Chapter 6 - THE BROTHER I ACCUSED OF BETRAYAL
"Don't send your guards after me, Dante. Come upstairs and listen for once."
Lorenzo spoke directly into the bedroom camera.
I hadn't heard his voice in eight years.
My first instinct was anger.
My second was shame.
I took the stairs two at a time.
Marco followed, but I stopped him outside the bedroom.
"Stay here."
"Boss, we don't know what he wants."
"He's my brother."
"That hasn't always meant he's on your side."
I looked at Marco.
"That's exactly what I intend to find out."
Inside, Lorenzo stood beside Chiara's music cabinet.
He looked older than I remembered.
His dark hair had turned silver at the temples.
A thin scar crossed his chin.
But his eyes were the same.
Our father's eyes.
Mia sat on the carpet with Rosie in her lap.
Lorenzo kept a careful distance from her.
"Your mother is looking for you, sweetheart," I said.
Mia looked up.
"Funny-hat man knows the piano lady."
I crouched.
"He does."
"He's sad."
Lorenzo's expression changed.
I gently took Mia's hand.
"Marco will bring you to Mommy."
She glanced at my brother.
"Bye, hat man."
Lorenzo gave her a small smile.
"Goodbye, little one."
Once she had gone, the room felt enormous.
I faced him.
"Eight years."
He nodded.
"Eight years."
"You couldn't call?"
"I did."
"When?"
"After Chiara died. After the funeral. After Dad's birthday. After your accident."
I stared at him.
"I never received anything."
"I know that now."
"Why didn't you come back?"
"Because the last time I stood in this house, you accused me of stealing from our own foundation."
I remembered.
I had shouted at him in front of Carlo.
Lorenzo had thrown his office keys onto my desk.
And I had told him never to come back.
"I believed the documents," I said.
"You believed Carlo."
I looked away.
Lorenzo opened his coat and removed a worn brown envelope.
"Chiara sent me this before she died."
Inside were copies of foundation transactions.
The forged signatures matched the ones Carlo had described.
But several transactions had been reversed before the money left the accounts.
"Chiara stopped these?" I asked.
"Some. She was trying to work out who controlled the rest."
"Why didn't you show me?"
"I tried."
He pulled out a second paper.
An unsigned letter.
My name appeared at the top.
Dante, somebody is stealing from us. Please hear me before you decide I'm guilty.
I recognized Lorenzo's handwriting.
He'd written the letter the day after our argument.
"Did you send it?"
"Through Carlo."
I stared at him.
"He told me you'd read it and wanted nothing to do with me."
My throat tightened.
Carlo had stood between us.
For eight years.
Lorenzo watched my face.
"Now you understand why I stayed away."
"Not completely."
He nodded.
"Fair enough."
"Why were you in the ballroom three months ago?"
"I came to recover Chiara's recording."
"Why?"
"Because I heard Richard Hale was trying to find it."
"Richard is still alive?"
"Very much alive."
I felt my anger rise.
"Then why haven't you gone to the police?"
"I have. Quietly. With people who aren't tied to the original investigation."
He reached into his pocket.
Inside was a folded ticket.
An old train ticket.
I recognized the route.
Chicago to Milwaukee.
"Chiara gave this to Giulia," he said. "She asked me to keep the matching ticket."
"Why?"
"She believed someone might follow anyone who carried her evidence. She arranged separate meetings."
He turned the ticket over.
A number had been written beneath the date.
I recognized it as a bank transaction reference.
"That number identifies the first missing transfer," Lorenzo said. "The money was moved into a company connected to Richard."
"Then we have him."
"No."
Lorenzo's expression darkened.
"Richard wasn't the one who created the account."
"Who did?"
"I don't know."
I frowned.
"You came all this way without knowing?"
"I came because somebody recently started using that company again."
He showed me a transaction summary.
Money had been transferred three weeks earlier.
From our foundation.
I stared at the amount.
Four hundred thousand dollars.
"Valentina would have noticed."
"She did."
I looked up.
"How do you know?"
"Because she tried to stop the payment."
That wasn't what I expected.
Lorenzo continued.
"Your sister has been working with me for three months. She authorized the piano inspection because we believed Chiara's cassette was still hidden there."
"Then why did she lie?"
"Because I asked her to."
I shook my head.
"You put her in danger."
"I know."
His voice softened.
"And that's something I have to answer for."
For the first time, I saw how frightened my brother was.
Not of me.
Of failing our family again.
"Did you recover the tape three months ago?" I asked.
"No. Someone reached the piano before we did."
"Anthony Russo?"
Lorenzo nodded.
"He was supposed to inspect a loose mechanism. We later found out Richard had paid him to search beneath the instrument."
"Anthony died."
"I know."
"Was he murdered?"
"I don't know. His death is being reviewed."
I watched Lorenzo carefully.
He wasn't giving me easy answers.
He was giving me what he could support.
I had forgotten how much I once respected that about him.
"Why return now?"
Lorenzo looked toward the doorway.
"Because Valentina told me a child had found the cassette."
"And?"
"Because that child is now in danger."
I thought of the photograph of Mia.
The white rose.
The sign at Chiara's grave.
My hands clenched.
"Then help me protect her."
Lorenzo nodded.
"I will."
For a moment, we stood there like the brothers we'd been before everything broke.
Then he reached into his coat.
"I have something else."
He held out a small photograph.
It showed Chiara sitting at her piano.
She was smiling.
Standing behind her was Valentina.
And beside the piano stood a man wearing a dark suit.
Richard Hale.
I studied the photograph.
"What's important about this?"
Lorenzo pointed toward the man's hand.
Richard wore the gold ring with the black stone.
But that wasn't what made me stop breathing.
On the piano beside him rested an open prescription bottle.
And reflected in the polished black surface was another man.
His face was partially hidden.
But his cufflinks were unmistakable.
Gold squares engraved with the letter B.
Carlo Bellini.
Lorenzo watched me.
"That photograph was taken the evening before Chiara died."
I looked up.
"Carlo said Richard visited her that afternoon."
"He did."
"Then why are they both here?"
Lorenzo's eyes hardened.
"That's the question I've been trying to answer for eight years."
Before I could respond, Valentina appeared in the doorway.
She saw Lorenzo.
For a moment, relief flooded her face.
Then she noticed the photograph.
"No," she whispered.
I turned toward her.
"What?"
She pressed a hand over her mouth.
"Dante, that's not the photograph Chiara gave Lorenzo."
Lorenzo frowned.
"What do you mean?"
Valentina pointed to the reflection.
"The original showed Carlo standing beside Richard."
She looked at me.
"Someone altered that photograph."
I felt my stomach drop.
"Why?"
Valentina's voice shook.
"Because the person beside Richard wasn't Carlo."
She looked at Lorenzo.
May you like
Then at me.
"It was Dr. Samuel Price."
