Chapter 7 - THE SILVER ROSARY
Eleanor stepped backward.
“No.”
Evelyn tried to reach for her.
Eleanor pulled away.
“You told me my mother died giving birth.”
“I know.”
“You let me call you Aunt Evelyn for sixty-five years.”
“I was seventeen.”
“That explains then.”
Eleanor’s voice broke.
“It does not explain sixty-five years.”
Gabriel said nothing.
Perhaps because, for once, somebody else’s betrayal was bigger than his own.
Evelyn sank onto the edge of the bed.
“My parents sent me away when I became pregnant. Thomas wanted to marry me, but his family refused. Eleanor was raised by my sister.”
Eleanor stared at her.
“And Catherine?”
“Your cousin.”
“So you lied about that too.”
“Yes.”
Eleanor walked to the window.
Anna could see her shoulders trembling.
Lily appeared quietly in the doorway.
She had been coloring downstairs with Rachel.
“Mom?”
Anna moved toward her.
“I’m here.”
Lily looked at Evelyn.
“Is she sad?”
“Yes.”
“Did somebody die?”
Anna crouched.
“No, honey. Sometimes people get sad when they waited too long to say something.”
Lily considered that.
“Then they should say it sooner.”
Evelyn gave a broken laugh.
“Yes, sweetheart.”
Rachel took Lily downstairs again.
Gabriel looked at Evelyn.
“The rosary.”
Evelyn wiped her face.
“Thomas carried a silver rosary everywhere.”
“What does it have to do with Michael?”
“Thomas worked for your grandfather.”
Gabriel went still.
“What did he do?”
“Accounts. Payments. Things nobody wanted written in official books.”
Lauren leaned forward.
“A ledger.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Catherine said she found a payment ledger.”
“Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
“Thomas died in 2002.”
“A year after Michael.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Heart attack.”
Gabriel studied her.
“You don’t believe that anymore.”
“No.”
Eleanor turned from the window.
“Where are his things?”
Evelyn hesitated.
“In the attic.”
They found the rosary inside an old cedar box.
Silver beads.
A small crucifix.
Nothing else.
Gabriel examined it.
Anna noticed one bead was larger.
“May I?”
Evelyn handed it to her.
Anna twisted the bead.
It opened.
Inside was a tiny rolled strip of paper.
Numbers.
Dates.
Initials.
Lauren immediately recognized them.
“Payments.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“To whom?”
She pointed.
“W.H. That could be Walter Hale.”
Another set of initials appeared repeatedly.
A.D.
Anthony DeLuca.
Then another.
V.R.
Gabriel frowned.
“Who is V.R.?”
Nobody knew.
The final line was different.
M.B. — REMOVE — 50,000
Anna felt sick.
Michael Bennett.
Gabriel stared at the handwriting.
“This proves someone paid for his death.”
“Not who,” Lauren said.
Evelyn looked at the dates.
“Thomas wrote this.”
Gabriel turned the paper over.
One sentence appeared on the back.
If I die, ask Anthony who V.R. is. He knows.
Gabriel went downstairs.
Anthony was waiting in the study.
He looked at the rosary and immediately understood.
“Thomas.”
“Who is V.R.?”
Anthony’s face hardened.
“No.”
Gabriel placed the payment strip on the desk.
“Who?”
Anthony looked toward Anna.
“Take your daughter and leave this house.”
Anna’s stomach dropped.
“Why?”
Anthony looked at Gabriel.
“Because if this becomes public, old men will panic.”
Gabriel’s voice went cold.
“I am done with warnings.”
Anthony shut his eyes.
“Vincent Romano.”
Evelyn whispered, “Your father’s consigliere.”
Gabriel nodded slowly.
Vincent Romano had been dead eleven years.
“Why would Romano kill Michael?”
“He didn’t.”
Gabriel stared.
Anthony continued.
“Romano handled payments. He didn’t make decisions.”
“Who did?”
Anthony looked ashamed.
“My father.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“But Catherine said the person was someone I still trusted. Grandfather died when I was twenty.”
“I know.”
“Then it wasn’t him.”
Anthony said nothing.
Gabriel suddenly understood.
“Someone used his system after he died.”
Anthony nodded.
“Romano continued making payments.”
“For whom?”
“I never knew.”
Lauren laughed bitterly.
“You ran the family and never asked?”
“I asked questions when answers were useful.”
