Chapter 3 - WHAT CAMILLE WAS PROTECTING
Gabriel turned.
Camille stood in the doorway.
She was no longer wearing the white engagement gown.
She had changed into gray slacks and a long coat, but her face still carried the careful composure she had worn at dinner.
Except now her hands were trembling.
Gabriel moved between her and Rachel.
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough.”
Rachel closed her fingers around her mother’s medal.
Camille noticed.
Her face tightened.
“So Michael kept it.”
Gabriel’s voice dropped.
“You knew Michael had this?”
Camille stepped inside.
“I knew he had something from Pier Nine.”
“You poured coffee over Rachel because she found it?”
“No.”
Rachel stared at her burned hand.
Camille flinched.
“All right. Yes. I wanted her frightened enough to stop asking questions.”
“You burned her.”
“I panicked.”
“That doesn’t excuse it.”
“I know.”
The simple answer caught Rachel off guard.
Camille looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
Rachel said nothing.
An apology did not erase pain.
But Camille’s face no longer looked cruel.
It looked terrified.
Gabriel shut the door.
“Start talking.”
Camille slowly removed a gold bracelet from her wrist.
She placed it on the dresser.
Rachel had seen it dozens of times.
A delicate antique bracelet with six square links.
Camille pressed the clasp.
One link opened.
Inside was a tiny memory card.
Gabriel stared at it.
“You’ve been carrying that at our engagement party?”
“I’ve been carrying it for eleven months.”
“What’s on it?”
“Copies of Pier Nine records.”
Gabriel’s expression darkened.
“So you were the person scanning files in Room 814.”
“Sometimes.”
“And Michael?”
“Sometimes.”
Rachel looked between them.
“You’re working together?”
Camille nodded.
Gabriel laughed once, without humor.
“My fiancée and my brother have been secretly meeting in hotel rooms to copy my company records.”
“We weren’t having an affair.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“But you thought it.”
Gabriel didn’t answer.
Camille’s eyes filled with exhausted anger.
“Michael contacted me before you proposed.”
That landed harder.
Gabriel stepped back.
“Before?”
“He knew who my father was.”
Rachel frowned.
“Who was your father?”
Camille looked at her.
“Daniel Shaw.”
Gabriel knew the name.
Rachel could see it.
“Who was he?” she asked.
Gabriel answered.
“A foreman at Pier Nine.”
Camille nodded.
“My father lost three men during the pour.”
“But Gabriel said officially nobody died.”
“Exactly.”
She sat down.
“Those seventeen names weren’t people injured in an accident. They were workers and witnesses whose lives were destroyed afterward. Some were threatened. Some lost their jobs. Some were paid to leave Maryland.”
Rachel’s fingers tightened around the medal.
“And my mother?”
Camille looked away.
“That’s the part Michael never told me.”
Gabriel took the memory card.
“What does this prove?”
“Not enough.”
“Then why hide it?”
“Because your father built the company on what happened there.”
“My father is dead.”
“But his partners aren’t.”
Gabriel stared at her.
Camille continued.
“And Saturday’s signature transfers control of Romano Construction’s oldest holding companies into the new family trust.”
“Our marriage trust.”
“Yes.”
Rachel understood first.
“You weren’t marrying Gabriel for his money.”
Camille’s eyes met hers.
“No.”
“You were marrying him for access.”
Camille looked ashamed.
“At first.”
Gabriel’s face became unreadable.
“At first?”
“I did love you.”
“Did?”
“I still do.”
He looked away.
Rachel felt like an intruder.
But Gabriel asked the question anyway.
“Was any part of our engagement real?”
Camille swallowed.
“Yes.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
Gabriel plugged the memory card into a secure laptop.
Folders appeared.
Settlement records.
Inspection reports.
Photographs.
Employee lists.
Then one folder named:
MERCER.
Rachel moved closer.
Inside were scanned invoices from her father’s old carpentry business.
Each showed regular work for Romano Construction throughout 2001.
Then the payments stopped on October 18.
One week later, a new account appeared.
MERCER RESTORATION TRUST — $240,000.
Rachel stared.
“My father took money.”
Camille shook her head.
“Open the next document.”
Gabriel did.
The money had never reached Thomas Mercer.
It had been redirected into a trust bearing Rachel’s name.
Beneficiary:
Rachel Anne Mercer.
Rachel stepped back.
“I’ve never had a trust.”
Gabriel scrolled.
The account had been emptied fifteen years ago.
Authorized withdrawal:
Anthony Romano.
Rachel felt sick.
“My mother dies. My father stays silent. Your father puts money in my name, then takes it back?”
Camille spoke carefully.
“That’s what the documents make it look like.”
“Make it look like?”
“Michael says Pier Nine was designed to make innocent people look guilty.”
Gabriel opened another file.
It contained a handwritten site log.
The final entry was signed by Michael.
10:42 P.M. — STOP POUR. PERSONNEL UNACCOUNTED FOR.
Below it, in different handwriting:
11:05 P.M. — CONTINUE BY EXECUTIVE ORDER. A.R.
Anthony Romano.
Gabriel sat very still.
“My brother tried to stop it.”
Camille nodded.
“That’s why he’s been paying the families.”
For the first time, Rachel saw Gabriel’s anger break into something else.
Grief.
He had believed Michael was stealing from him.
Instead, Michael had spent years quietly repairing damage their father had caused.
“Why not tell me?” Gabriel asked.
Camille answered softly.
“Because Michael didn’t trust what you would choose.”
Gabriel looked at her sharply.
“He thought I’d protect the company?”
“He thought you’d protect your father’s name.”
Gabriel stood.
“He doesn’t know me.”
“He watched you spend fifteen years defending Anthony Romano every time someone called him ruthless.”
“My father raised us.”
“Your father also buried Pier Nine.”
Silence filled the room.
Rachel looked at the files.
“There’s still something missing.”
Both turned toward her.
“The note said Michael tried to stop it. That explains Michael.”
She held up the medal.
“But why did my mother have this hidden with records Michael kept?”
Camille’s face changed.
Rachel saw it.
“You know.”
“No.”
“You do.”
Camille looked toward Gabriel.
“Tell her,” Rachel demanded.
Camille slowly reached for the photograph.
She pointed to the far left edge.
Rachel had barely noticed the woman there because half her body had been cut off by the frame.
Camille enlarged the scanned copy.
Susan Mercer stood beside Anthony Romano.
Not as a worker.
She was wearing an office badge.
Gabriel read the title.
“Compliance auditor.”
Rachel’s heart pounded.
“My mother worked for Romano Construction?”
Camille nodded.
“She was investigating Pier Nine.”
Rachel stared at the woman she remembered only in fragments.
Her mother hadn’t stumbled onto something.
She had been looking for it.
Gabriel opened the final document in the folder.
It was a letter.
Susan’s handwriting.
Rachel recognized it from old birthday cards.
The first line was addressed to Thomas.
The second made Rachel’s knees weaken.
If anything happens to me, do not let Rachel grow up believing Anthony Romano was responsible.
Rachel read it again.
Then again.
Gabriel whispered, “What?”
Rachel scrolled down.
The final paragraph had been partially damaged.
But one sentence remained perfectly clear.
The person who ordered the Pier Nine cover-up was not Anthony.
Below it, Susan had written a single name.
Rachel covered her mouth.
Gabriel stared at the screen.
The name was:
ELEANOR ROMANO.
Gabriel’s mother.
May you like
And she was still alive.
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