Chương 13
“What do you want?” she repeated.
“You found Lily. You protected her. That should have been the end of your involvement.”
“You left money in my apartment.”
“I did not.”
“Your account did.”
“Accounts obey whoever has access.”
“Did Aaron?”
Vincent stopped breathing for half a beat.
Lena heard it.
“He told Dominic about Bianca,” she said.
The silence lengthened.
When Vincent spoke again, the warmth had gone.
“You have no idea what Bianca was doing.”
“She was trying to protect her daughter.”
“She was going to destroy twenty families because she became ashamed of the one she married into.”
“You mean she was going to expose crimes.”
“I mean she believed the government would separate good men from bad ones with clean hands.”
“Did you kill her?”
His answer came quietly.
“No.”
Lena could not tell whether it was true.
“Did you arrange Lily’s kidnapping?”
“I arranged a lesson.”
The words were so calm that Lena gripped the phone harder.
“A lesson.”
“She was never meant to be harmed.”
“She could barely breathe.”
“Aaron panicked.”
“You left her in an alley.”
“I did not choose the alley.”
“You chose the people.”
Vincent exhaled.
“Dominic was moving too quickly. Closing routes, cutting men loose, offering nothing to those who had made him powerful. Others were preparing to replace him. I needed him to understand the cost of appearing weak.”
“You used his daughter.”
“I intended to return her within an hour.”
“After he attacked whoever you blamed.”
“He needed an enemy he could see.”
Lena closed her eyes.
“Why me?”
“You were not chosen.”
“The money.”
“A correction after the fact. The police needed uncertainty.”
“You tried to ruin me because I helped her.”
“I tried to give you the means to leave.”
“Five thousand dollars?”
“It would have covered your rent.”
Lena looked toward the final notice on the counter.
Vincent knew.
“You investigated me.”
“I investigated a problem.”
“I’m not a problem.”
“You became one when Lily trusted you.”
His tone remained controlled, almost regretful.
“Leave Chicago,” he said. “Dominic will offer money. Take it. Go somewhere warmer. You dislike the winters anyway.”
Lena’s skin tightened.
She had complained about the winters at work, online once, and to Mrs. Patel. The ordinariness of the knowledge frightened her more than a threat.
“What happens if I stay?”
“You become another person Dominic fails while trying to protect.”
The call ended.
Lena sat in darkness until the laundromat machines below began their final spin cycle and the floor vibrated under her feet.
She called Detective Chen.
Chen arrived twenty minutes later and listened to Lena’s account without interrupting.
“You didn’t record it?” she asked.
“No.”
“Probably better that you didn’t try without guidance.”
“He admitted it.”
“To you, over an unrecorded call from a blocked number.”
“He said things only he would know.”
“That helps. It isn’t enough.”
“He knows Aaron is alive.”
Chen’s eyes sharpened.
“You know where Aaron is?”
“No. Dominic does.”
“Did Rosetti tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“Will you give a formal statement?”
Lena looked toward the window. A dryer vent blew steam into the alley below.
“If I do, what happens?”
“I ask a judge for orders. I put pressure on Rosetti to produce Velez. I investigate the blocked call. I connect what can be connected.”
“And if your department leaks?”
Chen did not pretend offense.
“Then we manage that risk.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the honest one.”
Lena folded her hands.
“Vincent said Bianca was going to destroy twenty families.”
Chen’s expression changed.
“You’ve heard that before.”
“I heard Bianca Rosetti had been contacting a federal attorney before she died.”
“Why didn’t you tell Dominic?”
“I did.”
“When?”
“Two years ago. He told me I was using his dead wife to pressure him.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.”
The admission surprised Lena.
Chen sat back.
“I believed it too,” she said. “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t true.”
“Do you have Bianca’s evidence?”
“No.”
“Dominic does.”
“How do you know?”
“He said if he gave you what she collected, he would expose himself.”
Chen looked at the table.
For the first time, Lena saw uncertainty in the detective.
Not about Dominic’s guilt. About the size of the door opening in front of her.
“If he has those records,” Chen said, “they could connect Vincent to the kidnapping, Bianca’s death, and years of financial crimes.”
“And Dominic.”
“Yes.”
“Would you arrest him?”
“If evidence supported it.”
“Even if he gave it to you?”
“Cooperation affects outcomes. It doesn’t erase conduct.”
Lena nodded.
“That’s what he’s afraid of.”
“No,” Chen said. “He’s afraid that once he stops controlling the truth, he becomes subject to it.”
Lena gave her formal statement.
By morning, the story had changed online.
A photograph of Lena entering the Rosetti house appeared on a gossip site. Anonymous sources called her a former employee recruited to participate in a staged kidnapping. The five thousand dollars was mentioned, though police had never released the amount.
Frank Bellweather appeared in a local news clip saying Lena had become unreliable in the weeks before the incident.
She had missed one shift in six months.
Her landlord taped a notice to her door demanding that unauthorized media leave the property, as if she had invited them.
Someone threw a brick through the laundromat window.
Mrs. Patel came upstairs holding a dustpan.
“I have lived here nineteen years,” she said. “Nobody breaks my windows except boys and winter. These were not boys, and it is July.”
Lena helped sweep the glass.
“You should stay with your sister,” she said.
“My sister snores.”
“This might get worse.”
Mrs. Patel held out the dustpan. “Then sweep faster.”
At noon, Dominic arrived.
He came alone again, but Lena no longer believed that meant anything.
Mrs. Patel pointed the broom at him.
“Shoes,” she said.
Dominic looked down at his polished leather shoes.
“Take them off. Glass.”
May you like
He removed them.
The sight of Dominic Rosetti standing in dark socks beside a broken laundromat window would have been funny under different circumstances.
