Chương 12
Marco paced toward the window. “Anthony says Nora manufactured records with Vincent. Says she was sleeping with him and planned to blackmail us after he died.”
“Do you believe that?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly, but Marco avoided his eyes.
Lorenzo said, “You considered it.”
“I consider everything when federal agents remove computers from my office.”
“What did Vale ask you to do?”
Marco stopped pacing. “Bring you to him.”
“Where?”
“He didn’t say until I agreed.”
“And did you?”
Marco looked insulted. “I came here.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“He says if you turn over the drive, he can stop this from spreading.”
“The warrants already happened.”
“He has people who can discredit the accountant. Destroy chain of custody. Make Nora look like she stole files.”
“And the tenants?”
“What about them?”
Lorenzo looked at his cousin.
Marco spread his hands. “I’m not saying it’s right. I’m saying buildings can be repaired. Money can be returned. People don’t need to spend the rest of their lives in prison.”
“Mara cannot be repaired.”
Marco’s expression changed. “You didn’t know her.”
“Neither did you.”
“Exactly.”
The honesty of it was ugly and human. Marco did not believe Mara’s death weighed the same as the survival of men he had known all his life.
Lorenzo might once have agreed.
“Vale used you,” Lorenzo said. “He let your companies sign false work while his companies took the money. When prosecutors finish, you’ll carry exposure without leverage.”
Marco’s face reddened. “You think I came here for a deal?”
“I think you came because Vale frightens you and I disappointed you.”
“You embarrassed us.”
“Us?”
“The family. Vincent’s name.”
“Vincent gave me the records.”
Marco stared.
Lorenzo watched disbelief become calculation.
“He wanted this?” Marco asked.
“He intended to disclose them himself.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It is inconvenient. Not impossible.”
“My uncle would never—”
“He wrote it.”
Lorenzo removed Vincent’s letter from the desk safe and handed it over.
Marco read slowly. His lips moved at several lines. By the end, his hands were shaking.
“He was sick,” Marco said.
“Yes.”
“He wasn’t thinking clearly.”
“He was clearer than we were.”
Marco read the letter again.
When he finished, he sat in the chair across from Lorenzo. “My father spent his whole life trying to impress him.”
“So did I.”
“He never forgave my father for losing the Chelsea route.”
“Our fathers were twenty-three.”
“He remembered.”
“Vincent remembered injuries because they kept people obedient.”
Marco folded the letter. “You sound like Nora.”
“You’ve barely spoken to Nora.”
“I’ve heard her speak to him.”
“To whom?”
“Vale.”
Lorenzo went still.
Marco looked toward the door. “The night Vincent died. I was at the house before you arrived. Nora was in the rear hallway on the phone. She said, ‘You will not touch the child.’”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I thought it was a custody issue. Or one of Vincent’s charities. I didn’t know.”
“You knew enough to remember.”
Marco rubbed his forehead. “Anthony called me ten minutes later. He asked whether Vincent had left any papers with Nora.”
The timing mattered. Vale had known before the funeral that Nora possessed something.
“Where is he?” Lorenzo asked.
“I don’t know.”
“You came to arrange a meeting.”
“I came to see whether you had completely lost your mind.”
“Now you’ve seen.”
Marco gave a tired, unwilling smile. “You always were dramatic when you pretended not to be.”
Lorenzo allowed the comment to pass.
“Tell Vale I will meet him,” he said.
Bell rejected the idea before Lorenzo finished explaining it.
“No.”
They met at Porter’s office after midnight. Shaw joined by secure video. Danny sat near the wall, pale and restless.
“Vale wants the drive,” Lorenzo said. “He believes I still have the only complete copy.”
“Which makes you a target,” Shaw replied.
“It makes me useful.”
“You are already useful. You have provided evidence.”
“Not enough to charge him with Mara’s death.”
“Possibly enough for fraud, extortion, witness intimidation, and attempted kidnapping.”
“Possibly.”
Shaw’s expression hardened. “This is not a revenge service.”
Lorenzo leaned toward the screen. “If you arrest Vale for financial crimes without locating Sloane, Dacey, or the records tying him to Mara, he will bargain with information about everyone else. He will present himself as an old man following Vincent’s orders. He may never answer for her.”
“That is a prosecutorial judgment.”
“It is a predictable one.”
Bell said, “Lorenzo proposes attending the meeting with recording equipment.”
“I understood,” Shaw said. “I’m declining.”
Nora had remained silent until then.
“Why?” she asked.
Everyone looked at her.
Shaw answered more gently. “Because Vale controls the conditions. We don’t know the location, number of people, or whether Mr. Calder will follow instructions once confronted.”
“You mean whether he’ll kill him,” Nora said.
“Yes.”
Lorenzo did not object.
Nora turned to him. “Would you?”
“If Vale threatened Lily in front of me, I don’t know.”
Bell rubbed his chin. “That honesty is not helping.”
“It should,” Lorenzo said.
Nora looked at the dark window behind Porter’s desk. “Mara called Vincent because she believed power could protect her. Vincent went to Vale because he believed fear could control him. Every man in this story keeps choosing the person who frightens others most.”
No one interrupted.
She continued. “Lily is sleeping in a house where the curtains stay closed. She asked me today whether her mother died because she told the truth. I didn’t know what to say.”
Her voice cracked once, then steadied.
“Vale cannot disappear into a financial case. But Lorenzo cannot become another version of him either.”
Shaw watched her carefully. “What are you asking?”
“Let him meet Vale. Control what you can. Track him. Put people close. And make Lorenzo agree, in writing if necessary, that he will not carry a weapon.”
Lorenzo turned. “You are negotiating my safety.”
“I’m negotiating Lily’s future.”
Shaw considered for a long moment.
May you like
The meeting was approved with conditions that satisfied no one.
Lorenzo would wear a recording device. He would carry no weapon. Agents would track him and position teams only after the location became known. He would not provoke a confession by threatening anyone. He would attempt to confirm Vale’s role in surveillance, the attempt to seize Lily, payments to Sloane, and any steps taken to destroy evidence.
