Chapter 5 - The Photograph That Put Dante at the Crime Scene
“I was there.”
Dante stared at the photograph in his hand.
For twenty-six years, he'd believed he had spent the summer of 2000 visiting relatives in Chicago.
Now he was looking at himself outside the family's Lake Mead property on the night a fourteen-year-old girl disappeared.
Marcus studied the image.
“You would have been seventeen.”
Dante nodded.
“I remember the summer. Just not that night.”
“Could the photograph be altered?”
“Maybe.”
Dante examined the reflection more closely.
The black suit.
The short haircut.
The silver watch on his wrist.
He had received that watch from his mother the following year.
He turned the photograph.
The young man in the reflection wore a watch with a dark leather strap.
Not silver.
Dante frowned.
“That's not my watch.”
Marcus leaned closer.
“Boss, look at his face.”
The reflection was distorted by the curved glass.
But the resemblance was remarkable.
Dante felt a cold sensation move through him.
“That's Richard.”
Marcus looked again.
Richard Prescott was only a few months older than Dante.
As teenagers, they had often been mistaken for brothers.
Both had dark hair.
Both were tall.
Both wore their hair in the same neat style Vincent favored.
“Richard was there,” Marcus said.
Dante nodded slowly.
“And someone wanted me to think it was me.”
Dante took the photograph to Elizabeth.
She was awake, sipping water.
When she saw it, her hand trembled.
“Where did you find that?”
“Inside your coat.”
Elizabeth lowered her glass.
“I thought they'd taken it.”
“Who?”
She looked at the photograph.
“Charles.”
Dante pulled a chair beside the bed.
“Tell me what happened that night.”
Elizabeth stared at him for a long moment.
Then she began.
“Your father hosted a private charity dinner at the lake house. Charles Prescott attended with Richard.”
Dante remembered the dinners.
Wealthy donors.
Expensive cars.
Women wearing diamonds.
Men speaking quietly in rooms where children weren't welcome.
“Rebecca Miller was there with her mother,” Elizabeth continued. “Anne Brooks worked as a housekeeper for one of the guests.”
Dante frowned.
“Emma's great-grandmother?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Rebecca was fourteen. She had been helping in the kitchen.”
“What did she see?”
Elizabeth closed her eyes.
“She found Charles burning foundation records in the outdoor fireplace.”
“Why?”
“Because those records showed that he had been stealing money intended for medical care.”
Dante felt anger rising.
“How much?”
“Millions.”
“Did Father know?”
Elizabeth hesitated.
“He knew something was wrong. But Charles was his oldest friend.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“No.”
Elizabeth looked ashamed.
“Vincent ignored the warning signs because Charles had helped him build the business.”
Dante remembered the foundation.
It had funded hospitals, rehabilitation centers, and care for families who couldn't afford treatment.
His mother had created it.
He had been proud of it.
“Rebecca saw the records?” he asked.
“She found a ledger page Charles had dropped.”
“Then what?”
“She brought it to me.”
Elizabeth's voice grew unsteady.
“I told her I'd protect her.”
Dante glanced at the photograph.
“Why are they standing beside Charles's car?”
“Because he caught us trying to leave.”
Dante's chest tightened.
“What happened?”
Elizabeth looked toward the door.
“Richard was there. He watched everything.”
“Did Charles hurt her?”
“He grabbed her. She screamed. Vincent came outside.”
“And?”
“Your father told Charles to let her go.”
Dante waited.
Elizabeth's eyes filled.
“Charles said if Rebecca spoke, the entire foundation would collapse.”
“What did Father do?”
“He let Charles take her.”
The words settled heavily in the room.
Dante felt sick.
“My father handed a fourteen-year-old girl over to him?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“He said he'd bring her back.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
Dante stood and walked toward the window.
For years, he'd imagined his father as a man who did terrible things to protect family.
Now he was learning how many innocent people had paid for that protection.
“Why didn't you report it?”
“I tried.”
Elizabeth's voice broke.
“Two days later, I went to the police. But Charles had already arranged for the report to disappear.”
“Who helped him?”
“I didn't know then.”
“And afterward?”
“I spent two years trying to find Rebecca.”
Dante turned.
“Did you?”
Elizabeth hesitated.
“Yes.”
He moved closer.
“Where?”
“At a shelter in northern Nevada.”
“Was she alive?”
