Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN IN RED
My mother came home at 4:07 in the morning.
She arrived in a taxi.
Alone.
Unhurt.
And furious that I had called twenty-three times.
For five full seconds, I could not speak.
I ran down the porch steps and wrapped my arms around her so hard she dropped the pharmacy bag.
"Mia."
She laughed nervously and hugged me back.
"What is wrong with you?"
I pulled away and searched her face.
"Where were you?"
"With a friend."
"What friend?"
Her eyes moved past me toward Dante.
He stood near the gate, far enough away to give us privacy but close enough that no one could pretend he was not there.
Mom's entire expression changed.
"Why is Dante Moretti on my lawn?"
I froze.
"You know him?"
"Everyone knows him."
"That's not what I asked."
Mom bent to pick up the pharmacy bag.
I took it first.
"Inside."
"Mia."
"Inside, Mom."
She gave Dante one more look and walked into the house.
Dante followed only after I nodded.
The kitchen clock ticked too loudly.
Mom sat at the table in her wool coat while I stood across from her.
Dante remained near the doorway.
He had not introduced himself.
He seemed to understand she did not need one.
"Who picked you up at the pharmacy?"
Mom stared at me.
"An old friend."
"Name."
"Since when do you interrogate me?"
"Since someone broke into your house and used your phone to threaten me."
Her face lost color.
"Someone did what?"
I put the cracked phone on the table.
Mom stared at it.
"I left that here."
"I know."
"I thought I had put it in my purse."
"Who was the friend?"
She looked at Dante again.
He said nothing.
Mom rubbed her palms together.
Mom stared at the brass key after she put it back on the table.
"Arthur did not become rich the way people think."
I sat across from her.
"How did he?"
"Slowly, then all at once."
"That sounds like bankruptcy in reverse."
She almost smiled.
"Your father used to say the same thing."
The small similarity hurt.
"Did Dad trust Arthur?"
"More than he trusted most people."
Dante remained by the doorway, silent.
Mom noticed.
"He trusted you too once."
Dante's eyes lowered.
"I know."
"And you disappointed him."
"Yes."
I looked between them.
"What happened?"
Mom rubbed her thumb over the edge of the key.
"Michael came home one night with blood on his shirt cuff."
My breath caught.
"His blood?"
"No."
"Whose?"
"He never told me."
Dante's face changed.
Mom saw it.
"You know."
"I can guess."
"Who?" I asked.
Dante hesitated.
"Salvatore was injured in an argument around that time."
"Dad hurt him?"
"I do not know."
Mom shook her head.
"Michael said he had tried to stop two men from fighting."
"Which two?"
"He would not say."
She looked at Dante.
"The next morning, Dante came to our house."
I stared.
"Before Dad died?"
"Months before."
"Why?"
Dante answered.
"I asked Michael to stop working for Salvatore."
"And?"
"He refused."
"Why?"
"He said leaving would not erase what he had already seen."
Mom's eyes filled.
"That was when I understood this was not normal accounting work."
"Why didn't you take me and leave?"
The question came out sharper than I intended.
Mom's face broke.
"Because I believed your father when he said he could fix it."
The room went silent.
Another person who had trusted a man promising he could control danger.
Mom looked at me.
"I have regretted that sentence for fifteen years."
I reached across the table and took her hand.
"You didn't make the men do what they did."
The words sounded familiar.
Dante had said them to me in another form.
Mom squeezed my fingers.
"Neither did you."
I looked down.
For the first time, I understood that leaving Nolan was not only about refusing his blame.
It was also about refusing to inherit blame from every woman who had survived a dangerous man's promises before me.
"His name is Arthur Vale."
The name hit me like a door opening into another room.
Vale.
The foundation Nolan accused me of stealing from.
"The Arthur Vale?"
"There are many Arthurs."
"Not many worth three billion dollars."
Mom flinched.
"I knew him before the money."
"How?"
She looked down.
"Through your father."
I sat.
My legs had stopped cooperating.
"What did Dad have to do with Arthur Vale?"
"They worked together for a while."
Dante moved slightly at the doorway.
Mom saw it.
"You knew."
His answer was careful.
"I suspected."
"You always suspected things after Michael was already in danger."
Dante accepted the accusation without defending himself.
That frightened me.
"Mom, what is she talking about?"
She closed her eyes.
"Your father did accounting work for people he should never have worked for."
"The Morettis?"
"Among others."
"And Arthur Vale?"
"Arthur was trying to make his companies legitimate before anyone used that word in public."
Dante's voice came quietly from the doorway.
"Michael helped him separate old obligations from new business."
Mom shot him a look.
"You do not get to tell her this story."
Dante nodded once.
"Then I won't."
That answer softened nothing in her face.
I leaned forward.
"Why did Arthur pick you up tonight?"
Mom hesitated.
"He called me yesterday."
"Yesterday?"
"He said someone had been asking questions about Michael."
"Who?"
"He would not say over the phone."
"So you got into his car at almost eleven at night without telling me?"
"I did not know you had turned your life into a mob scandal at a charity gala."
I stared at her.
Dante looked away, which I suspected was his version of hiding a reaction.
