Chapter 2 - THE LAUGH I REMEMBERED
Vincent rose slowly from behind his desk.
“What did you just say?”
I barely heard him.
I was seeing Daniel instead.
Our old kitchen.
A Tuesday evening.
Mia asleep against his shoulder.
Daniel standing near the refrigerator, exhausted from work but smiling because he was telling me about an argument he had witnessed.
He had lowered his eyebrows.
Folded his arms.
Then made that same strange laugh.
Two short bursts.
The second catching slightly.
I had laughed at him.
“Who are you supposed to be?”
Daniel had kissed my forehead.
“A man you never want mad at you.”
“Your boss?”
“Something like that.”
When I asked for a name, Daniel’s expression changed.
“Better if you don’t know.”
I had forgotten that conversation.
Until Vincent Bellaro laughed.
“Sophia.”
His voice pulled me back.
Mia had stopped making faces.
She looked from him to me.
“Mama?”
I crossed the room and lifted her.
My hands were shaking.
“Daniel knew you.”
Vincent did not answer.
Nathan did.
“Mrs. Reed, perhaps this conversation should—”
“Stay out of it.”
Vincent never raised his voice.
Nathan stopped immediately.
I looked at Vincent.
“My husband knew you.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“What was your husband’s full name?”
The question made me angry.
“You employ me. You have my personnel file.”
“I asked you.”
“Daniel Reed.”
Everything changed.
Not dramatically.
Vincent did not gasp.
Nathan did not drop the tablet.
But both men went completely still.
That frightened me more.
Vincent looked at Nathan.
Nathan looked at the floor.
“You knew him,” I said.
Vincent walked around the desk.
“Yes.”
One word.
Two years of grief shifted beneath my feet.
“How?”
Vincent glanced toward his security men.
“Out.”
They left.
Then he looked at Nathan.
“You stay.”
I held Mia tighter.
“No.”
Vincent’s eyes returned to me.
“No?”
“If you’re going to tell me something about my husband, you don’t decide who gets to hear it while I stand here waiting.”
For several seconds, the most intimidating man I had ever met simply looked at me.
Then he nodded.
“Fair.”
He moved toward a cabinet built into the wall.
“I knew Daniel through Bellaro Construction.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It isn’t.”
“He worked for Lakeside Structural Services.”
“A subcontractor.”
I felt something cold open inside my stomach.
Daniel had spent four years telling me his company handled commercial steel installation.
He had never once mentioned Bellaro Construction.
Vincent opened a drawer and removed a leather folder.
He placed it on the desk.
“Daniel was assigned to one of our redevelopment projects.”
I stared at the folder.
“Which one?”
“Pier Fourteen.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I knew that name.
It was where Daniel died.
The newspapers had called it the Lakefront Meridian project.
The accident report had listed Lakeside Structural Services as the employer responsible for his crew.
Bellaro’s name had never appeared in anything given to me.
“You owned the site?”
“My company controlled the project.”
“And nobody told me?”
“The ownership structure ran through development partnerships.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
His voice softened slightly.
“It isn’t.”
Mia squirmed against me.
“My bunny’s squished.”
I set her down.
“Stay beside me.”
She hugged the yellow rabbit.
Vincent opened the folder.
The first photograph nearly stopped my heart.
Daniel stood beside a half-built steel structure wearing an orange work coat and white hardhat.
He was smiling.
Beside him stood Nathan.
And beside Nathan stood Vincent Bellaro.
The photograph had been taken seventeen days before Daniel died.
I touched Daniel’s face.
“You met him.”
“Many times.”
“Why?”
Vincent took a breath.
“Because Daniel came to me with a problem.”
“What problem?”
“He believed materials being installed at Pier Fourteen were not the materials our engineers had approved.”
Nathan spoke quietly.
“He found inconsistencies in the load-bearing hardware.”
I looked at him.
“You knew too?”
Nathan nodded.
“I attended two meetings.”
My anger finally broke through the shock.
“So everybody in this room knew what my husband was doing except his wife?”
Vincent did not defend himself.
That made me angrier.
“Daniel asked me not to contact you,” he said.
“He was my husband.”
“Yes.”
“We had a child.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to say that like it makes any of this better.”
“No.”
Mia had wandered closer to the desk.
She picked up the photograph.
“Daddy.”
My chest tightened.
“Yes, baby.”
She smiled at Daniel’s picture.
Then pointed at Vincent.
“Grumpy man.”
Nathan made a sound suspiciously close to a cough.
Vincent almost smiled again.
Almost.
Mia stared at the photograph, then at Vincent.
“Daddy did your laugh.”
Silence.
Vincent crouched so they were nearly eye level.
“What did you say?”
“Daddy laughed funny.”
She made two breathy noises that sounded nothing like either man.
Then she giggled.
Vincent looked away.
Something passed across his face.
Not fear.
Grief.
Real grief.
“You liked my daddy?” Mia asked.
Vincent swallowed.
“Yes.”
That answer hurt more than I expected.
Mia accepted it.
Three-year-olds sometimes understood what adults needed hours to process.
She hugged her rabbit.
Something silver slipped from a small tear near the rabbit’s side.
It hit the hardwood floor.
Vincent froze.
I bent to pick it up.
A small St. Christopher medal.
I had seen it before.
Daniel used to carry it in his wallet.
After his death, I could not find it.
I turned it over.
Three tiny engraved letters were visible.
V.B.
Below them:
D.R.
Vincent reached for the medal but stopped before touching it.
“I gave him that.”
“When?”
“After the first time he came to me.”
I stared at him.
“Why would Daniel hide it inside Mia’s rabbit?”
“I don’t know.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“Sophia, may I see the photograph?”
I handed it to him.
He turned it over.
His expression changed.
“What?”
Nathan looked at Vincent.
“There’s writing.”
Vincent took it.
I moved beside him.
Daniel’s handwriting covered the lower edge of the photograph.
I knew every slant of those letters.
I had seen them on grocery lists, birthday cards, preschool forms, and notes he left beside the coffee machine.
There were only eleven words.
If I miss the 6:10, Vincent knows why.
My throat closed.
“What six-ten?”
Vincent stared at Daniel’s handwriting.
For the first time that morning, Vincent Bellaro looked afraid.
“The train.”
“What train?”
“The one Daniel was supposed to take here the night he died.”
I could hear my own heartbeat.
“He died at five.”
Vincent looked directly at me.
“No, Sophia.”
May you like
His face had gone pale.
“That’s what someone wanted you to believe.”
