Chương 9
“Sal says he did.”
“And you never knew?”
“No.”
“Would you have helped him?”
The honest answer did not come quickly.
Six years earlier, Dante had been newly in control, surrounded by men waiting for him to show softness so they could name it weakness. Matteo had been a driver with copied records and frightened intentions. Dante might have listened. He might also have ordered the records returned and called that mercy.
“I don’t know,” he said.
Elena’s expression collapsed inward, not from surprise but from the confirmation of something she had long suspected.
Sal smiled faintly. “There’s your truth.”
Dante looked at him.
“Rocco, lock him in the west guest room. Two men outside. Remove his belt, his watch, and anything else he can use to communicate.”
Sal’s smile disappeared.
“You cannot hold me here.”
“The roads are closed.”
“When they open?”
“We’ll both make decisions.”
Sal put on his coat. At the door he turned.
“Ask yourself what Elena wants,” he said to Dante. “Justice? Money? A father for her child? People discover remarkable needs when a rich man becomes guilty.”
Elena rose.
“Get out.”
Sal regarded her almost gently.
“You took his wages for six years,” she said. “You put his death on my paychecks. Don’t speak as though you know anything about need.”
Rocco led him away.
Dante and Elena remained in the library with the open envelope between them.
The fire had burned low. Snow tapped against the windows in dry grains.
Dante sat because his legs no longer trusted him.
Elena kept the damaged report.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“I call my attorney.”
“Your attorney.”
“Yes.”
“And what will he protect?”
“Me, if he can.”
She nodded, as though appreciating the plainness of the answer.
“What protects us?”
Dante looked toward the door through which Lucia had gone.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Then don’t make promises to her.”
“I already did.”
“You told her I wouldn’t lose my job.”
“I can keep that promise.”
“Can you? If the accounts are investigated? If this house is seized? If you go to prison?”
The word entered the library without ceremony.
Dante had considered prison as an abstract professional risk, the way sailors considered storms. One prepared, paid experts, avoided certain routes. He had never imagined the practical shape of it: an empty chair, an estate sold, people losing wages because he had finally decided to look at them.
“I can set money aside for the staff,” he said.
“With which money?”
He almost answered, Mine.
Lucia’s voice returned: Because it isn’t ours.
Dante rubbed his forehead.
Elena looked at the envelope. “You should close that.”
He folded the flap over the bills.
It was a small action, but the room seemed less obscene afterward.
His attorney, Marianne Cole, arrived just after eight in a four-wheel-drive SUV driven by her husband, who remained in the foyer complaining quietly about people who treated blizzard warnings as personal challenges. Marianne was fifty-seven, silver-haired, sharp-eyed, and unimpressed by wealth because she billed it by the hour.
She listened in the library while Dante, Rocco, Owen, and Elena gave separate accounts. She examined the payroll files, the scorched report, the lighter, and Sal’s confiscated phone. At ten thirty she removed her glasses and looked at Dante.
“You have two immediate problems,” she said.
“Only two?”
“Do not become charming. It wastes time.”
Elena sat near the fire with Lucia asleep against her side. The child had refused the guest apartment until her mother finished answering questions. Mrs. Donnelly had brought blankets and a pillow. Lucia’s taped shoes remained near the kitchen radiator.
Marianne continued.
“The first problem is Salvatore Greco. We have evidence of fraud, wage theft, forgery, evidence tampering, and possibly crimes connected to Matteo Bianchi’s death. None of that is complete enough to hand to law enforcement without preservation work and outside forensic review.”
“And the second?” Dante asked.
“You.”
Rocco looked toward the windows.
Marianne folded her hands.
“Greco’s records may document criminal conduct you authorized, benefited from, ignored, or should have known about. If we report him, we invite scrutiny of every connected company. If we don’t report him, and he leaves this house, he will use that material as leverage or destroy it.”
“Can we get the records first?”
“Possibly. But do not imagine a clever sequence where you obtain everything, remain untouched, and then become a hero. That option is not available.”
Dante glanced at Elena.
She was awake, though her eyes remained on Lucia.
“What about the employees?” he asked.
“We establish an independent payroll trust using clean funds.”
“How do we determine which funds are clean?”
“With difficulty.”
“And Elena?”
Marianne’s expression softened by one degree.
“She needs her own attorney.”
“I can pay.”
Elena looked up. “No.”
Marianne turned to her. “You may qualify for legal aid, but the case will be complicated and slow. Mr. Marchetti can place funds with an independent firm. He would not select your lawyer or receive information.”
Elena hesitated.
“Would accepting that make me owe him?”
“Not legally.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Marianne looked at Dante. “No.”
He understood the answer was being required of him.
“No,” he said. “You would owe me nothing.”
Lucia shifted in her sleep and pressed her face into Elena’s side.
Marianne gathered the papers.
“We need to secure Greco’s office before morning.”
Rocco checked his phone. “His downtown office is alarmed and staffed overnight.”
“By people loyal to whom?” Marianne asked.
“Sal.”
“Then assume records are disappearing now.”
Dante stood.
Marianne pointed at his chair. “Sit down.”
“We can’t wait.”
“You can. Rocco can’t.”
Rocco was already calling his team.
Elena touched the burned maintenance report.
“I have copies.”
Everyone looked at her.
She adjusted the blanket over Lucia.
“Not of this. Matteo’s records.”
Dante sat slowly.
“Where?”
May you like
“My apartment.”
Sal had searched it in the years after Matteo’s death. Elena knew because drawers had been closed differently, photographs returned to the wrong shelves, and a kitchen chair left half an inch away from the wall. He had found nothing because Matteo had not hidden the records in the apartment.