"He took you where?"
"His house."
"Why?"
"To show me something."
Mom reached into her coat pocket.
She removed a small brass key.
It was old enough that the edges had darkened.
She placed it on the table.
"Michael gave Arthur a lockbox before he died."
The air in the kitchen seemed to thicken.
"A black ledger?"
Mom's eyes snapped to mine.
"Who told you that?"
"A man who called from an unknown number."
She looked at Dante.
"You brought this to her."
"No."
"Your name brings danger even when you stand still."
Something flickered in his face.
Pain, maybe.
It disappeared instantly.
"Mom."
I touched the brass key.
"Where is the lockbox?"
"Arthur said he did not know anymore."
"That's convenient."
"He said Michael moved it himself."
Dante stepped closer.
"Did Arthur mention four numbers?"
Mom's face changed.
"What numbers?"
"Thirty-one, seven, nineteen, four."
She went still.
"Where did you get those?"
I pointed toward Dad's photograph.
Mom stood so quickly the chair scraped backward.
"No."
"What?"
"You leave that alone."
"Mom."
"No."
Her voice shook now.
"Your father spent the last six months of his life terrified."
"Of who?"
"Everyone."
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only one I have."
She grabbed the brass key from the table.
I caught her wrist gently.
"You knew this whole time?"
Tears filled her eyes.
"I knew he was hiding something."
"And you never told me?"
"You were fourteen."
"I'm twenty-nine now."
"And until tonight, no one had broken into my house because of it."
That silenced me.
Dante moved toward the front window.
His head turned slightly.
Then his expression changed.
"Lights off."
Mom looked at him.
"What?"
"Now."
The tone was different.
Not louder.
Sharper.
The two people in the hall moved instantly.
The kitchen went dark.
I stood.
"What's happening?"
Dante came to me.
"Car across the street."
"Nolan?"
"Unknown."
"How long?"
"Long enough."
My mother whispered a curse I had not heard since childhood.
Dante looked at one of his people.
"Back exit."
I grabbed the brass key from Mom's hand.
"We're taking this."
She did not argue.
We moved through the laundry room into the backyard.
A black SUV waited in the alley.
Dante opened the rear door for Mom.
She looked at him.
"I am not going to your house."
"Then choose somewhere else."
"My sister's."
"Fine."
"And you are not coming inside."
"Fine."
Mom blinked.
She had probably expected resistance.
So had I.
We reached Aunt Carol's house before dawn.
Dante left two plainclothes security people across the street only after Mom agreed.
Then he and I drove back toward the city.
I held the brass key in my palm.
"What do the numbers mean?"
"An old warehouse registry."
"Explain."
"Before everything was digital, freight storage units were coded by building, floor, corridor, and cage."
I looked at the inked numbers in the photograph on my phone.
"Thirty-one, seven, nineteen, four."
"Building thirty-one."
"Floor seven."
"Corridor nineteen."
"Cage four."
"Where?"
Dante looked out the window.
"An old Moretti property on the South Branch."
I felt my body go cold.
"Still yours?"
"No."
"Whose?"
"Vale Development bought it eleven years ago."
Everything came back to Arthur Vale.
The foundation account.
My father.
The warehouse.
"We're going there."
"Not now."
"Why not?"
"Because it is six in the morning and Nolan knows you are looking for something."
"So?"
"So if he does not know where it is, the fastest way to tell him is to run directly toward it."
I hated that he was right again.
"Then when?"
"After we find out who is watching your mother."
"And Luca?"
"And Luca."
We reached the Moretti house just as pale light began touching the lake.
I had not slept.
I did not feel tired anymore.
Fear had turned into something sharper.
Purpose, maybe.
Alessandra was waiting in the library wearing a red dress beneath a black coat.
She looked like she had already been somewhere important and had not enjoyed it.
"Where were you?" Dante asked.
"Lake Crown."
She dropped a folder on the desk.
"I pulled last night's parking records."
Dante opened it.
I moved beside him.
There were plate numbers, member names, entry times.
Alessandra tapped one line.
"The sedan your mother entered belongs to Arthur Vale's private office."
I exhaled.
At least Mom had told the truth.
Then Alessandra tapped the next line.
"But someone else entered the club ten minutes before Arthur left."
Dante's eyes narrowed.
The member name read NOLAN PIERCE.
I felt my throat tighten.
"Nolan was there?"
"Yes."
"Did he meet Arthur?"
"Security video is missing from eleven minutes before his arrival until eight minutes after Arthur left."
Dante's face went still.
"Convenient."
Alessandra opened another photograph.
"Not completely."
It showed the club's side entrance.
Nolan stood beneath an awning.
A woman faced him.
Tall.
Dark hair.
Red coat.
I had never seen her before.
Dante had.
His hand stopped on the edge of the desk.
Alessandra watched him.
"Tell her."
I looked between them.
"Who is she?"
Dante said nothing.
Alessandra's voice was almost gentle when she answered for him.
"Her name is Elena Voss."
"And?"
May you like
Alessandra looked at her brother.
"She was the last person seen with Dante's wife before she died."
