Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN WHO NEVER ABANDONED HIM
Helen called Rosa three times.
No answer.
Frank called two former guards he still trusted.
Neither had seen her after midnight.
Rebecca contacted Marjorie Kemp.
Within fifteen minutes, Marjorie confirmed the black car in Leonard's photograph had been captured heading north on Route 1.
Dominic grabbed the ledger.
“We make the trade.”
Rebecca stopped him.
“We make Leonard believe we're making the trade.”
“He has Rosa.”
“And giving him the only surviving evidence against him will make her safer?”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
Helen looked at Sabrina.
“Call your father.”
Sabrina shook her head.
“He won't answer if he thinks anyone is listening.”
“Then make him believe you're still his daughter.”
The words cut.
Sabrina absorbed them.
Then dialed.
Leonard answered immediately.
“Sabrina.”
Her expression changed at the sound of his voice.
Not tenderness.
Old obedience.
The kind learned in childhood.
“Dad.”
“You have the ledger.”
“I do.”
“Good.”
“Where's Rosa?”
“Safe.”
“I want to hear her.”
A pause.
“Sabrina.”
“If you expect me to bring anything, let me hear her.”
Another pause.
Then movement.
Rosa's frightened voice came through the phone.
“Miss Sabrina?”
Sabrina closed her eyes.
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Leonard returned.
“Seven o'clock.”
“Where?”
“The old Quincy warehouse.”
Frank immediately shook his head.
Anthony had owned three warehouses in Quincy.
Leonard was choosing DeLuca property on purpose.
“If Dominic comes,” Leonard said, “the deal is over.”
Dominic mouthed:
Ask why.
Sabrina did.
“Why don't you want Dominic?”
“Because this stopped being about him years ago.”
Sabrina's eyes narrowed.
“What does that mean?”
“Seven o'clock.”
The call ended.
Helen looked at the clock.
5:08.
Rebecca said:
“We have less than two hours.”
Frank turned toward Dominic.
“You're staying here.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“She's my family.”
“So is Helen.”
“Exactly.”
Frank stepped closer.
“If Leonard knows you learned about Michael, you're the most valuable person in this entire mess.”
Dominic laughed bitterly.
“Yesterday I wasn't even valuable enough for my fiancée to tell me who her father was.”
Sabrina flinched.
Helen intervened.
“Enough.”
Everybody looked at her.
She had spent two days being treated like the grieving widow.
The old woman.
The sheltered wife.
The woman Anthony had handled everything for.
She was done with that.
“Anthony hid the truth because he thought secrets protected people. Michael hid records. Margaret disappeared. Frank followed Anthony's orders. Sabrina lied because Leonard trained her to.”
She looked at each of them.
“And now Rosa has been taken because nobody in this family knows how to tell the truth before it becomes dangerous.”
No one spoke.
Helen looked at Dominic.
“You're coming.”
Frank started to object.
“But not inside.”
She turned to Sabrina.
“You and I make the trade.”
Sabrina blinked.
“Mrs. DeLuca—”
“Call me Helen.”
A tiny change passed across Sabrina's face.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But recognition.
Rebecca created a duplicate ledger using photographed pages and an old DeLuca accounting book from the storage box.
Frank hated the plan.
Which was one reason Helen liked it.
At 6:32, they reached the abandoned Quincy warehouse.
Rain hammered the roof.
Helen and Sabrina entered through the loading entrance carrying the false ledger.
Frank, Dominic, and Rebecca remained outside with Marjorie's team positioned beyond the property.
No police.
Not yet.
Rebecca wanted Leonard talking first.
Inside, Rosa sat on a chair near the center of the warehouse.
Her hands were tied.
Leonard Walsh stood beside her.
Helen had known him for twenty-two years.
He had attended Christmas dinners.
Dominic's college graduation.
Anthony's sixtieth birthday.
He had hugged Helen at Anthony's funeral.
Now he held a gun against Rosa's shoulder.
“Hello, Helen.”
Her stomach turned.
“Leonard.”
He looked older than he'd looked three days earlier.
Not guilty.
Just tired.
Sabrina stepped forward.
“Let her go.”
Leonard smiled faintly.
“You sound like your mother.”
“My mother left you.”
“She became confused.”
“She became afraid of you.”
His smile disappeared.
“Ledger.”
Helen raised the bag.
“Rosa first.”
Leonard shook his head.
“You were always more difficult than Anthony thought.”
Helen almost laughed.
“You obviously didn't know my husband very well.”
“I knew him better than you did.”
“That's what everyone keeps telling me.”
Sabrina looked around.
“Where are your men?”
“Gone.”
“You kidnapped a seventy-eight-year-old woman alone?”
Leonard's eyes hardened.
“I asked an old client for help.”
Helen thought of Paul.
“How long has Paul worked for you?”
“Long enough.”
Sabrina said:
“You forged Helen's signatures.”
Leonard did not deny it.
“You used Anthony's companies.”
“Anthony's companies were built with money that came from men like me.”
“You stole from him.”
Leonard's face changed.
“You still don't understand.”
