Chapter 6 - WHAT HAPPENED AT PIER SIX
“Daddy pushed her.”
Emma read the words again.
She wanted them to mean something harmless.
Perhaps a game.
Perhaps someone being helped into the water.
But the red crayon across the man's face made the drawing feel like a memory of terror.
She photographed the entire page before touching anything else.
Then she placed the drawing back into its blue envelope.
Her mother had hidden it for eleven years.
Emma would not let it disappear again.
At seven the next morning, Lorenzo arrived at her mother's apartment.
He looked as though he hadn't slept.
Emma had called Daniel during the night, and the security chief had arranged for the original drawing to be examined without removing it from her possession.
Lorenzo studied it at the kitchen table.
For a long time, he said nothing.
Then he touched the little figure standing in the water.
“My father taught Sophie to swim.”
Emma watched his face.
“He would take her out every summer. She wasn't very good at it, but he always told her she was brave.”
“Lorenzo—”
“I remember him coming home that night. His shirt was wet.”
Emma felt her stomach tighten.
“Did he say why?”
“He said he'd been caught in the rain.”
Lorenzo looked out the kitchen window.
“Except there wasn't any rain that evening.”
Emma unfolded the ferry receipt.
“Someone went to Jamestown.”
Lorenzo took it.
His expression darkened.
“Pier Six was where my father kept his private boat.”
“Could Sophie have been there?”
“Possibly.”
Emma pointed to the drawing.
“Your father may have been involved in something terrible. But we don't know who was pushed—or whether Sophie saw everything clearly.”
Lorenzo nodded slowly.
“Then we'll find out.”
He placed the envelope inside a protective folder.
“First, we're going to St. Catherine's. I promised Anna breakfast.”
Emma looked at him.
“Even now?”
“Especially now.”
Anna was waiting in the dining room when they arrived.
She had chosen a yellow sweater and tied her hair behind her head.
A sketchbook lay beside her breakfast plate.
“You came,” she said when she saw Lorenzo.
“I said I would.”
She looked at Emma.
“And you brought hot chocolate?”
Emma raised a paper carrier.
“Extra whipped cream.”
Anna grinned.
For twenty minutes, they talked about ordinary things.
Anna's painting classes.
Her favorite books.
A stubborn cat that lived in the facility's garden.
Lorenzo told her about the mansion, but carefully avoided making it sound as though she was expected to move there.
Emma admired that.
He was learning that love sometimes meant offering choices rather than demanding closeness.
After breakfast, Anna noticed the folder beside Emma.
“Is that about me?”
Emma hesitated.
“Yes.”
“Can I see?”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“It might be upsetting.”
Anna considered that.
“It's upsetting when people hide things from me.”
Emma handed her the folder.
Anna studied the drawing.
Her face became still.
“I made this.”
“We think so,” Emma answered.
“No. I remember making it.”
She touched the red crayon.
“Margaret told me red was a happy color.”
Her finger moved toward the water.
Then she began breathing more quickly.
Maria, who had remained nearby, approached.
“Anna, would you like to stop?”
Anna shook her head.
“I remember the woman.”
Lorenzo leaned forward.
“Who was she?”
“She was shouting.”
“Your mother?”
Anna closed her eyes.
“No.”
“Rebecca's mother?”
Anna's hands trembled.
“Maybe.”
Emma spoke gently.
“It's all right if you don't remember.”
Anna opened her eyes.
“I remember Daddy was angry. He said she couldn't take something that belonged to our family.”
“What was it?” Lorenzo asked.
Anna shook her head.
“Rebecca was crying. She had a little blue suitcase.”
Emma thought of the two child tickets.
Sophie and Rebecca.
Two little girls caught in a struggle between adults.
“What happened to the woman in the water?”
Anna stared at the drawing.
“She fell.”
“Did your father push her?”
Anna's eyes filled with tears.
“I don't know.”
Lorenzo reached across the table.
“That's okay.”
Anna began crying.
“I thought if I remembered everything, you'd stop being sad.”
Lorenzo moved beside her.
“Sophie, look at me.”
She lifted her face.
“You don't have to remember anything to make me love you.”
For the first time, he called her by her childhood name without hesitation.
She didn't correct him.
Instead, she leaned against his shoulder.
By afternoon, Daniel had located the former marina manager.
His name was Thomas Reed.
He was seventy, retired, and living in a small house outside Newport.
Thomas agreed to meet at the old Pier Six office.
But when Lorenzo arrived with Emma and Daniel, he refused to enter the building.
“I haven't set foot in that office since 2015,” he said.
“Why?” Lorenzo asked.
