Chương 4
“Where is it?”
Elaine hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
Luca said, “You know.”
“It wasn’t in our system when I checked later.”
“When did you check?”
“February.”
“Why?”
Elaine looked down.
“Because she came back.”
Hannah frowned.
“I didn’t come back in February.”
The room changed.
Luca saw it happen.
Clare straightened.
Vincent, standing outside the open door, turned his head.
Elaine stared at Hannah.
“Yes, you did.”
“No.”
“You came to the office on February ninth.”
“I was working a double shift February ninth.”
“You left a note.”
“I did not.”
Elaine’s fingers stopped moving.
“What note?”
Hannah’s face had gone still.
Elaine looked toward Luca.
“It said she was done trying. That she didn’t want money, publicity, or contact. It asked us not to call.”
“I never wrote that.”
Sophia whispered, “Someone lied.”
Luca looked at the door.
“Vincent.”
“Yeah.”
“Get Martin upstairs.”
Martin Voss entered four minutes later looking annoyed.
That was his first mistake.
His second was asking, “Is this really necessary during the gala?”
Luca had known Martin for eleven years.
They had met when Martin was working for a Chicago philanthropic consulting firm that specialized in rehabilitating the reputations of wealthy families whose charitable giving had become inseparable from questions about where the money came from.
Martin had never moralized about Luca.
Luca had appreciated that.
He had also appreciated competence.
Martin wore a midnight-blue tuxedo and rimless glasses. He was fifty-two and had the careful stomach of a man who believed an expensive gym membership balanced out expensive dinners.
He looked at Sophia.
His annoyance vanished.
“What happened?”
“I walked,” Sophia said.
Martin blinked.
“You—what?”
“To Hannah.”
He followed her gaze.
For the first time, Martin appeared to see the waitress.
His face did not collapse.
It almost did.
That was enough.
Luca said, “Sit down.”
Martin sat.
Hannah remained on the carpet beside Sophia.
Elaine stood near the window.
Clare leaned against the sofa.
Vincent closed the door.
Luca stayed standing.
“Do you know Hannah Carter?”
Martin adjusted one cuff.
“I know the name.”
“From where?”
“The accident.”
“How?”
“She contacted the foundation.”
Hannah’s eyes sharpened.
Elaine said, “You told me her identity couldn’t be verified.”
“At the time.”
“You knew her name?”
“It was on your contact summary.”
“The summary disappeared.”
Martin looked at her.
“I don’t control records retention.”
Vincent made the faintest sound through his nose.
Martin glanced at him.
Luca said, “Why did you order all communication about the accident through your office?”
“I didn’t order all communication.”
“Martin.”
“I asked departments to coordinate. We were receiving threats.”
“Why was Hannah kept away?”
“She wasn’t kept away.”
Hannah spoke for the first time.
“I was.”
Martin turned to her.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.”
Luca’s eyes closed briefly.
Martin saw it too late.
Hannah laughed.
“Don’t do that.”
“I’m not trying to offend you.”
“You just did.”
Martin looked back at Luca.
“There were serious security issues. There were people claiming they had been at the bridge. People requesting compensation. People asking to visit Sophia. Someone mailed a bloodstained child’s coat to the office.”
Luca remembered the coat.
It had not belonged to Sophia.
The sender had later demanded seventy thousand dollars for what he called rescue trauma.
Martin continued, “We had to separate credible contacts from opportunists.”
“Was Hannah credible?”
“At first? Unclear.”
“And later?”
Martin said nothing.
Luca felt the room become colder.
“Later?”
Martin sighed.
“We received confirmation.”
Hannah slowly stood.
“When?”
“Late December.”
Her lips parted.
Luca said, “Confirmation from who?”
“The county investigator.”
“Name.”
Martin looked irritated now.
“Luca, I don’t remember every—”
“Name.”
“Detective Raines.”
Luca turned to Vincent.
“Call him.”
Martin said, “At midnight?”
“It’s eleven-twenty.”
“It’s a gala.”
Vincent was already pulling out his phone.
Luca watched Martin.
“If Detective Raines tells Vincent he never confirmed Hannah Carter’s identity, I’m going to have a different conversation with you.”
Martin’s jaw shifted.
Sophia leaned closer to Hannah.
Luca saw it.
So did Martin.
A tiny calculation passed across the executive director’s face.
That was the moment Luca stopped wondering whether this had been an administrative mistake.
Vincent stepped into the hallway.
Martin said, “There are issues you don’t understand.”
“Explain them.”
“Not in front of your daughter.”
Sophia said, “I’m already in front of me.”
Clare looked at the ceiling.
Even Hannah smiled faintly.
Martin did not.
“Luca, please.”
Luca walked to the window.
Rain turned the city lights beyond the glass into soft vertical streaks.
The gala continued downstairs.
Barely.
He could hear a distant swell of music through the floor.
There were donors down there who had paid ten thousand dollars a table to fund pediatric rehabilitation equipment.
There were cameras.
There were reporters in the lobby.
There were board members.
There were politicians.
There were men who had known Luca before he became respectable enough to have his name engraved on hospital wings.
Martin knew all of that.
More importantly, Martin knew Luca cared about the foundation because it was one of the few things in his life he had built that Sophia could look at without asking where the money came from.
Luca turned around.
“What issues?”
Martin leaned forward.
“After the accident, the family was vulnerable.”
“My family.”
“Yes.”
“My daughter.”
“Yes.”
“So you protected us from the woman who saved her?”
“I protected you from a situation we could not control.”
Hannah stared at him.
“What situation?”
Martin did not answer her.
He looked at Luca.
“The bridge made national news for two days because of who you are. We worked extremely hard to prevent the story from becoming about organized crime, your history, Anthony’s background, or why your daughter was in a vehicle with him that night.”
Luca’s face tightened.
Anthony Russo had been his cousin.
And his driver.
And, years before, something uglier.
By the time Sophia was born, Anthony had been clean of that work. Mostly.
The newspapers did not care about mostly.
May you like
Martin continued.
“Then a civilian appears saying she entered freezing water before first responders and pulled out a seven-year-old girl. That story becomes the story.”
