Chapter 6 - THE BROTHER WHO WAS ERASED
“Your brother?”
I had worked for Luca Moretti for almost a year.
In that time, I'd dusted family photographs, prepared guest rooms for relatives, and helped Oliver make cards for grandparents who were no longer alive.
I'd never heard anyone mention a brother.
Luca seemed to understand my surprise.
“Gabriel is seven years older than me.”
Daniel looked equally unsettled.
“I didn't know you had a brother, Boss.”
“Most people don't.”
Luca sat in Sofia's armchair.
“When I was twenty-six, my father died. Gabriel and I disagreed about what should happen to the family businesses.”
“Disagreed how?” Detective Hayes asked.
“Gabriel wanted us to abandon everything illegal, including the arrangements our father had made with certain people in the city.”
Luca looked down.
“I thought he was trying to take control.”
“What happened?”
“I forced him out.”
The words were simple.
But they carried twelve years of regret.
“He left Chicago. I never heard from him again.”
Oliver sat on the rug beside me.
He was drawing circles on a blank sheet of paper.
I wondered how much he understood.
Probably more than the adults wanted to believe.
Luca continued.
“Gabriel said our father's death wasn't natural. He believed somebody had been slowly poisoning him.”
Detective Hayes straightened.
“Did he have evidence?”
“Not that he showed me.”
“And you didn't investigate?”
Luca's jaw tightened.
“I was young. Angry. Certain I knew everything.”
He looked toward the watch.
“I told him if he kept spreading stories about our father, he wasn't welcome in the family.”
A heavy silence followed.
Then Oliver lifted his paper.
Two stick figures stood on opposite sides of a crooked house.
Between them was a large black line.
“Mad,” he said.
Luca looked at the drawing.
“Yeah, buddy.”
He swallowed.
“I was mad.”
Oliver placed the paper beside him.
“Not now?”
Luca shook his head.
“No. Not now.”
Detective Hayes asked about the silver identification bands.
Luca explained that Antonio Moretti had commissioned them after a kidnapping attempt against a family associate.
Each member of his trusted inner circle received an item bearing three blue stones.
Different designs.
A bracelet.
A tie pin.
A watch chain.
The pattern represented loyalty.
Or at least, that had been the idea.
I thought about the bracelet Vanessa wore.
“Could Richard have given Sofia's bracelet to Vanessa?”
“Possibly,” Luca said.
“But why pretend it was an heirloom from her mother?”
Nobody answered.
Daniel examined the old photograph.
“The girl with the backpack might be a clue. If this is Grace Russo, why is the bag labeled Lily?”
Luca frowned.
“Anthony's wife died when Grace was little. Maybe the backpack belonged to someone else.”
Detective Hayes made a note.
“We'll ask him.”
But a different thought bothered me.
“Mr. Moretti, how did Oliver recognize Gabriel's coat if he never met him?”
Luca looked at me.
I continued.
“Maybe he did meet him.”
Oliver stopped drawing.
He looked toward the wardrobe.
“Uncle.”
The word seemed to strike Luca physically.
“What did you say?”
Oliver pointed to the black coat.
“Uncle Gabe.”
Luca stood.
“You know Gabriel?”
Oliver nodded.
Luca knelt.
“Buddy, when did you meet him?”
Oliver thought carefully.
“Mommy's room.”
“Was Mommy there?”
The little boy shook his head.
“Red lady.”
My heart tightened.
Vanessa.
“Did Vanessa bring Uncle Gabe here?” I asked.
Oliver nodded again.
Luca looked stunned.
His estranged brother had entered his house.
Had seen his son.
Had apparently been brought there by the woman Luca intended to marry.
And nobody had told him.
Detective Hayes requested another interview with Vanessa.
This time, Vanessa didn't deny it.
“Gabriel contacted me last spring,” she admitted.
Luca stood across the room.
“Why?”
“He said he had proof your father had been betrayed.”
“Why contact you?”
“Because he knew you wouldn't listen to him.”
Luca looked away.
Vanessa continued.
“Gabriel wanted access to Sofia's belongings. He believed she had hidden evidence before she died.”
“And you helped him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
For once, Vanessa didn't immediately defend herself.
She looked tired.
“Because I wanted to know whether my father was lying to me.”
That answer surprised everyone.
Vanessa wiped her eyes.
“I grew up believing my father saved children. I spent my entire adult life raising money for his foundation.”
Her voice cracked.
“When Gabriel showed me irregular accounts, I told him they had to be mistakes.”
“And were they?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Then why did you help Richard?”
“Because he threatened to destroy my mother's foundation and take everything with it.”
Detective Hayes watched her carefully.
“You understood children could lose treatment funding?”
Vanessa nodded.
“He said hundreds of families depended on us.”
I thought about my mother.
Her rehabilitation appointments.
The bills stacked beside our kitchen telephone.
How easy it was to frighten someone who had something precious to lose.
But Vanessa had made choices.
And Oliver had paid for them.
“You could have told somebody,” I said.
Vanessa looked at me.
Her old contempt flickered.
Then disappeared.
“I know.”
It was the first time she'd answered me without an insult.
Luca crossed his arms.
“Where is Gabriel now?”
Vanessa hesitated.
“I haven't spoken to him in weeks.”
“Where did you last see him?”
“At Harbor House.”
Detective Hayes leaned forward.
“What happened there?”
Vanessa began twisting the tissue.
“He said he'd found a witness to something that happened twelve years ago.”
“What witness?”
Vanessa's eyes moved toward me.
I felt suddenly uncomfortable.
“Why are you looking at Emily?” Luca asked.
Vanessa swallowed.
“Because Gabriel told me the witness was a woman who worked for the Moretti family.”
I stared at her.
“I've only worked here eleven months.”
“He didn't mean you.”
“Then who?”
Vanessa whispered a name.
“Margaret Carter.”
My entire body went cold.
Margaret Carter.
My mother.
The woman whose medical bills I was struggling to pay.
The woman who had spent most of her adult life cleaning office buildings.
I gripped the back of a chair.
“My mother never worked for this family.”
Vanessa looked at me with something close to pity.
“Emily, your mother worked for Antonio Moretti for nine years.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
“She cleaned his private office.”
My breath caught.
May you like
Then Vanessa said the words that changed everything.
“AND SHE WAS THE LAST EMPLOYEE TO SEE HIM ALIVE.”
