Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE SECOND CAR
Vittorio did not deny the footage.
That frightened Sebastian more than denial would have.
His father sat at the long dining table beneath the crystal chandelier while Grant restored one security system at a time.
Amara stood near the windows.
She had not cried.
Sebastian suspected that was only because anger was holding everything else back.
Elias remained across the room, watching Vittorio with an expression suggesting they had fought about this exact secret many years earlier.
Sebastian placed the phone on the table.
“Explain.”
Vittorio rubbed one hand over his face.
“Your mother followed Evelyn.”
Amara flinched.
“Why?”
“To protect her.”
Amara laughed once.
“Everybody keeps using that word.”
Vittorio looked at her.
“Isabella had discovered Dominic knew Evelyn copied the financial records.”
“So she followed my mother?”
“Yes.”
“Without warning her?”
“She tried.”
“How?”
“She called St. Catherine’s. Evelyn had already left.”
Sebastian studied his father.
“What happened after the parking lot?”
“Your mother followed her toward Queens.”
“And?”
“She lost her at a traffic light.”
Amara shook her head.
“How convenient.”
Vittorio’s jaw tightened.
“You have every reason not to believe me.”
“That’s the first completely honest thing you’ve said.”
Sebastian almost stepped in.
Then stopped.
Amara deserved her anger.
Vittorio continued.
“Isabella called me. Twenty minutes later, police reported the accident.”
“Accident?” Amara said.
“You knew it wasn’t an accident.”
“Not immediately.”
“When?”
“Two days later.”
Elias finally spoke.
“When the car used in the hit-and-run turned up burned in Jersey.”
Amara looked at him.
“And you covered it up?”
“No.”
Vittorio answered.
“I did.”
Sebastian stared.
“Why?”
“Because Isabella’s car appeared on traffic cameras behind Evelyn’s.”
“And you thought police would blame her?”
“I knew Dominic would make sure they did.”
Sebastian’s voice sharpened.
“So instead of telling the truth, you buried evidence.”
“I was protecting your mother.”
“And destroying Amara’s chance to know who killed hers.”
Vittorio had no answer.
That mattered.
For once, Sebastian did not allow family loyalty to soften the truth.
“What you did was wrong.”
His father nodded.
“Yes.”
Amara looked at Sebastian.
Something passed between them.
Gratitude, perhaps.
Not because he had defended her.
Because he had refused to defend the indefensible.
Grant approached.
“I have partial exterior cameras.”
“What do you see?”
“Two vehicles left seven minutes ago.”
“Passengers?”
“Brooke in the first. Dominic driving.”
“Second?”
Grant enlarged the image.
Celeste sat in the back.
Beside her was Aunt Helena.
Sebastian went still.
Amara remembered Helena’s role in her hiring.
“There she is.”
Grant nodded.
“Looks like it.”
Vittorio stood.
“My sister?”
Elias muttered, “Told you.”
Vittorio shot him a look.
Sebastian ignored both.
“Where are they going?”
Grant examined the traffic cameras.
“East.”
“Toward the old Romano property?”
“Possibly.”
Amara’s heart accelerated.
Her childhood house was also east.
Queens.
Not the same direction exactly.
But close enough.
She unfolded her mother’s letter again.
The house where we lived before your father left.
Blue birds.
“Dominic knows about my old house.”
Everyone looked at her.
“How?” Sebastian asked.
“If he knew my mother copied the pages, he would have searched her home.”
Elias shook his head.
“He did.”
Amara stared.
“What?”
“After Evelyn died, the house was searched twice.”
“I lived there.”
“You were staying with your aunt during the funeral.”
Memory moved through Amara.
She had returned home afterward and found drawers slightly wrong.
A kitchen cabinet left open.
Her mother’s mattress shifted.
Her aunt blamed grief and forgetfulness.
“Why didn’t they find the pages?”
Elias said, “Because Evelyn was smarter than all of us.”
Amara looked at the letter.
Blue birds.
Sebastian said, “The wall.”
She nodded.
“My bedroom had blue-bird wallpaper.”
Grant looked toward his father.
“You repaired it.”
Elias’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
“What was behind it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect us to believe that?”
“I replaced water-damaged plaster. Evelyn watched me the entire time.”
Amara remembered.
Her mother had been unusually nervous that day.
She kept making coffee she never drank.
“She hid it afterward,” Amara said.
Sebastian nodded.
“That means Dominic may not know the exact location.”
“But Helena might.”
Everyone looked toward the phone showing her image.
Amara thought back.
Aunt Helena had visited the estate several times during Amara’s employment.
She always remembered Amara’s name.
Always asked where she grew up.
Always seemed interested in harmless details.
Amara had mistaken curiosity for kindness.
“I told Helena about the wallpaper.”
Sebastian’s head turned.
“When?”
“Months ago. She asked if I had childhood things stored somewhere because she was donating furniture to a shelter. We started talking about old houses.”