“Because your father nearly ruined my life there.”
Thomas wore an old canvas jacket.
His hands were rough from decades of working around boats.
He looked at the blue envelope Emma carried.
“Patricia kept that?”
Emma nodded.
“You know my mother?”
“Your mother was the only person who told the truth about what she saw.”
Lorenzo stepped closer.
“Then tell me what happened.”
Thomas looked toward the water.
“Your father discovered someone was stealing from the family. Not small amounts. Millions.”
“Who?”
“Your uncle Salvatore.”
Lorenzo's expression changed.
“That's impossible. My father trusted him.”
“He trusted him until he found the transfer records.”
Thomas pointed toward the marina office.
“Leonardo arranged to meet Salvatore and Elizabeth Sinclair here. Elizabeth worked as an accountant for one of the family charities. She'd found the missing money.”
Emma thought of the Elizabeth Foundation.
“Was she going to expose it?”
“She wanted protection for herself and Rebecca. She believed Salvatore had used her daughter to move assets into accounts nobody would question.”
Lorenzo frowned.
“How could a child move assets?”
“She didn't do it herself. Accounts and trusts were opened in her name.”
Emma felt a chill.
Rebecca had been valuable to Salvatore long before she became Victoria Sinclair.
Thomas continued.
“That night, Leonardo confronted Salvatore. Elizabeth arrived with the wooden box containing the records.”
“Where were the children?”
“On the boat. Your mother insisted they wait where the men couldn't argue in front of them.”
Lorenzo looked toward the dock.
“And the woman in the water?”
Thomas's voice lowered.
“Elizabeth.”
Emma gripped the envelope.
“Did Leonardo push her?”
Thomas shook his head.
“I saw Elizabeth fall from the dock. There was a struggle. But I was too far away to know who pushed whom.”
“Was she rescued?”
“Yes. I pulled her out.”
Lorenzo exhaled.
“So she survived.”
“She survived that night.”
Emma frowned.
“What happened afterward?”
Thomas looked toward the office door.
“Your father ordered me to take Elizabeth away. He said Salvatore had threatened both children.”
“Why would my father allow Sophie to disappear?” Lorenzo asked.
Thomas hesitated.
“Because Elizabeth had evidence that someone inside the Moretti family was planning to harm your mother.”
The air seemed to leave Lorenzo's lungs.
“What evidence?”
“A recording.”
“Of whom?”
Thomas looked at him with genuine sorrow.
“Your father never told me.”
Emma studied the old marina office.
Eleven years of rain, salt air, and weather had worn the paint.
But the building remained.
“What happened to the recording?” she asked.
Thomas pointed toward the floor.
“It was kept here briefly. Then your father removed it.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
Lorenzo looked at the windows.
The office had been locked since his father's death.
Salvatore had insisted there was nothing worth preserving.
“Daniel, open it.”
Inside, dust covered the furniture.
A calendar still hung on the wall.
June 2015.
Lorenzo approached his father's old desk.
The drawers were empty.
But beneath the glass top lay a faded photograph.
His mother stood beside Elizabeth Sinclair.
Two young women smiling on a summer afternoon.
Elizabeth held a baby.
Rebecca.
Lorenzo lifted the glass.
On the back of the picture, his mother had written:
Elizabeth, whatever happens, our girls will always be family.
He stared at the sentence.
Not necessarily sisters.
But family.
And somehow that promise had become a source of danger.
Emma examined the old filing cabinet.
Its lock had been replaced recently.
A tiny sticker on the metal showed the name of a Newport locksmith.
Daniel contacted the business.
The owner confirmed that a replacement lock had been installed three weeks earlier.
The customer had paid in cash.
But the service receipt included a signature.
Rebecca Sinclair.
Lorenzo looked at Emma.
“Victoria was here.”
Thomas stepped back.
“Then she found it.”
“Found what?” Emma asked.
Thomas stared at the filing cabinet.
“Your father kept one thing that could prove Salvatore lied.”
“What?”
“A recording of the conversation from that night.”
Lorenzo turned toward Daniel.
“Get this cabinet open.”
Daniel arranged for the locksmith to return with the proper authorization.
Forty minutes later, the drawer slid outward.
Inside lay an empty cassette case.
A handwritten label remained on the spine.
JUNE 3, 2015 — PIER SIX.
But the cassette was gone.
Beneath the empty case was a more recent note, written in elegant black ink.
Emma recognized Victoria's handwriting from household instructions.
May you like
It said:
LORENZO, I FOUND THE RECORDING. IF YOU HEAR IT, YOU WILL NEVER FORGIVE YOUR MOTHER.