“Yes.”
Dante exhaled.
“Then why didn't she come home?”
“Because she had a baby.”
Dante stared.
“A baby?”
Elizabeth nodded.
“A little girl named Anne.”
Emma's mother.
Dante sat down again.
He suddenly understood why the letter had been addressed to Anne.
Rebecca had survived.
She had become a mother.
But she had remained hidden.
“Who was the baby's father?” Dante asked.
Elizabeth lowered her eyes.
“I don't know.”
Dante studied her.
She wasn't refusing to answer.
She genuinely seemed uncertain.
“What happened to Rebecca?”
“She disappeared again in 2002.”
“The year you supposedly died.”
Elizabeth nodded.
“Charles discovered where she was living. She came to me for help.”
“And you tried to protect her.”
“Yes.”
“Did Father know?”
“He helped us at first.”
Dante frowned.
“At first?”
Elizabeth stared at her hands.
“Then Charles threatened to release documents showing Vincent had approved the original financial transfers.”
Dante understood.
His father had allowed Charles to steal.
And Charles had kept proof.
“Father chose the business.”
Elizabeth shook her head.
“He chose a plan he thought would protect everyone.”
“What plan?”
“To hide us until the evidence could be recovered.”
Dante looked at her.
“And then?”
Elizabeth's face crumpled.
“The plan failed.”
At the apartment, Emma sat beside Tyler's empty wheelchair.
She had returned with a guard to collect clothes and medications.
The photograph of her grandmother lay in her lap.
When Dante arrived, she looked up.
“Did you find out what happened?”
He sat across from her.
“Your grandmother saw something she wasn't supposed to see.”
Emma's eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“Financial theft. She tried to report it.”
“And?”
“My father failed to protect her.”
Emma looked down.
Dante continued.
“My mother tried to help. But your grandmother had to disappear.”
Emma's voice shook.
“My mother spent her entire life believing Grandma abandoned her.”
“I know.”
“She used to sit by the window on her birthday, thinking maybe she'd come.”
Dante swallowed.
“I'm sorry.”
Emma looked at him.
“Sorry doesn't give those years back.”
“No.”
She touched her sling.
“Savannah used Tyler's medical care to threaten me. Your father used money to keep people quiet. And now you're telling me my grandmother suffered because another rich man didn't want to lose his fortune.”
Dante couldn't argue.
Emma stood.
“I need you to understand something.”
He looked up.
“I'll help you find the truth. But I'm not going to be another person your family decides to protect by lying to me.”
Dante nodded.
“You have my word.”
She studied him.
“I don't need your word.”
“Then what do you need?”
“Proof.”
Dante accepted the answer.
That evening, Marcus traced the brass key from Elizabeth's coat.
It belonged to an old private storage facility in Boulder City.
A facility once owned by the Bellini Foundation.
Dante, Marcus, and Emma drove there together.
The building had been closed for years.
Most units were empty.
But the key opened a narrow metal locker behind the former manager's office.
Inside sat a battered leather briefcase.
Dante carried it to a table.
Emma watched as he opened it.
There were bank records.
A foundation ledger.
Several photographs.
And a cassette tape.
Marcus found a dusty player in the storage office.
The tape was labeled:
August 18, 2000 — Lake House.
Dante pressed Play.
Static hissed.
Then voices emerged.
Charles Prescott.
Vincent Bellini.
A frightened teenage girl.
“You can't take my baby,” the girl cried.
Dante looked at Emma.
Her face went white.
Then Vincent's voice sounded.
“Charles, she's fourteen. Let her go.”
Charles answered coldly.
“Then sign the transfer.”
There was a loud crash.
Rebecca screamed.
Dante's hand moved toward the player.
But another voice interrupted.
A younger male voice.
“Dad, stop!”
Richard.
Charles shouted something indistinct.
Then Richard spoke again.
“If you hurt her, I'll tell everybody what you did.”
The tape crackled.
Silence followed.
Dante thought it had ended.
Then a final voice emerged.
A woman's voice.
Calm.
Familiar.
“Vincent, you can't let them leave with her.”
Dante froze.
He knew that voice.
It belonged to his mother.
Then came Elizabeth's final words.
“If you don't stop Charles, I'll tell Dante what really happened to his little sister.”
Dante stared at the tape player.
May you like
He had never had a little sister.
At least, that was what his father had always told him.
