Chapter 4 - THE CALL FROM A DEAD MAN
Nobody touched the phone.
It rang once.
Twice.
Three times.
Helen stared at Anthony's name glowing on the screen.
Her husband had been dead for three days.
She had watched his coffin disappear beneath Boston soil.
Yet his name was calling a security guard who had just tried to destroy whatever evidence remained inside Anthony's safe.
Dominic looked at Rebecca.
“Can a number be spoofed?”
“Yes.”
“Answer it.”
Frank did.
He put the phone on speaker.
“Hello?”
For several seconds, there was only static.
Then Anthony DeLuca's voice came through the phone.
“Helen.”
She nearly dropped against the filing cabinet.
It sounded exactly like him.
Not a recording played through cheap speakers.
Anthony.
His pauses.
His breath.
Even the slight rasp he'd developed in the final months of his illness.
“Helen, if you're hearing this, someone accessed my emergency line.”
Rebecca whispered:
“Recorded trigger.”
Anthony continued.
“That means Paul has either betrayed us or been compromised.”
Paul stopped smiling.
Frank stared at him.
Anthony's voice continued.
“Do not question him inside the house. Do not call Leonard Walsh. And under no circumstances let Dominic sign the marriage documents Sabrina's father prepared.”
Dominic looked at Sabrina.
She turned white.
Anthony continued.
“There are two things you must understand. Sabrina did not come into this family by accident.”
Sabrina lowered her eyes.
“But neither did she come for the reason Leonard believes.”
Everyone looked at her.
Dominic whispered:
“What does that mean?”
The recording continued.
“Go to South Station. Locker 317. Frank has the key. Rebecca knows how to verify what's inside.”
A pause.
Then Anthony's voice softened.
“Helen, I'm sorry.”
She covered her mouth.
“For more things than this recording can explain.”
The line went dead.
Nobody spoke.
Finally, Frank looked at Paul.
“You heard him.”
Paul said nothing.
Frank secured his wrists with plastic restraints kept in a security cabinet.
Rebecca called a retired federal investigator she trusted, a woman named Marjorie Kemp, and arranged for Paul to be collected without involving the mansion's staff.
Helen didn't ask how Rebecca knew people who collected armed security guards at three in the morning.
Her life had changed enough in forty-eight hours that some questions could wait.
By 3:20, Helen, Dominic, Frank, Rebecca, and Sabrina were inside Anthony's black SUV heading toward Boston.
Rain streaked the windows.
Nobody spoke for the first ten minutes.
Then Dominic looked at Sabrina.
“What marriage documents?”
She stared forward.
“My father prepared a prenuptial agreement.”
“That isn't unusual.”
“It wasn't just a prenup.”
Dominic waited.
“There was a power-of-attorney document inside the packet.”
He turned toward her.
“You wanted me to give you power of attorney?”
“No.”
“Then why was it there?”
“My father said it was for estate planning.”
“And you believed him?”
“At first.”
There were those words again.
At first.
Helen looked from the front passenger seat.
“When did you stop believing him?”
Sabrina's eyes met hers in the mirror.
“The day Anthony showed me your forged signature.”
“You never told Dominic.”
“My father said Anthony was trying to turn me against him.”
Frank muttered:
“Convenient.”
Sabrina ignored him.
“He told me Anthony had spent decades manipulating everyone around him. He said if I warned Dominic, Anthony would destroy whatever evidence remained about Michael.”
Dominic's voice was flat.
“So you chose your father.”
“I chose the possibility of finding out the truth.”
“You chose without telling me.”
Sabrina looked away.
“That was wrong.”
Dominic did not answer.
At 4:01, they entered South Station.
The main concourse was mostly empty.
Maintenance workers polished floors beneath bright lights.
A handful of exhausted travelers slept on benches.
Frank walked ahead.
Rebecca stayed beside Helen.
Dominic and Sabrina followed several steps apart.
Locker 317 stood along a quiet corridor near the bus terminal.
Frank inserted Michael's old black key.
It turned.
The locker opened.
Inside sat a metal document box.
Nothing else.
Frank lifted it out.
Rebecca inspected the seals.
“Don't open it here.”
Dominic said:
“My entire life is apparently inside that box.”
“And if somebody followed us, you'd like to show them exactly what Anthony saved?”
Dominic backed off.
They carried it into a private office Rebecca had arranged through station security.
Frank locked the door.
Rebecca placed the box on a desk.
The black key fit the lock.
Inside were four items.
A ledger.
A microcassette.
A sealed DNA report.
And a photograph.
Dominic picked up the photograph first.
Michael Moretti stood outside a construction trailer beside Anthony.
Between them stood a much younger Leonard Walsh.
On the far right was another man.
Helen knew him immediately.
“Victor.”
Dominic looked at her.
“Who?”
“Victor DeLuca.”
Anthony's younger brother.
Dominic frowned.
“My uncle died before I was born.”
“No,” Frank said quietly. “He disappeared.”