Grant swore under his breath.
“She was fishing.”
Sebastian grabbed his coat.
“We go now.”
Vittorio said, “If Dominic has Brooke—”
“He wants the pages. That means he needs the house.”
“And Celeste?”
Sebastian stopped.
Amara watched him carefully.
His face did not change, but she knew the question hurt.
Celeste had betrayed him.
She had also been manipulated.
She had framed Amara.
She had tried to warn him.
People were rarely only one thing.
“Celeste made choices,” Sebastian said. “Bad ones.”
He looked at the frozen image of her in the car.
“But Dominic doesn’t get to kill her for them.”
Amara nodded.
That was the right answer.
They split into two cars.
Sebastian drove the first.
Amara sat beside him.
Grant and Elias were behind them.
Vittorio remained at the mansion with loyal guards to restore control.
For several miles, Sebastian said nothing.
Then Amara asked, “Did you love her?”
He knew exactly who she meant.
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised her.
“Do you still?”
He stared through the windshield.
“I don’t know who she is.”
“That isn’t the same question.”
“No.”
His fingers tightened on the wheel.
“I loved who I thought she was.”
Amara looked out at the dark highway.
“That version may have existed too.”
Sebastian glanced at her.
“You’re defending the woman who framed you?”
“No.”
She touched her bruised shoulder.
“I’m refusing to let one thing erase everything else.”
He was quiet.
Then he said, “You do that a lot.”
“What?”
“See more than one truth at a time.”
“My mother used to say two people can lie about the same thing for completely different reasons.”
Sebastian gave a humorless smile.
“She would have hated my family.”
“She apparently spent enough time around them to know.”
That silenced them.
Forty minutes later, they reached Amara’s childhood neighborhood.
The street looked smaller than she remembered.
Her old house had changed.
Gray siding instead of yellow.
New porch.
Different windows.
But the upstairs room remained.
Her room.
A light was on.
Amara’s blood ran cold.
“Someone’s inside.”
Sebastian killed the headlights.
Grant’s car stopped behind them.
They approached through neighboring yards.
Sebastian insisted Amara remain between him and Grant.
Nobody argued this time.
The back door of the house was open.
Inside, furniture had been pushed aside.
The current owners were nowhere visible.
Amara’s stomach twisted.
“Please tell me they’re safe.”
Grant checked his phone.
“Local police received an anonymous gas-leak report two hours ago. Residents evacuated.”
Dominic.
He had cleared the house.
They went upstairs.
Amara stopped outside her old bedroom.
The blue birds were gone.
The wall was painted pale green.
But she knew exactly where the window used to be.
Exactly where the loose baseboard had been.
Someone had already torn half the wall apart.
Plaster covered the floor.
Sebastian whispered, “Too late.”
Amara stepped around him.
“No.”
She crouched.
“They’re looking in the wrong place.”
She crossed to the opposite wall.
“My mother changed rooms with me after the water damage.”
Grant frowned.
“So the blue birds weren’t in this room?”
“They were.”
Amara looked down.
“But they weren’t wallpaper.”
She reached beneath an old radiator cover.
Her fingers found something scratched into the wood.
Three tiny birds.
Painted blue.
Sebastian stared.
Amara’s heart pounded.
Her mother had painted those birds for her when she was six.
She pulled the radiator cover free.
Behind it sat a narrow metal box.
Untouched for twelve years.
Amara’s breath broke.
Sebastian knelt beside her.
“Let me.”
“No.”
She opened it herself.
Inside were folded copies of Foundation records.
A cassette tape.
A small brass key.
And one photograph.
Amara picked up the photograph.
Her mother stood beside Isabella Romano.
Both women were smiling.
Not enemies.
Friends.
On the back, in Evelyn’s handwriting, were six words.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS, TRUST ISABELLA.
Sebastian closed his eyes.
His mother had been innocent.
At least of Evelyn’s death.
Amara touched the cassette.
Grant found an old player in the room’s abandoned storage cabinet.
They inserted the tape.
Static.
Then Evelyn Cole’s voice filled the room.
Amara covered her mouth.
“My name is Evelyn Cole. If Amara is hearing this, then I failed to come home.”
Amara began crying silently.
Sebastian moved beside her.
Not touching.
Just there.
Evelyn continued.
“The person moving money through the Foundation is not Vittorio. It is not Isabella.”
A pause.
“I believed it was Dominic Romano.”
Sebastian leaned closer.
“Until tonight.”
Everyone froze.
Evelyn’s recorded voice shook.
“I saw who authorized the transfers.”
Footsteps sounded downstairs.
Grant drew his weapon.
The tape continued.
“It was Helena Romano.”
Sebastian stared at the recorder.
Then Helena’s voice came from the bedroom doorway.
“You always were a very stubborn little girl, Amara.”
They turned.
Helena stood there with a gun.
Beside her, Brooke was crying.
May you like
And behind them—
Celeste had blood on her dress.
