Chapter 4 - THE OTHER DOMINIC
For several seconds, I thought Evelyn was confused.
Dominic apparently thought the same thing.
“You’re tired.”
“I’m old,” Evelyn said. “I’m not confused.”
Margaret’s face had gone white.
“Evelyn.”
The old doctor looked at her.
“You never told him.”
Margaret sat down.
Dominic looked between them.
“Told me what?”
Margaret clutched her rosary.
“I need a minute.”
“You’ve had fifteen years.”
The words landed harder than he intended.
Margaret flinched.
Dominic saw it.
For one instant, guilt crossed his face.
Then pain swallowed it.
“Who was the other Dominic?”
Margaret whispered, “Your uncle.”
Dominic frowned.
“My father was an only child.”
“No.”
Margaret looked at him.
“Carlo had a younger brother.”
Dominic shook his head.
“I’ve seen family records.”
“Carlo changed them.”
“Why?”
“Because his brother testified against their father.”
That was not the answer any of us expected.
Margaret continued.
“The first Dominic Bellini was your grandfather’s younger son. Your father’s brother. Everyone called him Nico.”
Dominic stared at her.
“What happened to him?”
“He disappeared in 1984.”
Vivian whispered, “Before Dominic was born.”
“Yes.”
Margaret nodded.
“When you were born, I named you Dominic because Nico saved my life once.”
Dominic looked almost angry.
“You named me after a man my father erased from the family.”
“Yes.”
“Did my father agree?”
“He hated it.”
“Then why allow it?”
Margaret smiled sadly.
“Your grandfather was still alive. Carlo didn’t challenge him publicly.”
Dominic walked away.
Every answer seemed to rewrite another piece of his childhood.
I understood why he looked exhausted despite refusing to sit.
“What does any of this have to do with your hospital bracelet?” he asked.
Margaret looked toward Evelyn.
The retired doctor answered.
“Nico was Margaret’s emergency contact.”
Dominic stopped.
“Why?”
Margaret swallowed.
“Because by late 2010, I no longer trusted Carlo.”
The room went silent.
“You were secretly contacting my father’s brother.”
“He had contacted me first.”
“After disappearing for twenty-six years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he had been tracking the same financial network.”
Dominic stared at her.
“He was an informant.”
“Eventually.”
“For whom?”
“Federal investigators.”
Dominic laughed once.
“My entire family apparently had secret careers.”
Margaret’s eyes filled.
“Nico told me Carlo had continued what their father began.”
“The bribery.”
“More than bribery.”
She looked toward the blue coat.
“Carlo was moving political money through construction projects. But some of those projects were in your name.”
Dominic’s expression sharpened.
“Which ones?”
“I don’t remember all of them.”
Evelyn said, “Hanover Trust might.”
Dominic took the brass key from Margaret.
“We go there when they open.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Not yet.”
He looked at her.
“Why?”
“Because if someone removed the bracelet three weeks ago, they already know about the coat.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning they probably know about the key.”
Dominic looked at the brass object in his palm.
“And yet they left it.”
That bothered him.
It bothered me too.
“Maybe they wanted you to find it,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
Dominic’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
I continued.
“If they knew about the bracelet and coat, why remove only the bracelet?”
Vivian stared at the key.
“To make us go to the bank.”
Margaret whispered, “A trap?”
Dominic shook his head.
“Too theatrical.”
Then he looked at me.
“But Hannah’s right about one thing. Someone is controlling what we find.”
Vivian’s mouth tightened.
“You still think it’s me.”
“I think you destroyed evidence hours ago.”
“I destroyed one letter.”
“One you knew mattered.”
“Yes.”
She stood.
“But if I wanted you at Hanover Trust, why would I spend tonight trying to keep you away from this entire subject?”
Dominic didn’t answer.
She had a point.
Vivian continued.
“I was trying to bury it.”
“For yourself?”
“For you.”
He looked disgusted.
“Stop saying that.”
“I loved you before tonight.”
The room went still.
Vivian wiped her cheeks angrily.
“And I probably still will tomorrow, even after you decide you hate me.”
Dominic said nothing.
“But I knew pieces of this story. Not all of it. My mother made me promise Carlo’s records would stay buried because opening them could destroy your company and put people in prison.”
Dominic’s eyes hardened.
“People who deserve prison?”
“I didn’t know.”
“That was convenient.”
“Yes.”
Her voice cracked.
“It was.”
The honesty surprised him.
Vivian continued.
“I chose comfort over questions. I chose our life. I chose you without telling you what I knew. I don’t expect that to be forgiven.”
Margaret watched her carefully.
“But the bracelet wasn’t taken by me.”
Evelyn suddenly said, “There is one person who knew about it.”
Everyone turned.
“Who?” Dominic asked.
