Chapter 4 - THE REPORT THAT DESTROYED A FAMILY
“You knew someone could get hurt.”
I confronted Olivia in the private sitting room adjoining my penthouse.
She stood beside the window overlooking the Las Vegas Strip.
For the first time since meeting her, I couldn't tell whether the woman standing before me was frightened, angry, or calculating.
“Gabriel, I've explained everything.”
“No. You've explained why you ordered special frosting. You haven't explained why Warren handed you a bottle that you planted in Rachel's purse.”
She turned.
“I was protecting us.”
“From what?”
“From scandal. From people who would use any accusation to destroy your reputation.”
“A man is dead, Olivia.”
“Eight months ago!”
“And his daughter almost watched another man collapse tonight.”
Her expression changed.
For one moment, something like guilt appeared.
Then it disappeared.
“You don't know what happened to Daniel Bennett.”
“Neither do you, apparently.”
She looked away.
That silence stayed with me.
I had planned to marry Olivia in six weeks.
Now I couldn't imagine standing beside her at an altar.
I removed our engagement photograph from the mantel.
She watched me.
“Don't do that.”
“I can't pretend nothing has changed.”
“Gabriel—”
“Until this investigation is finished, you won't have access to my private offices, company records, or residential security systems.”
She stared at the empty place where our photograph had stood.
“You're choosing strangers over the woman you love.”
I looked at her carefully.
“I'm trying to find out whether I ever knew the woman I loved.”
Downstairs, Rachel was struggling with a different kind of fear.
Her supervisor had quietly removed her name from the following week's kitchen schedule.
When I learned about it, I went to the employee offices personally.
The supervisor, a nervous man named Curtis, stood when I entered.
“Mr. Moretti, we were simply avoiding complications.”
“By taking away a widow's paycheck?”
“Her involvement in the investigation—”
“She didn't cause the investigation.”
Curtis swallowed.
“Of course, sir.”
“Restore her shifts. Pay her for the time she's been kept away. And nobody discusses her daughter with the press.”
Rachel had followed me into the office.
When Curtis left, she remained standing.
“You didn't have to come down here.”
“Yes,” I said. “I did.”
She looked exhausted.
“Sophie asked me this morning whether the bad cake was gone.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That nobody was going to make her eat anything she didn't want.”
I nodded.
“That's a promise worth keeping.”
Rachel sat down.
“Daniel used to make her pancakes shaped like elephants. He wasn't very good at it.”
A small smile passed across her face.
“They usually looked like potatoes.”
Then her smile disappeared.
“After he died, Sophie kept saving half her breakfast for him.”
I had no answer.
There are some kinds of grief money cannot soften.
Rachel reached into her bag and pulled out a worn leather watch case.
“This was Daniel's father's watch. Daniel wore it every day.”
Inside lay a silver wristwatch with a scratched face.
“He stopped wearing it the week before he died. Said the clasp needed fixing.”
She placed it on the desk.
“I found the case with some of his work things. I thought perhaps there was something you could recognize.”
Beneath the watch was a folded catering claim ticket.
The paper had yellowed along the edges.
A date was printed at the top.
The date of my engagement party.
Under it were the words:
PRIVATE DESSERT SERVICE — TABLE 12.
I remembered Table Twelve.
It was the private dining table reserved for Olivia and me.
My chest tightened.
Rachel watched my expression.
“What does it mean?”
“I don't know yet.”
Later that afternoon, Ruth found the archived catering expense report from that engagement party.
Daniel Bennett's name appeared on the employee roster.
But there was another document.
A disciplinary report filed three days after his death.
It accused Daniel of stealing $186,000 through fraudulent banquet charges.
The report stated that the accusation had been reviewed and approved by executive management.
I turned to the final page.
My signature appeared at the bottom.
Gabriel Moretti.
For several seconds, I couldn't breathe.
Rachel was standing beside me.
She read the accusation.
Then she looked at my face.
“My husband died,” she whispered, “and your company called him a thief?”
I wanted to tell her it wasn't true.
That I had never known.
That someone must have deceived me.
But the signature was mine.
May you like
And Rachel asked the question I deserved.
“Mr. Moretti, did you help them bury what happened to my husband?”
