Chương 5
The landline emitted a dial tone.
“Miracle,” Mara said.
Marco took a folded card from his wallet and entered a number.
“Who are you calling?” she asked.
“Outside counsel.”
“Whose?”
“Dante’s.”
“That is not the same as mine.”
“No.”
He waited, then hung up.
“No answer?” Dante asked.
“The secure transfer service picked up.”
“Send code seven.”
Marco looked at Mara.
“Send it,” Dante repeated.
Marco pressed several numbers, then held the receiver toward Dante.
Dante twisted the silver ring. The blue light appeared. He placed it against the phone’s keypad, where it emitted two soft tones.
A recorded voice asked for his name.
“Dante Raffaele Bellaro.”
It asked for a phrase.
He looked at Luca before answering.
“My son does not inherit my debts.”
The line went silent. Then the recorded voice said, “Identity accepted. Secondary review required.”
Dante handed the phone back to Marco.
Mara stared at him. “That phrase was chosen before today.”
“Three months ago.”
“You expected this.”
“I expected my brother to move against me.”
“You expected to be wounded?”
“No.”
“You expected to bring your son into hiding?”
Dante’s eyes narrowed. “No.”
“But you made plans.”
“I made some.”
“And one of them required me.”
The fluorescent tube hummed overhead.
Marco set the receiver down gently.
Dante’s face gave her the answer before he spoke.
“Yes.”
Mara walked to the far end of the room. The plastic fish skeleton turned above her, its empty eye sockets following nobody.
She folded her arms because her hands had started shaking.
“Explain.”
“There are records in the archive. Vendor accounts, transfers, signed authorizations, internal messages.”
“Bellaro records?”
“Some.”
“Northline?”
Marco looked at Dante again.
Mara gave a small, bitter nod. “There it is.”
Dante pushed himself higher against the bench. “You remember it.”
“I remember spending fourteen months asking why a shipping company in Detroit paid eighteen million dollars to consulting firms with no employees. I remember your controller telling me the money funded port security. I remember finding the same mailing address on six invoices. I remember being called unstable in a conference room by three men who had never balanced a checking account.”
“You left before I saw your report.”
“I was removed before you saw it.”
“I know that now.”
“You signed the termination.”
“I signed what Rocco put in front of me.”
Mara turned.
Dante did not look away.
“That’s your defense?”
“No.”
“Good, because it’s worse.”
Luca stared at his father. He could not understand the accounting, but he understood the shape of blame.
Mara lowered her voice.
“Why am I required?”
“The archive is encrypted around the original Northline reconciliation. My attorney set it up using your audit model because Rocco never obtained the final version.”
“There was no final version.”
“You kept one.”
“No.”
Dante watched her carefully. “You kept everything.”
Mara felt the room contract around her.
He knew more about her than she had known about him when she opened her door.
“Did you search my house?”
“No.”
“Did Marco?”
“No,” Marco said.
“Did your people follow me?”
Dante’s silence was almost an answer.
Mara stepped toward him. “How long?”
“After you left the firm? Six months.”
“Six months.”
“I was told you had stolen proprietary records.”
“I was told your family would ruin my sister if I spoke to regulators.”
Dante’s face changed.
It was slight. A pause before breath, a shift in focus. Real surprise.
“Who told you that?”
“Your brother’s attorney.”
“Name.”
“Gerald Pike.”
Marco swore softly.
Dante looked at him. “You knew?”
“I knew Pike handled the separation. I did not know about her sister.”
Mara laughed once, without amusement. “How comforting. Your threats were poorly documented.”
Dante closed his hand around the ring, and the light vanished.
“What did you do with the audit model?” he asked.
“I destroyed it.”
“You don’t destroy work.”
“You followed me for six months, and now you think that makes you an expert on my habits?”
“I read your personnel file.”
“Then you know I was fired for insubordination.”
“You were fired because you wouldn’t change a number.”
“That was the polite version.”
Luca lifted his head.
“Did my dad do something bad to you?”
No one answered quickly enough.
Mara looked at the child, at his pale face above the gray blanket and the wolf held so tightly its stuffing had shifted.
“Your dad signed a paper that hurt me,” she said.
Dante’s jaw tightened, but he did not interrupt.
“Did he know?”
“He knew enough to ask more questions. He didn’t.”
Luca looked at his father.
Dante nodded once. “She’s right.”
The boy rubbed the wolf’s torn ear. “Can you say sorry?”
Dante’s eyes closed briefly.
“I’m sorry, Mara.”
The apology was not polished. It did not carry a promise, explanation, or request for forgiveness. It sounded unfamiliar in his mouth.
Mara hated that it affected her.
“That doesn’t solve anything.”
“No.”
“Stop agreeing with me like it’s noble.”
A telephone rang.
All four adults—Mara counted Luca among them for the way fear had aged his expression—looked toward the sound.
It was not the landline. Marco’s phone vibrated inside his coat.
The screen showed no name.
Marco answered on speaker.
“Rocco.”
A warm male voice filled the cold room.
“Good morning, Marco.”
No one spoke.
“I hope the fisheries station still has heat,” Rocco said. “It was miserable when the county stored nets there.”
Mara looked toward the boarded windows.
Dante’s expression hardened. “How?”
“Good morning to you too.”
“How did you find us?”
“I followed the orange tractor, Dante. Sometimes the expensive technology is not the problem.”
Mara went to the rear door and checked the narrow window. Snow erased the parking area beyond twenty yards.
Rocco continued, “You always believed people were watching the clever things. They watch the loud things.”
“What do you want?” Dante asked.
“The ring. A signed resignation. Luca comes with me until you recover.”
“No.”
“You sound weak.”
May you like
“I sound bored.”
“You sound exactly like Father when he was dying and still believed tone could repair his lungs.”
