Chapter 6 - THE LOCKER
The key opened a locker in the oldest rehabilitation building on my campus.
Massimo insisted on coming.
“You can barely walk ten feet.”
“I own cars.”
“You also own a wheelchair.”
“I hate you.”
“No, you don't.”
His eyes held mine.
“No,” he said quietly. “I don't.”
I looked away first.
We went after closing hours with Vittorio and one security man.
No guns visible.
My condition.
Massimo had called that adorable.
I had threatened to leave him in the parking lot.
Locker 317 sat at the end of a corridor I had walked hundreds of times.
That bothered me most.
The mystery wasn't somewhere in Massimo's criminal world anymore.
It had been beside my classrooms.
Inside were four objects.
A rosary.
A flash drive.
A child's blue notebook.
And an envelope addressed to:
MASSIMO
His hand shook as he took it.
Inside was a single page in Elena's handwriting.
Massimo read silently.
Then handed it to me.
Elena had discovered the charity was being used to wash money and pay people inside Pascale businesses.
But that wasn't why she ran.
Leo had accidentally taken a photograph at a charity event.
In the background stood Antonio Pascale.
A supposedly vanished man.
Beside him was Dr. Rinaldi.
And beside Rinaldi—
Camila.
My friend.
The woman who had brought me this job.
My knees went weak.
“No.”
Massimo took the page.
“You said Camila is an attorney.”
“She is.”
“For whom?”
“She doesn't tell me every client.”
Vittorio plugged the flash drive into an offline laptop.
Most files were encrypted.
One wasn't.
The photograph.
Leo stood in the foreground holding a paper plate.
Behind him, slightly blurred, three adults spoke near a service entrance.
Rinaldi.
An older man who resembled Massimo around the eyes.
And Camila.
My chest tightened.
“She knew Antonio.”
Massimo looked at me.
“We don't know why.”
That was what I'd been telling him for weeks.
Motive mattered.
Now he was giving that mercy back to me.
The blue notebook belonged to Leo.
Most pages contained spelling exercises and drawings.
Then we found one sentence repeated three times.
Mr. Tony took Mommy's phone.
Tony.
Antonio.
Another page showed a silver watch.
Beside it, Leo had written:
Bad uncle has Grandpa's clock.
Massimo closed his eyes.
The child had recognized the family heirloom.
That was what Vittorio meant when he said Leo saw something he shouldn't have.
Not a murder.
Not a suitcase of cash.
A watch.
Something innocent enough for a child to notice and dangerous enough to prove Antonio had returned.
“Where's Leo now?” I asked.
Nobody answered.
That terrified me.
Massimo immediately called Teresa.
Leo's aunt had moved twice since the accident.
No forwarding address.
But the rosary gave us another direction.
On its small metal cross were engraved initials.
S.B.C.
I recognized them.
Saint Bridget's Children's Center.
A rehabilitation charity clinic in Cambridge.
The same organization administering my scholarship.
The next morning, Massimo did something reckless.
He walked into Saint Bridget's.
Not far.
Eight steps from his wheelchair to the reception desk.
But he walked.
Everyone stared.
He didn't care.
I did.
Not because of the attention.
Because his left foot dragged on step seven.
“Sit.”
“One more.”
“Massimo.”
He took the ninth step.
His knee gave.
I caught him around the waist.
His forehead rested briefly against mine.
“Still too small,” he whispered.
“Still obnoxious.”
His hand remained at my back a second too long.
Then a woman's voice behind us said, “Tessa?”
Camila.
I turned.
She looked from me to Massimo.
Then to the blue notebook in my hand.
Her face changed.
“You found the locker.”
Betrayal hit differently when it wore the face of someone who had bought you coffee after exams.
“You knew.”
Camila closed her office door.
“Yes.”
“You put me in that house.”
“Yes.”
“Did Antonio tell you to?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because Elena did.”
Massimo stood so quickly I reached for him.
“What?”
Camila's eyes filled.
“Elena came to me six weeks before the crash.”
She was Elena's attorney.
Not Antonio's.
Elena had discovered the laundering operation and needed someone outside the Pascale organization.
Camila helped her collect evidence.
“Why didn't you tell me?” I demanded.
“Because Elena disappeared before she could authorize me to release privileged material, and then Antonio started watching everyone connected to the charity.”
“So you sent me into Massimo's house?”
“I recommended you because I trusted you.”
“You used my debt.”
“I knew you'd say yes.”
“That isn't better.”
“No.”
Camila didn't defend herself.
“I was wrong.”
That mattered.
Not enough.
But it mattered.
Massimo's voice was colder.
“Where's Leo?”
Camila looked at him.
“Safe.”
The word detonated inside the room.
“You know?”
“Elena made me promise.”
Massimo moved toward her.
I stepped between them.
He stopped instantly.
That told Camila more about us than I wanted.
“Elena believed someone inside your family would use Leo to control her,” Camila said.
“Who?”
“She didn't know.”
“Antonio?”
“She feared Antonio. But she feared someone else more.”
“Who?”
Camila opened a locked cabinet.
From it she removed a photograph.
Elena and Leo stood outside a small coastal house.
The photograph had been taken after the accident.
Massimo sat down.
His face emptied.
“She was alive.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three weeks after the crash.”
“You saw her?”
“No. This arrived by mail.”
On the back Elena had written:
He must walk before he learns the rest.
Massimo's grief became anger.
“She knew I was alive. She knew I was paralyzed.”
“Yes.”
“And she stayed away.”
Camila's voice softened.
“She believed coming back would get Leo killed.”
Massimo looked at the photograph for a long time.
Then something caught my eye.
The window behind Elena reflected the photographer.
A man.
Tall.
Silver hair.
I brought the picture closer.
Massimo saw him too.
His entire body stiffened.
“No.”
“What?”
He took the photograph from me.
The reflected man's face was indistinct.
But the ring on his hand wasn't.
A heavy black signet ring bearing the Pascale crest.
Massimo whispered, “That belonged to my father.”
Vittorio had said their father died six years ago.
Massimo turned the photograph over again.
Then he noticed the date stamped along the edge.
Three weeks after his accident.
His voice dropped to almost nothing.
“If Antonio has Father's watch…”
May you like
He looked at the reflected ring.
“…then who has Father's ring?”
