Chapter 8 - THE SECRET SUSAN KEPT
Nobody spoke after Susan said it.
Anthony looked as if someone had struck him.
Gabriel stared at his brother.
Nicholas looked at his father.
I held the phone so tightly my fingers hurt.
“Mom,” I whispered. “Where are you?”
“Safe.”
“That word doesn’t mean anything anymore.”
“I know.”
“Did Anthony order Gabriel killed?”
Susan cried quietly.
Anthony stepped closer.
“Put me on speaker.”
I did.
“Susan.”
Her breathing stopped.
“Anthony.”
“Tell them the whole thing.”
“You first.”
Anthony’s jaw tightened.
Susan said, “Tell Nicholas what you did in October 1989.”
The date from Anthony’s tape.
October 14.
Nicholas looked at his father.
Anthony lowered his head.
“I ordered Gabriel brought to Pier Nine.”
Gabriel laughed bitterly.
“Brought?”
Anthony looked at him.
“You were moving weapons without telling me.”
“You knew.”
“I knew about some shipments. Not all.”
“You wanted control.”
“I wanted the operation stopped.”
“You wanted me stopped.”
Anthony didn’t deny it.
Nicholas’s face hardened.
“What happened at Pier Nine?”
Anthony took a long breath.
“I told Raymond to bring Gabriel there.”
Gabriel said, “He put a bag over my head.”
Anthony looked ashamed.
“I didn’t order that.”
“You created the situation.”
“Yes.”
Susan spoke through the phone.
“Anthony planned to frighten Gabriel into surrendering his evidence.”
Nicholas stared.
“Did you order him killed?”
“No.”
Susan answered for him.
“Not directly.”
Anthony flinched.
Nicholas’s voice became cold.
“What does that mean?”
Susan said, “Anthony told Raymond, ‘Make sure Gabriel never threatens the family again.’”
Anthony looked at the floor.
“That isn’t an order to murder him.”
Gabriel laughed.
“To Raymond Pike? What exactly did you think it meant?”
Anthony had no answer.
For the first time, I understood the deeper tragedy.
Maybe Anthony hadn’t planned murder.
But he had created the weapon.
Raymond simply used it.
Nicholas stepped back from his father.
“You spent twenty-one years telling yourself everyone else betrayed you.”
Anthony looked at him.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Nicholas’s voice broke.
“You abandoned me because you were afraid of the consequences of your own decisions.”
Anthony’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
That stopped Nicholas.
No excuse.
No argument.
Just yes.
Susan spoke softly.
“Anthony eventually discovered Raymond had acted independently. By then Gabriel had vanished and Laura was dead.”
I asked, “Why did you fake your death?”
Susan paused.
“Because Thomas found Raymond watching my house.”
Thomas looked away.
“He was getting close.”
Susan continued.
“We believed Raymond knew I had the wax seal.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Rachel…”
“Mom.”
I heard the old authority in my voice.
The one she used when I was young.
“Enough lies.”
A long pause.
“In your childhood Bible.”
I almost laughed.
“My Bible?”
“The blue one.”
I knew exactly where it was.
A box in my apartment.
Not the DeLuca estate.
My old apartment in South Philadelphia.
“I kept it?”
“You never throw sentimental things away.”
She knew me.
Of course she did.
Alive or dead, she was still my mother.
Nicholas immediately sent Michael.
Susan continued.
“There’s something else.”
I closed my eyes.
“There always is.”
“The vault doesn’t contain just evidence against Raymond.”
“What else?”
“Documents proving who legally owns DeLuca Maritime.”
Nicholas frowned.
“I own it.”
Susan answered carefully.
“Not entirely.”
Anthony looked alarmed.
“Susan.”
“No more.”
She sounded tired.
“Gabriel and Anthony’s father divided the company between his sons.”
Nicholas looked at Gabriel.
Gabriel looked equally surprised.
Susan said, “Gabriel’s ownership was hidden through a trust.”
“And after Gabriel disappeared?” Nicholas asked.
“It passed to his child.”
Everyone looked at me.
“No.”
Susan continued.
“Rachel owns forty-nine percent of DeLuca Maritime.”
I sat down.
Camille whispered, “Oh my God.”
Nicholas looked almost amused by the absurdity.
“So my housekeeper owns half my company.”
I stared at him.
“Former housekeeper.”
That actually made him smile.
For one second.
Then Susan said, “That’s why Camille had to marry you.”
Camille turned.
“What?”
Victor closed his eyes.
Susan continued.
“Victor knew the trust existed but couldn’t identify Gabriel’s heir until recently.”
Camille stared at her father.
“You knew?”
Victor whispered, “Not until last year.”
Susan said, “If Camille married Nicholas, Victor planned to consolidate voting control through marital agreements and then challenge Rachel’s trust.”
Camille looked sick.
“You told me the marriage was about protecting our family.”
Victor said nothing.
“You used me.”
Victor’s face crumpled.
“Yes.”
Camille stepped away.
For the first time, I pitied her.
Not enough to forgive her.
But enough to understand her.
Nicholas looked at Victor.
“You raised your daughter to become a weapon.”
Victor whispered, “I raised her to survive the mistakes I made.”
“No. You made her continue them.”
Michael called twenty minutes later.
He found the Bible.
Inside the spine was a wax disk.
My infant thumbprint preserved perfectly.
We drove to the abandoned First Philadelphia Trust building after midnight.
Susan finally agreed to meet us there.
I saw her standing beneath a streetlight.
Older.
Thinner.
Alive.
I got out before the car stopped.
She opened her arms.
I stopped ten feet away.
She cried.
“Rachel.”
“You let me bury you too.”
“I know.”
“Do you know what that did to me?”
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t.”
I wanted to scream.
Instead I crossed the distance and hugged her.
I hated her for lying.
I loved her anyway.
Both things could be true.
Inside the bank, an underground passage led to the old private vault.
Anthony inserted the brass key.
I pressed the wax seal into an antique mechanical reader.
The lock clicked.
The vault opened.
Inside were seven boxes.
Documents.
Film reels.
Photographs.
Account ledgers.
Audio tapes.
Gabriel stared.
“My evidence.”
Untouched.
For thirty-seven years.
Nicholas opened one document.
“Federal shipping manifests.”
Anthony opened another.
“Payments to Raymond.”
Thomas found photographs.
Then I saw a small white envelope.
RACHEL.
Laura’s handwriting.
My real mother had written my name.
My hands shook as I opened it.
Inside was a short letter.
My darling girl,
If you ever read this, it means we failed to give you the quiet life you deserved.
Do not inherit our anger.
Do not confuse blood with family.
Family is the person who stays when leaving would be easier.
I started crying.
Susan held me.
Across the vault, Nicholas pretended not to watch.
Then Michael shouted.
“Sir.”
He had opened the final box.
Inside was a recent photograph.
Nicholas and me.
Taken outside the estate three days earlier.
Another.
Margaret arriving at the gate.
Another.
Camille at the hospital.
Someone had been inside this vault recently.
Nicholas picked up the newest photograph.
On the back:
THE LEDGER WAS BAIT.
THE REAL FILE IS GONE.
Anthony went pale.
“What file?”
Susan whispered:
“The list.”
“What list?”
She looked terrified.
“The names of everyone still involved in the old network.”
Nicholas looked toward the open vault door.
A clicking sound came from the hallway.
Then the lights went out.
A voice echoed from the darkness.
“You DeLucas never learned when to leave buried things buried.”
Anthony whispered one name.
“Raymond.”
But Raymond Pike was in police custody.
May you like
Which meant whoever stood outside the vault—
had been above Raymond all along.
