Chapter 5 - THE NIGHT THE ORSINI FAMILY BEGAN TO FALL
“If my father dies, I will never forgive you.”
Nell's words struck Carmine harder than any threat he had ever received.
They were standing inside the ruined bakery, surrounded by documents that connected his family to the tragedy that had destroyed hers.
Carmine wanted to defend himself.
He wanted to explain that eight years earlier he had been twenty-five, following instructions from a father he trusted without question.
But none of that changed what he had admitted.
He had gone to Fontaine's Bakery on the night Rosa died.
He had delivered a warning.
And he had left without making sure she was safe.
“Get the car,” Carmine told Benny.
Nell rushed past them.
She carried her mother's biscuit tin against her chest as though it were the only thing holding her together.
At St. Louis Memorial Hospital, they were met by a frightened security supervisor.
“Mr. Orsini, I apologize. We believed the man was a hospital orderly.”
“What man?” Carmine asked.
“He had identification. He said he was transporting Mr. Fontaine for additional testing.”
Nell stepped forward.
“My father wasn't scheduled for testing.”
“We discovered that afterward.”
“Then where is he?”
The supervisor lowered his eyes.
“We're reviewing the cameras.”
Nell felt something inside her break.
She had spent years protecting her father from bill collectors, care facilities, and people who treated his illness as an inconvenience.
She had finally found someone powerful enough to help.
And now Emmett was gone.
Again.
Carmine turned toward Benny.
“Check every exit.”
Benny nodded.
“And every security recording from the past two hours.”
A physician approached.
“Miss Brisco, we should also tell you that your father's room wasn't searched randomly.”
Nell looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“The person who entered knew exactly which drawers to open. His suitcase was emptied, but his clothing was barely disturbed.”
Carmine frowned.
“What was taken?”
“We haven't established that.”
Nell closed her eyes.
Then she remembered.
Before the transfer, she had placed the pastries from her father's bedside table into his small canvas bag.
Beneath them was a faded cookbook.
The cookbook he had carried since the bakery fire.
“The book,” she whispered.
Carmine looked toward her.
“What book?”
“My father's old recipe book. It has a blue cover.”
Benny returned almost immediately.
“Boss, we found something.”
He showed Carmine a security photograph.
A woman in a dark coat was guiding Emmett through a service corridor.
Her face was partially hidden.
But Nell recognized her.
“Odette?”
Carmine stared at the photograph.
The woman who had managed his grandmother's household for twenty-two years was helping a vulnerable man disappear from a hospital.
“Find her,” he said.
Odette answered Carmine's call on the third ring.
“Mr. Orsini.”
“Where is Emmett Fontaine?”
There was a pause.
Then she said, “Somewhere Mr. Voss cannot reach him.”
Carmine's expression darkened.
“Are you telling me you took him?”
“Yes.”
“Without telling his daughter?”
“I tried. Her telephone was switched off.”
Nell checked her pocket.
Her phone had died inside the bakery.
“Where is he?” she demanded.
Odette heard her voice.
“Miss Brisco, please listen carefully. Someone entered the hospital wearing an orderly's uniform. I recognized him from Mr. Voss's office. I reached your father first and took him through another corridor. The room was searched after we left.”
“Why were you at the hospital?” Carmine asked.
“Because I knew Voss would come for the blue book once Nell found the key.”
Carmine looked at Nell.
“Where are you?”
“St. Agnes Chapel. The small one behind the hospital.”
They hurried across the courtyard.
Inside the chapel, Emmett Fontaine sat on a wooden bench beneath a stained-glass window.
He was frightened but unharmed.
His faded blue cookbook rested on his lap.
Nell ran to him.
“Papa!”
She wrapped her arms around him.
Emmett looked confused for several seconds.
Then he touched her hair.
“My little girl,” he whispered.
Nell began crying.
She could not remember the last time he had said those words.
Odette stood nearby, her expression exhausted.
“I should have told you everything years ago.”
Nell pulled away from her father.
“Then tell me now.”
Odette looked toward Carmine.
“Eight years ago, Rosa Fontaine came to the Orsini estate carrying documents. She believed Conrad Bellarose and Lawrence Voss had stolen money intended for families rebuilding after the hurricane.”
Carmine crossed his arms.
“Grandma told me about the fund.”
“She didn't know everything.”
“Then explain.”
Odette took a breath.
“Mr. Salvatore discovered that Voss had been using his signature on documents he never approved. He confronted him. Voss threatened to expose old Orsini business dealings unless Salvatore agreed to keep quiet.”
Carmine stared.
“Why didn't my father go to the police?”
“Because Voss possessed evidence of crimes unrelated to the fund. Your father believed cooperating would expose you to retaliation.”
