
Morales immediately ordered units toward Saint Orsola’s, an abandoned Catholic school the Rossi Foundation had purchased ten years earlier. It stood beside a closed church near the Passaic River, one of several properties connected to Dante’s father.
Price stared at him.
“You do not have copies of the records.”
“No.”
“Did your mother believe you?”
“She believed she might have missed something.”
“That is not the same.”
“It’s enough to move her.”
Morales put on her coat. “You’re not going.”
“She asked for me.”
“We can use a negotiator.”
“She’ll leave the moment she hears language she didn’t teach me.”
“This isn’t a family argument.”
“It has been one for seven months.”
Price raised a hand.
“Before anyone places my client in an abandoned school with a suspected kidnapper, I would like to state the legal term for this plan.”
No one answered.
“It is stupid.”
Morales’s phone buzzed.
She read the message and looked at Dante.
“Grace is awake.”
He was out of the room before she finished.
Grace lay in a private recovery room under police guard. Machines clicked softly around her. Her skin looked almost translucent against the pillow. A clear line carried medication into her arm.
Dante stopped at the threshold.
She watched him without expression.
“May I come in?”
After several seconds, she nodded.
He pulled a chair near the bed but did not sit too close.
“The baby is alive,” he said. “He’s breathing with help. The doctor is optimistic.”
Grace’s eyes filled, though no tears fell.
“Can I see him?”
“Soon. They’re preparing a video link if you can’t be moved.”
“Does he have ten fingers?”
“Yes.”
“You counted?”
“I counted twice.”
“Hair?”
“Dark.”
“Of course.”
Her mouth trembled.
May you like
“What did you name him?”
“Baby Boy Bennett.”