“Samuel Pike.”
Dominic frowned.
The name clearly meant something.
“My father’s old accountant?”
Evelyn nodded.
“He arranged the clinic payments.”
Dominic stared.
“Pike retired twelve years ago.”
“No,” Margaret said.
“He vanished twelve years ago.”
Dominic looked at her.
“You knew him too?”
“He visited Albany twice.”
Vivian sat down.
“Samuel Pike handled my college payments.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
Now every road seemed to lead to the same man.
He called his security chief.
“Find Samuel Pike.”
The answer came twenty minutes later.
Pike was not hard to find.
He lived eighty miles north in a small town near Hudson.
More interestingly, he had used a Bellini Shipping retirement account until three weeks ago.
The exact week Margaret’s security code had been reactivated.
Dominic looked at his mother.
“You came back three weeks ago.”
She nodded.
“I entered the mansion while you were in Chicago.”
Vivian stared.
“That was you?”
“Yes.”
“You activated your old code?”
“I still remembered it.”
Dominic’s expression shifted.
“So the access log wasn’t a trick.”
“No.”
“What were you looking for?”
“The boxes.”
“Why leave again?”
Margaret’s eyes moved toward Vivian.
“I saw her coming.”
Vivian frowned.
Margaret continued.
“I hid in the old library passage until she left.”
Vivian went still.
“I wasn’t looking for the boxes that day.”
“What were you doing?” Dominic asked.
She hesitated.
“Looking for your father’s desk ledger.”
Margaret stared.
“You knew about the ledger?”
“No. I knew Carlo kept something in the library.”
Dominic looked between them.
“And neither of you found it.”
“No.”
Then I remembered something.
“The boxes.”
Dominic looked at me.
“What about them?”
“Vivian ordered six boxes thrown away.”
“Yes.”
“But Chapter—”
I stopped myself, embarrassed by my own thought.
I tried again.
“You said Margaret’s belongings had been stored for years.”
Dominic nodded.
“Why were those six boxes suddenly beside the service entrance?”
Vivian answered.
“I had them moved.”
“From where?”
“The locked storage room.”
“Did you pack them?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
Vivian frowned.
“I assumed staff.”
I shook my head.
“I was told only to remove them.”
Dominic immediately called the estate.
Mrs. Caruso answered.
Within minutes, we knew the truth.
Nobody on staff had packed Margaret’s possessions.
The six boxes had simply appeared inside the storage room two days earlier.
Security footage showed no one carrying them in.
But one camera covering the corridor had lost eleven minutes of footage.
Dominic looked at Margaret.
“Someone prepared those boxes.”
She looked frightened.
“For Hannah to find the letter.”
I felt cold.
Dominic shook his head.
“Not Hannah specifically.”
He looked toward Vivian.
“For Vivian to destroy them.”
Vivian’s eyes widened.
“So someone knew I would.”
Dominic nodded.
“And knew I’d notice.”
A carefully arranged chain.
The boxes.
The letter.
The code.
The coat.
The missing bracelet.
Someone wasn’t hiding the truth anymore.
Someone was guiding Dominic toward it.
At 2:31 a.m., security found Samuel Pike.
He had checked into a motel near Albany under his own name.
Dominic stared at the address.
“That easy?”
His security chief nodded.
“Almost like he wants to be found.”
Dominic’s expression darkened.
“That’s what worries me.”
Margaret looked at the gold watch still sitting on the side table.
“Samuel was afraid of Carlo.”
“Everyone seems to have been.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“He was afraid for you.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Why?”
Margaret’s expression changed.
“Because Samuel knew what happened after I disappeared.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“What happened?”
Margaret opened her mouth.
Then stopped.
Evelyn answered for her.
“Your father altered the company ownership.”
Dominic stared.
“How?”
“He transferred Margaret’s voting shares.”
“To himself?”
“No.”
Evelyn looked toward him.
“To you.”
Dominic blinked.
That sounded like good news.
It wasn’t.
Evelyn continued.
“Carlo used your signature.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“So?”
“So the signature was dated two days after your mother’s funeral.”
“I could have signed it.”
Margaret whispered, “You didn’t.”
Dominic turned.
“How can you know?”
“Because you were with me.”
Silence.
Dominic stared at her.
“What?”
Margaret’s face had gone white.
“January ninth.”
She gripped the rosary.
“You came to Albany.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“You did.”
“I was in New York grieving my mother.”
“You were brought to the clinic.”
“I would remember that.”
Evelyn whispered, “Not if Carlo made sure you didn’t.”
Dominic looked at the retired doctor.
“What did you do to me?”
Evelyn began to cry.
Margaret stood.
“Evelyn.”
But Dominic stepped closer.
“What did you do?”
Evelyn looked up at him.
May you like
“We sedated you.”
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