Chapter 8 - WHAT ELENA WAS REALLY HIDING
Claire’s house smelled of lavender and old paper.
No expensive art.
No hidden fortune.
Nothing about the place suggested a woman who had sold information for $200,000.
She placed a metal cash box on the dining table.
Inside were canceled checks.
Every month for almost two years, Claire had sent money to a nonprofit organization called Harbor House.
Becca scanned the receipts.
“Domestic violence shelter.”
Claire nodded.
“The bonus appeared in my account the morning after Elena died.”
“You kept it?” Valentino asked.
“I was terrified.”
Thomas folded his arms.
“That doesn’t answer him.”
Claire’s gaze hardened.
“I kept it for six days. Then I moved every cent into a separate account and started returning it where Elena wanted money to go.”
“Why not report it?”
“To whom? The signature belonged to Valentino. The transfer came through Adrian’s department. Marco’s security credentials had accessed my calendar. Every road led back to somebody powerful.”
Becca understood.
“That was the point.”
“Yes.”
Claire looked at Valentino.
“Whoever built the system made everybody look guilty.”
“What crime was Elena investigating?”
Claire hesitated.
“Not the accident.”
“We know.”
“Not your daughters either.”
Valentino’s expression tightened.
Claire continued.
“She found a list of women whose addresses had been accessed through one of your private-security vendors. Former employees. Ex-spouses. Witnesses in civil disputes.”
Valentino went still.
“Why?”
“Someone was selling private information.”
Adrian frowned.
“That would explain the payments.”
“No,” Claire said. “Elena thought so too.”
She opened another folder.
“They weren’t selling the information.”
The list contained twenty-seven names.
Beside each was a date.
Becca studied them.
“What happened on those dates?”
Claire looked at her.
“The women were moved.”
“Kidnapped?”
“No.”
Claire shook her head.
“Protected.”
Everyone fell silent.
“Elena discovered someone was secretly using Duca resources to relocate women escaping violent homes.”
Valentino stared at her.
“That’s the crime?”
“It was unauthorized. Vehicles, apartments, false payroll entries. But no, that wasn’t what frightened Elena.”
“Then what did?”
“One of the women never reached safety.”
Claire slid forward a photograph.
A woman in her thirties stood beside a teenage boy.
Becca felt something strange.
The boy looked familiar.
Not his face.
His eyes.
“Elena realized somebody had learned about the secret relocation network and begun exploiting it.”
“Snake,” Valentino said.
“Yes.”
“Who was the woman?”
“Rachel Pike.”
Marco inhaled.
“Daniel Pike’s wife.”
Valentino stared.
His former chief of staff.
Rachel had allegedly moved away years earlier.
Daniel later retired to Arizona.
Except perhaps neither story was true.
Claire continued.
“Rachel was supposed to be relocated with her son. She vanished before transport. Elena believed Daniel was involved.”
“In hurting his own wife?” Becca asked.
Claire shook her head.
“In protecting her.”
Another reversal.
“Then who was she running from?”
Claire looked at Valentino.
“Raffaele Conti.”
Valentino’s face darkened.
“But Raffaele was ill.”
“He was still powerful.”
The room settled into uncomfortable clarity.
Raffaele had not been Snake.
He had created the conditions Snake exploited.
Years earlier, he had used family information to pressure people.
When Valentino moved the businesses toward legitimacy, someone else kept the old machinery alive.
Snake.
“Who?” Valentino asked.
Claire’s eyes filled.
“Elena knew by the end.”
“Tell me.”
“I never heard the name.”
Thomas stood angrily.
“You expect us to believe that?”
Claire pointed toward the triplets outside.
“Elena refused to say it aloud once she realized the girls had heard too much.”
Becca thought of the girls’ silence.
Two years.
Not inability.
Protection.
They had learned that names were dangerous.
Claire handed Valentino another object.
A child’s ticket stub.
Bronx Zoo.
Snake House exhibit.
Valentino frowned.
“Elena took the girls there the week before she died.”
“Yes. She was trying to teach them something without saying a name.”
Becca turned the stub over.
Three letters:
D.P.
Daniel Pike.
“Daniel was Snake?” Thomas asked.
Claire shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
“But the initials—”
“Could mean she wanted to see him.”
Marco checked old records.
Daniel Pike had not moved to Arizona.
His employment ended eighteen months ago, but property records showed a small repair shop in New Jersey registered to his brother.
They found Daniel there.
He was fifty-one.
Gray-haired.
Grease beneath his nails.
When Valentino entered, Daniel did not look surprised.
“You took longer than Elena expected.”
Valentino’s patience finally broke.
He shoved the zoo ticket onto the workbench.
“Were you Snake?”
Daniel looked at it.
Then laughed once without humor.
“No.”
“Did Elena believe you were?”
“For about a week.”
“Who was?”
Daniel’s face changed.
“You have the girls with you?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Becca stepped forward.
“You’re afraid of somebody who has been hidden for two years. Hiding hasn’t protected anyone.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You must be Becca.”
Her skin went cold.
“How do you know my name?”
“Elena mentioned you.”
“That’s impossible. I never met her.”
Daniel reached beneath his workbench.
Marco tensed.
Daniel removed a folder.
Inside was a college brochure.
Becca’s university.
Her special education department.
Her name had been circled.
She stopped breathing.
Daniel spoke softly.
“Elena spent months looking for someone outside Valentino’s world. Someone trained to work with traumatized children.”
Valentino stared at Becca.
“She chose you?”
“Not exactly,” Daniel said.
“Elena built a shortlist. Becca was on it because of her volunteer work with foster children.”
Becca felt suddenly unsteady.
“My brother.”
Daniel looked at her with terrible sympathy.
“Your brother is why Elena noticed you.”
She gripped the table.
“What does Owen have to do with this?”
Daniel turned over the last photograph.
A fifteen-year-old boy stood beside Rachel Pike.
Older now than when Becca had last seen him.
But unmistakable.
Her brother.
Owen Angelo.
Becca could not breathe.
“He wasn’t lost in the foster system,” Daniel said.
“He was moved through Elena’s protection network.”
Tears blurred her vision.
“Where is he?”
Daniel looked toward Valentino.
“That’s what Elena was trying to tell you the night she died.”
Valentino’s voice dropped.
“Tell me.”
Daniel swallowed.
“Snake found the relocation network through someone Becca trusted.”
Becca stared at him.
“Who?”
May you like
Daniel answered with one sentence that shattered the room.
“Your mother.”