Carmine's expression hardened.
“My father made a bargain with a thief.”
“Yes.”
“And Rosa?”
“She refused to accept it. She wanted the stolen money returned.”
Nell looked at her father's hands.
“What happened the night she died?”
Odette hesitated.
“Salvatore arranged for Rosa to receive copies of the altered accounts. He wanted her to take them to an honest investigator. But someone discovered the meeting.”
“Bellarose?” Carmine asked.
“We suspected him.”
“And you never told anyone?”
“I was told that if I did, the rest of the Fontaine family would be next.”
Nell felt anger rising.
“You knew who I was when you hired me.”
Odette lowered her head.
“Yes.”
“You watched me scrub floors for three years.”
“I kept you employed because Voss was searching for Eleanor Fontaine. I thought this house was the one place where I could protect you without drawing attention.”
“You could have told me.”
“I was afraid you would go after him.”
“You should have trusted me enough to decide for myself.”
Odette accepted the accusation without defending herself.
“I know.”
Emmett suddenly reached toward Carmine.
“Your father,” he said.
Everyone became silent.
Emmett studied Carmine's face.
“Salvatore came back.”
Nell leaned closer.
“Papa?”
“He came back for Rosa.”
Carmine crouched beside the bench.
“Mr. Fontaine, can you tell me what happened?”
Emmett's breathing shortened.
“Smoke everywhere. The back door wouldn't open.”
“Who locked it?”
Emmett frowned.
“The man with the keys.”
“What man?”
“He wore a silver ring.”
Nell exchanged a look with Carmine.
Martin Keene.
The same man who had tried to move Emmett from St. Catherine's.
But Martin had been much younger eight years earlier.
“Was it Martin?” Nell asked.
Emmett shook his head.
“No. Older. He had gray hair.”
Carmine's face went cold.
“Voss.”
Emmett stared.
Then he nodded once.
Carmine pressed a hand against the bench.
“What happened to my father?”
“He broke a window. Climbed inside. I heard Rosa screaming.”
Emmett's voice faltered.
“Salvatore pulled me out. Then he went back for her.”
Nell covered her mouth.
All these years, she had believed Salvatore had abandoned her mother to die.
But he had tried to save her.
“Did he find her?” she whispered.
Emmett's eyes filled.
“He came out alone.”
Carmine lowered his head.
For years, Salvatore had never explained the scars on his hands.
He had claimed they came from a warehouse accident.
Now Carmine understood.
His father had carried the shame of failing to save a friend.
But another question remained.
“If my father tried to save Rosa,” Carmine asked, “why does a document say I authorized the building's security shutdown?”
Odette looked surprised.
“What document?”
Carmine showed her the notation from the biscuit tin.
Odette studied it.
Her face drained of color.
“Mr. Orsini, did your father ever ask you to sign a routine maintenance order that December?”
Carmine remembered immediately.
A stack of forms.
An evening before Christmas.
His father telling him that one document concerned a temporary shutdown of an unused building's alarm system.
Carmine had signed it without reading the attached location schedule.
His stomach tightened.
“I signed a maintenance authorization.”
Odette stared at him.
“That's how they disabled the alarm at Fontaine's Bakery.”
Silence swallowed the chapel.
Nell stepped away.
“You signed the order?”
“I didn't know what it was being used for.”
“But you signed it.”
“Yes.”
Nell looked at the floor.
Carmine could have lied.
He could have blamed his father, Voss, or the people who prepared the paperwork.
Instead, he stood before the daughter of the woman who died and admitted his part.
“I was careless,” he said. “And someone used that carelessness to hurt your family.”
Nell wiped her eyes.
“I don't know whether I can ever forgive you.”
“I won't ask you to.”
Emmett closed the cookbook.
His attention had drifted again.
But then he whispered, “Rosa kept a second book.”
Nell knelt beside him.
“Where?”
He tapped the blue cover.
“Not the recipes.”
“Papa, please.”
Emmett looked at the stained-glass window.
“The children,” he said. “She said the children would keep it safe.”
Before Nell could ask more, Carmine's phone rang.
It was the estate security chief.
“Boss, you need to come home.”
“Why?”
“The house was breached. Two guards are injured.”
Carmine stood.
“Where's my grandmother?”
A long silence followed.
“Sir, Mrs. Palmira Orsini is missing.”
Carmine's expression turned deadly.
Then his phone vibrated with an incoming photograph.
Palmira sat tied to a chair in an unfamiliar room.
A handwritten message had been placed against her chest.
BRING THE ORIGINAL BLUE LEDGER, OR THE OLD WOMAN DIES.
May you like
Underneath was another sentence.
THIS TIME, CARMINE, YOU DON'T GET TO WALK AWAY FROM THE FIRE.
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