Chapter 3 - THE BRACELET HIS DAUGHTER KEPT HIDDEN
“CAMILLE HAD THAT RECORDING?”
Lorenzo stared at Mateo's tablet.
For a moment, I thought he was going to storm into the ballroom and confront his fiancée in front of ninety guests.
Instead, he closed the office door.
“Play it again.”
Mateo hesitated.
“Sir—”
“Again.”
The recording filled the room.
“Make sure she doesn't leave Gate Six.”
A mechanical rumble.
“Understood.”
I had spent sixteen months working in that mansion.
I'd heard Lorenzo speak on the telephone, give instructions to employees, and discipline men twice my size without raising his voice.
Something about the recording bothered me.
“Mr. DeLuca?”
He turned.
“Yes, Sarah?”
“When you give an order, you usually say a person's name first.”
His expression changed.
I continued carefully.
“My husband worked in building maintenance. Before he died, he used to record instructions for his crew. Sometimes he'd play them back at home.”
Lorenzo waited.
“The pause between those two voices sounds wrong. Like somebody cut something out.”
Mateo replayed it.
Then again.
Finally, he leaned forward.
“She's right.”
He enlarged the audio waveform.
“There are two different background noise patterns.”
“What does that mean?” Lorenzo asked.
“The first sentence may have been taken from another conversation.”
Lorenzo remembered something.
“Three years ago, there was a safety inspection at Gate Six. I ordered Vincent to keep the inspection team from leaving before the paperwork was finished.”
Mateo searched the archived communications.
After several minutes, he found an old voicemail.
Lorenzo's voice spoke clearly.
“Make sure she doesn't leave Gate Six until the inspection is complete.”
The words were unmistakable.
Someone had removed the end of the sentence.
I felt sick.
The recording wasn't proof that Lorenzo killed his wife.
It was proof that someone wanted the world to believe he had.
“Camille could use this against you,” Mateo said.
Lorenzo stared toward the ballroom.
“Not if I find out who gave it to her first.”
Then I remembered Olivia's bracelet.
“Sir, your daughter mentioned something before I came downstairs.”
Lorenzo looked at me.
“What?”
“She said Isabella gave her a blue bracelet with something hidden inside a silver heart.”
His expression softened.
“Isabella made that bracelet for Olivia's fifth birthday.”
“Olivia said she still has it.”
For the first time that evening, Lorenzo looked genuinely surprised.
“I thought it was lost.”
We went upstairs.
Olivia sat beside Mrs. Bennett, holding an old stuffed rabbit.
When she saw Lorenzo, she stood.
“Daddy, are you mad?”
He looked confused.
“Why would I be mad at you?”
“Because I kept Mommy's bracelet when you told everybody to pack her things away.”
Lorenzo crossed the room and knelt before her.
“Olivia, you can keep anything your mother gave you.”
“Even if it makes you sad?”
His face crumpled.
“Especially then.”
Olivia reached beneath the rabbit's little blue sweater.
She pulled out a faded bracelet.
The silver heart was scratched.
Inside it was a narrow compartment.
Lorenzo opened it carefully.
A folded strip of paper fell into his palm.
There were four characters written in Isabella's handwriting.
G6-214.
Mateo looked over his shoulder.
“Gate Six. Locker 214?”
Lorenzo shook his head.
“There haven't been employee lockers at Gate Six for years.”
But Olivia spoke.
“Mommy said it was our secret number.”
“Did she tell you what it meant?”
Olivia nodded.
“She said if she ever lost something important, I should remember it.”
Lorenzo looked at his daughter's face.
“You've remembered it all this time?”
“It's only four things, Daddy.”
He pulled her close.
I stepped away to give them privacy.
Then Mateo's tablet vibrated.
He read a message from his security team.
“Boss, we traced the catering jacket worn by the man who helped Camille.”
“Who is he?”
“Raymond Pike. Former shipping inspector. Fired three years ago.”
“Why?”
Mateo checked the employment record.
“For reporting missing safety funds at Gate Six.”
Lorenzo went very still.
“Isabella was investigating the same department.”
Mateo nodded.
“And Pike's employee number was 214.”
I looked at the bracelet.
G6-214 wasn't a locker.
It was a person.
Isabella had hidden the identity of a witness inside her daughter's keepsake.
But Mateo wasn't finished.
“There's something else. Pike has been sending written complaints to the terminal board for three years.”
“About what?”
“His dismissal. The missing money. And the investigation into Isabella's death.”
Lorenzo's eyes darkened.
“Why didn't I receive them?”
Mateo looked down.
“Every complaint was marked reviewed and closed.”
“By whom?”
Mateo turned the tablet around.
On the screen was the approval history.
Six complaints.
Six identical signatures.
All belonging to the same person.
VINCENT DELUCA.
Lorenzo stared at his brother's name.
May you like
Then Olivia quietly asked the question nobody else dared to ask.
“Daddy, did Uncle Vincent know what happened to Mommy?”