He looked at Helen.
“Anthony stole something first.”
“What?”
“My future.”
Sabrina rolled her eyes.
“Dad.”
“No. She should hear it.”
He paced.
“Thirty-nine years ago, Victor DeLuca and I had an arrangement. Anthony was expanding construction. Victor wanted his own operation.”
Frank's voice suddenly came through the tiny earpiece hidden beneath Helen's hair.
Keep him talking.
Leonard continued.
“Michael Moretti found our accounts.”
“You killed him,” Sabrina whispered.
Leonard looked at her.
“No.”
“Michael's recording has your voice.”
“I threatened him.”
“So generous.”
“I didn't kill him.”
Helen stared.
“Who drove the truck?”
Leonard looked almost amused.
“Victor.”
Sabrina froze.
Frank's voice erupted in Helen's earpiece.
That's a lie.
Leonard continued.
“Michael called Anthony. Victor panicked. He decided to scare Michael before he reached him.”
Helen asked:
“By running his car off the road?”
“He lost control.”
“Michael died.”
“Yes.”
“And Anthony?”
“Survived.”
Sabrina looked shaken.
“My entire life you told me Anthony ordered it.”
“I told you what you needed to believe.”
She stared at her father.
“Why?”
“To get you close to Dominic.”
There it was.
The ugliness without decoration.
Sabrina's eyes filled.
“You raised me for this.”
“I raised you to finish what our family started.”
“Our family?”
Leonard smiled without warmth.
“Cross wasn't just your mother's name.”
He stepped closer.
“Your grandfather was Charles Cross.”
Sabrina frowned.
Helen knew the name.
A Boston developer Anthony had fought in court decades earlier.
Leonard continued.
“Charles Cross financed Victor.”
Sabrina whispered:
“You told me Grandpa had nothing to do with the DeLucas.”
“You were a child.”
“And you spent my whole childhood filling my head with stories about Anthony murdering Michael.”
“Because Anthony destroyed everything we built.”
Helen said:
“After discovering you were stealing from him.”
Leonard snapped toward her.
“He destroyed Victor.”
Something about the wording caught Helen.
Not killed.
Destroyed.
“Victor didn't die.”
Leonard stopped.
Helen stepped closer.
“Did he?”
Sabrina looked at him.
“Dad.”
Leonard said nothing.
Helen understood.
“Anthony didn't kill Victor.”
“No.”
“Where is he?”
Leonard stared at the concrete floor.
“I don't know.”
Frank's voice came softly through Helen's earpiece.
Interesting.
Helen continued.
“Margaret wrote that Anthony was wrong about Victor.”
Leonard's head snapped up.
“You found Margaret?”
Sabrina noticed.
“You didn't know she was alive.”
Leonard's composure cracked.
Just slightly.
But enough.
Helen suddenly understood why the ledger mattered less than Margaret.
“You've been looking for her too.”
Leonard lifted the gun.
“Ledger.”
Helen handed him the bag.
He opened it.
Flipped pages.
For several seconds, everything seemed to work.
Then he stopped.
His eyes narrowed.
“This isn't Michael's ledger.”
Sabrina took one step backward.
Leonard raised the gun.
“Where is it?”
Helen's heart hammered.
“Somewhere you'll never find.”
Leonard aimed at her.
Sabrina stepped between them.
“Dad.”
“Move.”
“No.”
“Move.”
Rosa suddenly kicked backward.
Her chair slammed into Leonard's knee.
The gun fired into the ceiling.
Helen lunged toward Rosa.
Sabrina grabbed her father's wrist.
The side door exploded open.
Frank came in first.
Dominic behind him.
Rebecca shouted from the entrance.
“Drop it!”
Leonard tore free and ran toward a rear staircase.
Dominic started after him.
Frank yelled:
“No!”
Too late.
Dominic disappeared upstairs.
Sabrina followed.
Helen untied Rosa.
“Are you hurt?”
Rosa shook her head, crying.
“Mrs. DeLuca, there's something you need to know.”
“Later.”
“No.”
Rosa gripped her wrist.
“Mr. Anthony came to see me the week before he died.”
Helen stopped.
“What?”
“He asked me about the night you brought Dominic home.”
Helen stared.
“What about it?”
Rosa's voice trembled.
“He wanted to know who else was at St. Joseph's Hospital.”
Helen remembered nurses.
Doctors.
Anthony.
Frank.
Then Rosa said:
“I told him there was one woman standing across the hallway.”
“Who?”
“I didn't know then.”
A gunshot echoed upstairs.
Helen flinched.
Rosa squeezed her harder.
“But Anthony showed me a photograph.”
Helen whispered:
“Margaret?”
Rosa shook her head.
“No.”
“Then who?”
Rosa looked toward the staircase where Dominic and Sabrina had disappeared.
“Leonard Walsh's wife.”
Helen stared.
“Why would Sabrina's mother be there?”
Rosa whispered:
“Because she wasn't visiting anyone.”
“Then what was she doing?”
May you like
Rosa's answer made Helen forget the gunshot above them.
“She was carrying a newborn baby.”
