Chapter 2 - THE VOICE OF A DEAD WOMAN
“WHO IS THAT WOMAN, VINCENT?”
Lorenzo DeLuca's voice was so cold that even his security director stepped backward.
On the phone, his younger brother remained silent.
Then the woman's voice came again.
“Lorenzo, don't marry Camille.”
Eight-year-old Olivia grabbed her father's sleeve.
“Daddy, that's Mommy.”
I watched Lorenzo's face change.
Not the expression of a feared mafia boss.
The expression of a husband hearing the voice of a woman he'd buried three years earlier.
“Vincent,” he whispered. “Tell me what's happening.”
His brother finally answered.
“It's a recording, Lorenzo. Isabella isn't alive.”
Olivia's fingers tightened around her father's sleeve.
“But she sounds alive.”
Lorenzo knelt in front of his daughter.
“Sweetheart, remember the videos we watch of Mommy?”
Olivia nodded.
“Sometimes recordings sound like someone is right beside us,” he said. “But that doesn't mean they're here.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Then why is she talking about Camille?”
Lorenzo couldn't answer.
Neither could I.
Vincent spoke again.
“Someone took pieces of Isabella's old recordings and put them together. That message was sent to me this morning.”
“By whom?”
“I don't know.”
“Then why did you say you have the recording from the night she died?”
“Because I do. And somebody knows I have it.”
The room went quiet.
Lorenzo slowly stood.
For three years, everyone in the DeLuca household had believed Isabella died when her car left a service road near the family's Bayport shipping terminal.
Her body had been recovered from the water.
The investigation called it an accident.
Lorenzo had never publicly questioned that finding.
But now his brother was suggesting something else.
“Where are you?” Lorenzo demanded.
“Somewhere Camille's people can't hear me.”
“Camille's people?”
“Check your office, Lorenzo. Those microphones weren't installed just to hear your business meetings.”
The connection ended.
Lorenzo stared at his phone.
His security director, Mateo Rivera, reached toward the four microphones on the desk.
“Sir, we should disconnect everything.”
“No.”
Lorenzo pointed at the green light blinking inside Olivia's white rose.
“Leave that one exactly where it is.”
Mateo frowned.
“They could still be listening.”
“That's why we're leaving it.”
Then Lorenzo turned toward me.
“Sarah, take Olivia to the upstairs sitting room. Stay with her until I send someone.”
I hesitated.
“Sir, shouldn't she be with her nanny?”
“Her nanny was hired through Camille's recommendations.”
He looked toward his daughter.
“Right now, I trust Sarah.”
I took Olivia's hand.
She walked beside me without speaking.
Halfway down the hallway, she stopped.
“Miss Sarah?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Mommy had a blue bracelet. Daddy doesn't know I still have it.”
I crouched beside her.
“What kind of bracelet?”
“One she made for me. It has a little silver heart.”
“That's lovely.”
Olivia shook her head.
“No. There's something inside the heart.”
Before I could ask what she meant, Mateo appeared.
“Sarah. Mr. DeLuca needs you back.”
I brought Olivia to the upstairs sitting room and asked Mrs. Bennett, the elderly housekeeper who had worked for the family for twenty-three years, to stay with her.
Then I returned to Lorenzo's office.
A photograph lay on his desk.
It showed Isabella standing beside a shipping warehouse, wearing a cream-colored coat.
Next to her stood a tall man with gray hair.
I recognized him immediately.
Anton Varga.
He was the director of terminal operations, a man who had worked for the DeLuca family long before Lorenzo inherited control.
He had attended tonight's engagement party.
In fact, I'd served him champagne less than an hour earlier.
“Do you recognize him?” Lorenzo asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you see him speaking to Camille?”
I thought carefully.
“Not tonight. But yesterday, when I was polishing the upstairs corridor, I saw him coming out of Vincent's study.”
Lorenzo exchanged a look with Mateo.
“Was he carrying anything?”
“A long black case. Like something you'd use for camera equipment.”
Mateo opened his tablet.
“We checked the surveillance. Varga visited Vincent yesterday, but the appointment wasn't on the calendar.”
Lorenzo looked at Isabella's photograph.
Then Mateo played another recording.
A man's voice spoke over a low mechanical rumble.
“Make sure she doesn't leave Gate Six.”
A pause followed.
Then another voice answered.
“Understood.”
Lorenzo went completely still.
I recognized the first voice.
So did Mateo.
It sounded exactly like Lorenzo DeLuca.
“That's impossible,” Lorenzo whispered.
Mateo didn't move.
“Sir, the file is dated three years ago. The night your wife died.”
Lorenzo grabbed the edge of his desk.
“Are you telling me somebody recorded my voice ordering my own wife's murder?”
Mateo swallowed.
“I'm telling you that's what the recording sounds like.”
Then he opened the file information.
The audio had been exported six weeks earlier.
Someone had deliberately created a new version of an old recording.
And underneath the file's title was a name.
LORENZO DELUCA — ORIGINAL ORDER.
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But the strangest detail was the name of the person who had last accessed it.
CAMILLE PRESCOTT.
