Chapter 8 - THE LAST LIE ABOUT ELENA ROSSI
“Did you sign this because you trusted Victor, or because you didn't want to be bothered?”
I asked Gabriel the question while he was still holding the maintenance order.
He looked at me.
For the first time since the shooting, he seemed unsure whether I would ever look at him the same way again.
“Both,” he answered.
The honesty hurt.
“I believed the security system would protect my family,” he continued. “Victor brought me the papers. I signed them without checking the specifications.”
“And Elena?”
“She told me she didn't like people controlling where she could go.”
I looked away.
Gabriel's voice lowered.
“She said I was turning our home into a prison. I told her she was being unreasonable.”
For several seconds, I couldn't speak.
The woman had been trying to protect sick children.
Her husband had been trusting the man stealing their medicine.
And the same man had apparently helped install a device that could make her car stop on an isolated road.
“How much did she have to tell you before you listened?” I finally asked.
Gabriel didn't defend himself.
“I don't know.”
His answer was almost worse than an excuse.
Then he said something quietly.
“But I have to live with the answer now.”
That afternoon, Investigator Ward returned with new evidence.
The modification request had been altered after Gabriel signed the original authorization.
The attached installation instructions were dated two days later and carried Victor's handwritten approval.
The remote disabling controller had been registered to the maintenance truck Colin drove on the night of Elena's accident.
“We've obtained historical records from the security equipment provider,” Ward explained. “The controller transmitted an immobilization command near Route 9 shortly before the collision.”
Gabriel gripped the table.
“Can you identify who activated it?”
“The equipment was assigned to Victor's maintenance account. Colin says Victor had physical possession of the controller that night.”
I felt a strange mixture of relief and anger.
Gabriel hadn't ordered Elena's car disabled.
But he had given Victor the authority to make the modifications possible.
That distinction mattered.
So did the responsibility.
“Will this be enough to arrest him?” I asked.
“It's enough for us to seek additional warrants and confront him with the evidence. We're also reviewing the fire investigation.”
Gabriel stood.
“I want to be there.”
Ward shook her head.
“Absolutely not.”
“He killed my wife.”
“We're investigating that possibility. And your presence could compromise everything.”
Gabriel looked ready to argue.
Then Leo appeared in the doorway with Mrs. Gable.
He was holding the drawing he'd made for me.
“Daddy?”
Gabriel turned.
Leo raised the paper.
“Look. I fixed it.”
He had added another figure beneath the yellow sun.
A tall man in a black suit.
Gabriel.
The three figures were holding hands.
I watched Gabriel's face change.
He crossed the room and knelt beside his son.
“That's beautiful, buddy.”
Leo leaned against him.
“Can we go home?”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
“Soon.”
“Will the bad men come?”
“No,” Gabriel said carefully. “We're going to make sure you're safe.”
Leo studied him.
“Promise?”
Gabriel hesitated.
Then he nodded.
“I promise I'll do everything I can.”
It wasn't the kind of grand promise Gabriel once would have made without thinking.
It was better.
It was something he intended to keep.
Later that evening, I told Gabriel about the nursing program I'd applied to months before the shooting.
He looked genuinely surprised.
“You want to be a nurse?”
“I've wanted that since I was seventeen.”
“Why didn't you tell anyone?”
I smiled sadly.
“Who was I supposed to tell? The man who wanted his socks mended?”
Gabriel lowered his eyes.
“I deserved that.”
“I wasn't trying to punish you.”
“I know.”
He sat beside my bed.
“Did you get accepted?”
“Provisionally. I was supposed to finish some paperwork and arrange tuition before winter classes.”
“Let me pay for it.”
I immediately shook my head.
“Gabriel—”
“Clara, you saved my son's life.”
“That doesn't mean you own mine.”
His expression changed.
“I didn't mean it that way.”
“Then don't treat my future like another bill you can settle.”
He sat back.
I could see him struggling.
Not with anger.
With the unfamiliar experience of being unable to solve something by opening his wallet.