“And buried them when they weren’t,” Gabriel said.
Anthony looked at him.
“Yes.”
No excuse.
No defense.
Just truth.
It landed harder.
Anna examined the strip again.
“There’s another mark beside the $50,000.”
A tiny triangle.
Evelyn leaned closer.
“That isn’t a triangle.”
“What is it?”
“A roof.”
Gabriel frowned.
Evelyn looked toward the ceiling.
“The DeLuca crest used to have a roof symbol beneath the lion.”
Anthony shook his head.
“No.”
“What?”
“That mark wasn’t family.”
“Then what?”
Anthony stared at it.
“It was used for household expenses.”
Anna felt the room change.
Household.
Not criminal operations.
Gabriel understood too.
“Someone inside the mansion.”
Anthony nodded.
“Someone who could authorize payments through the house accounts.”
“Who had that authority in 2001?”
Anthony looked at Evelyn.
“Three people.”
“Names.”
“Me.”
Gabriel waited.
“Thomas Hart.”
Evelyn shook her head violently.
“No.”
“And?”
Anthony’s face went pale.
“Margaret Whitmore.”
Lauren stopped breathing.
Anna looked at her.
“Whitmore?”
Lauren whispered, “My grandmother.”
The room went silent.
Gabriel stared at his fiancée.
Lauren looked genuinely horrified.
“My grandmother worked here?”
Anthony nodded.
“She managed the household finances for seventeen years.”
Lauren backed into a chair.
“She told me she worked for a private family.”
“She did.”
“You knew?”
“I recognized your name when Gabriel first brought you home.”
Lauren’s face twisted.
“And you said nothing.”
Anthony looked exhausted.
“That has been the family specialty.”
Gabriel turned toward Lauren.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
She was crying now.
“I swear.”
Anna believed her.
At least about this.
Lauren pressed both hands to her temples.
“My grandmother raised me.”
Evelyn looked stricken.
“Margaret.”
“What?”
Evelyn stood.
“Margaret was at St. Agnes the night Catherine gave birth.”
Anthony stared.
“How do you know?”
“I saw her.”
“You said you weren’t there.”
“I followed you.”
Another old lie.
But this one opened something worse.
Evelyn continued.
“Margaret was carrying a baby blanket when she left.”
Lauren’s face emptied.
“What kind?”
Evelyn thought.
“White. Yellow roses around the edge.”
Lauren suddenly sat down.
Anna moved toward her.
“What is it?”
Lauren whispered, “I have that blanket.”
Gabriel stared.
“My grandmother kept it in a cedar chest.”
Lauren looked up.
“She told me it was mine.”
Nobody spoke.
Lauren was thirty-six.
Too old to be Catherine’s baby.
But the blanket connected Margaret to Isabel.
Lauren covered her mouth.
“My grandmother knew where Isabel went.”
Gabriel’s phone rang.
He ignored it.
It rang again.
Security.
He answered.
“What?”
His expression changed.
“When?”
Anna’s stomach tightened.
Gabriel ended the call.
“Martin Hale just returned to the estate.”
“Where is he?” Anna asked.
Gabriel looked toward the front hall.
“He’s sitting in the dining room.”
“Why?”
“He says he won’t speak anywhere else.”
Lauren frowned.
“Why the dining room?”
Gabriel’s eyes shifted toward the place where she had ordered Anna to kneel.
“Because he says that’s where this started.”
They entered together.
Martin sat alone at the long table.
He looked exhausted.
In front of him lay a small velvet box.
Anna recognized Lily’s handwriting on a folded piece of paper beside it.
Her blood ran cold.
She crossed the room.
“What did you do?”
Martin raised both hands.
“Nothing to Lily.”
“Why is her writing there?”
“She gave it to me.”
Anna unfolded the paper.
It was a child’s simple drawing of the DeLuca mansion.
Lily had apparently drawn it when Martin delivered her inhaler bag.
At one upstairs window, she had drawn a woman.
Anna frowned.
“Who is this?”
Martin answered quietly.
“Ask Lily.”
Gabriel opened the velvet box.
Inside was a silver necklace chain.
No medal.
The chain that matched Catherine’s St. Christopher pendant.
Martin looked at Gabriel.
“I took that from a woman at Cedar Hollow twelve years ago.”
Gabriel’s eyes hardened.
“Catherine?”
May you like
Martin shook his head.
“Your sister.”