Helen looked sharply at him.
Anthony had told her Victor left the country after a family dispute.
Frank continued.
“Two months after Michael died.”
Rebecca opened the ledger.
Rows of handwritten payments filled the pages.
Dates.
Companies.
Account numbers.
Initials.
V.D.
L.W.
M.M.
Dominic pointed.
“Michael Moretti?”
Frank shook his head.
“Michael recorded the payments. Those aren't recipient initials.”
Rebecca examined the margins.
“V.D. and L.W. appear repeatedly.”
Victor DeLuca.
Leonard Walsh.
Helen felt the shape of Anthony's secret emerging.
“Victor and Leonard were stealing from Anthony.”
“Looks that way,” Rebecca said.
Sabrina stepped closer.
“My father told me Victor was killed by Anthony.”
Frank gave her a hard look.
“Your father tells stories where everybody but Leonard Walsh is guilty.”
Rebecca opened the sealed DNA report.
Dominic's name appeared at the top.
MICHAEL MORETTI: PROBABILITY OF PATERNITY 99.98%.
Dominic stared at it for a long time.
No dramatic denial.
No shouting.
Just silence.
Then:
“So Anthony knew.”
“Yes,” Frank whispered.
“My whole life?”
“Yes.”
Dominic sat down.
Frank placed one hand on his shoulder.
Dominic did not push it away.
Rebecca picked up the microcassette.
“We need a player.”
Frank reached into the box.
There was one beneath the documents.
He inserted the tape.
Static.
Then a young man's voice.
Michael.
“If you're hearing this, I either got scared enough to finally become smart, or I'm dead.”
Frank closed his eyes.
Thirty-nine years disappeared from his face.
He was suddenly a father hearing his dead son's voice again.
Michael continued.
“I found the accounts eight months ago. Mr. DeLuca doesn't know. At least I don't think he does.”
Pages turning.
“Victor does.”
Helen's breath caught.
“And Leonard Walsh is moving the money.”
Sabrina shut her eyes.
The tape continued.
“They're using Anthony's companies because nobody audits transactions with his authorization code. But Anthony isn't authorizing them.”
Rebecca whispered:
“Forgery started decades ago.”
Michael's voice continued.
“I confronted Victor. He told me to keep my mouth shut.”
A pause.
“I didn't.”
Frank wiped his eyes.
“I'm meeting Anthony tonight. If anything happens, Margaret has copies.”
Dominic looked up.
Michael continued.
“There's something else.”
Static cracked through the speaker.
“Victor knows about the baby.”
Dominic became completely still.
“I don't know why that matters, but Margaret says someone followed her from the doctor's office yesterday.”
More static.
“If they come after her, Frank needs to get her out.”
The tape clicked.
Then another voice appeared.
Leonard Walsh.
Faint.
Recorded from across a room.
“You should've left this alone, Michael.”
Michael replied:
“You stole from the wrong man.”
Leonard laughed.
“You still think this is about money?”
The tape ended.
Sabrina stared at the player.
“My father.”
No one comforted her.
Rebecca flipped through the ledger again.
“Michael said Margaret had copies.”
Frank looked at her.
“If she survived.”
Dominic asked the question everyone feared.
“Do we know she did?”
Rebecca examined the bottom of the document box.
“There.”
A second compartment.
Frank lifted the false panel.
Beneath it was an envelope postmarked six months earlier.
Not thirty-nine years.
Six months.
Addressed to Anthony.
The return address was in Portland, Maine.
Helen's heartbeat accelerated.
Dominic whispered:
“She was alive six months ago.”
Frank took the letter with trembling hands.
Inside was a single page.
Anthony,
You were right about Leonard.
You were wrong about Victor.
If you're finally ready to tell Dominic everything, come alone.
Do not bring Frank.
He still doesn't know what his son did the night of the crash.
—Margaret
Frank stared.
“What Michael did?”
Dominic looked at him.
“You said he was trying to expose them.”
“He was.”
“Then what doesn't Frank know?”
Rebecca reread the line.
Anthony was wrong about Victor.
Helen felt another assumption collapse.
Maybe Victor DeLuca hadn't been Michael's enemy.
Maybe he'd been something else.
Sabrina suddenly checked her phone.
Her expression changed.
Dominic noticed.
“What?”
She did not answer.
He took one step closer.
“Sabrina.”
“My father just texted me.”
Frank grabbed the phone.
One message.
COME HOME.
A second appeared while they watched.
I KNOW YOU HAVE THE LEDGER.
Then a photograph arrived.
Helen's mansion.
Taken from across the street.
Another photograph.
Rosa Alvarez being led toward a black car by a man in a dark coat.
Helen went cold.
Sabrina whispered:
“Oh, God.”
A final text appeared.
May you like
BRING MICHAEL'S RECORDS BY 7:00.
OR THE OLD WOMAN TELLS ANTHONY HER SECRETS IN PERSON.