Finally, he said, “What would help?”
I looked at him.
“Ask me what I want. And believe the answer.”
He nodded slowly.
“Then what do you want?”
“I want to recover. I want to go to nursing school. I want Leo to feel safe. And I want the truth about Elena, even if it hurts you.”
Gabriel held my gaze.
“You'll have it.”
A week later, I was strong enough to spend several hours out of bed in a wheelchair.
My shoulder still ached constantly.
My back stiffened whenever I sat too long.
Dr. Keene told me rehabilitation would take months.
But I was healing.
The investigation was moving, too.
Several distributors had confirmed purchasing diverted medical supplies from businesses controlled by Victor.
Bank records showed the money passing through accounts he had concealed from Gabriel.
Julia Sloane had given investigators additional financial information, despite her father's attempts to persuade her not to cooperate.
Victor's remaining business accounts were being frozen.
His travel documents had been flagged.
For the first time, the man who had controlled so many lives was losing control of his own.
Then Colin Mercer asked to speak with Investigator Ward again.
He wanted Gabriel present.
He wanted me there, too.
We met in a secure conference room.
Colin looked worse than before.
His eyes were hollow.
His hands shook so badly that he spilled his water.
“I haven't told you everything,” he whispered.
Gabriel went still.
Ward activated the recording equipment.
“Mr. Mercer, you're here voluntarily, with your attorney present. Tell us what you've withheld.”
Colin looked at Gabriel.
“I thought I could live with what I did.”
Gabriel's expression hardened.
“What did you do?”
Colin began crying.
“Victor told me to carry Leo away from the car. I did. But I didn't go as far as I said.”
A horrible silence filled the room.
“I stopped behind the maintenance truck. I could still see the front of the car.”
Gabriel leaned forward.
“Keep talking.”
“Your wife was moving. She was conscious. I saw her trying to open her door.”
My stomach turned.
Colin wiped his face.
“Victor went back to her.”
Gabriel's voice was barely a whisper.
“Did he help?”
Colin shook his head.
“He reached through the window with something in his hand. Then he stepped away.”
“What was it?”
“A small black device. I didn't understand what it was then.”
Ward asked him to describe it.
He did.
His description matched the security controller investigators had traced.
Then Colin looked at Gabriel with absolute misery.
“Your wife was calling for you.”
Gabriel went completely still.
“She kept saying your name.”
I reached for Gabriel's hand beneath the table.
His fingers were ice-cold.
Colin's shoulders shook.
“Victor walked away. I heard Elena scream. Then I saw smoke coming from the front of the car.”
Gabriel rose so suddenly that his chair struck the wall.
Ward stood.
“Mr. Rossi.”
But Gabriel wasn't looking at her.
He was staring at Colin.
“You left her there?”
Colin sobbed.
“I was afraid.”
Gabriel took one step toward him.
Then he stopped.
I saw the rage moving through him.
The temptation to hurt someone.
To become exactly the man everyone feared.
I whispered his name.
“Gabriel.”
He turned.
I shook my head.
“Leo needs you.”
For several terrible seconds, he didn't move.
Then his shoulders dropped.
He sat down.
Colin covered his face.
“I've been hearing her scream for three years.”
Gabriel stared at him.
And when he finally spoke, his voice was almost unrecognizable.
“You're going to tell the jury everything.”
Colin nodded.
Ward stopped the recording.
But before anyone left, Colin reached into his jacket and removed a sealed photograph sleeve.
“I kept this,” he whispered. “I was too ashamed to give it to anyone.”
Inside was a picture taken from the maintenance truck shortly after the crash.
It showed Victor standing beside Elena's smoking car.
In one hand was the black controller.
In the other was a red metal container.
Gabriel stared at it.
Then Ward carefully took the photograph.
The controller explained how the crash had happened.
But the red container raised a second, far more terrible question.
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Had Victor merely abandoned Elena after disabling her car?
Or had he deliberately started the fire that killed her?
