Chapter 4 - The Man at the Park
Anna did not sleep.
At three in the morning, Lily was finally curled beneath a quilt in a guest room with Rosie under her chin and Teresa in the armchair beside her.
Dominic had doubled security.
Carlo had gone to pull camera footage from the elementary school and the park across the street.
Anna stood alone in the mansion kitchen staring at a cup of coffee she had forgotten to drink.
“You’re going to crack the mug.”
Dominic’s voice came from the doorway.
She loosened her grip.
“Go away.”
“No.”
“You really struggle with that word.”
“Only when it’s a bad idea.”
He crossed the kitchen and poured coffee for himself.
Without the ballroom crowd around him, without his jacket, he looked less like the man from newspaper photographs and more like somebody who had not slept properly in years.
Anna hated noticing that.
“My daughter met your dead brother.”
“Apparently.”
“And you’re calm.”
“I’m not calm.”
“You look calm.”
“That’s because when I’m not calm, people get nervous.”
“I’m already nervous.”
“Then I’m failing.”
She gave him a tired, unwilling laugh.
It vanished quickly.
“What kind of mother doesn’t know a strange man talked to her child?”
Dominic set down his cup.
“The kind working two jobs.”
“That doesn’t excuse it.”
“No. It explains it.”
“I should have known.”
“You can know everything your child tells you. You cannot know everything she’s afraid to tell you.”
Anna looked at him.
“That sounded practiced.”
For the first time, Dominic looked away.
“My brother used to tell me things when we were kids,” he said. “Then I became the head of the family, and everyone decided telling me the truth was dangerous.”
“Was it?”
“Sometimes.”
A short time later, Carlo returned.
They watched the school footage together.
A winter afternoon.
Children poured from the gates.
Lily appeared in a purple coat.
A man sat on a bench across the path.
His hood was up.
He watched Lily for nearly four minutes before she noticed him.
Then he stood.
Lily walked toward him.
The man crouched.
Even from behind, Dominic recognized the movement.
The left knee turned outward slightly.
Michael’s old injury.
Anna whispered, “Oh my God.”
On screen, the man touched Lily’s cheek.
Then he covered his face.
He was crying.
Lily reached into her backpack and gave him something.
Carlo enlarged the image.
A red paper heart.
The man tucked it inside his coat.
Before leaving, he pointed toward the school, then put one finger to his lips.
The footage ended.
Dominic stood motionless.
Carlo said, “Height is right. Gait is close.”
Anna turned to Dominic.
“If Michael is alive, why didn’t he come to you?”
“Because he believed I was part of whatever Noah discovered. Or because someone convinced him I was.”
“You want it to be Victor.”
“Yes.”
The answer came immediately.
“Why?”
“Because if it isn’t Victor, it’s somebody I trust more.”
By morning, Dominic and Anna drove to the coordinates.
They left Lily safely with Teresa.
The abandoned summer camp stood against gray water and bare trees.
Inside the lodge, dust covered everything except a narrow path across the floor.
Someone had been there recently.
Upstairs, they found a bedroom.
Photographs covered one wall.
Dominic.
Anna.
Lily walking to school.
Victor entering Bellamy.
Carlo leaving a restaurant.
Teresa buying groceries.
At the center was a photograph of Noah Carter.
Alive.
Older.
Thinner.
A beard covering half his face.
The date was six months ago.
Anna stopped breathing.
Her fingers touched the picture.
“Noah.”
Dominic moved closer.
The photograph had been taken outside a medical clinic in Wisconsin.
Anna’s knees weakened.
“He’s alive.”
A voice behind them said, “Maybe.”
Dominic turned instantly.
A man stood in the doorway with a pistol aimed at the floor.
Hood down.
Hair longer than in the family photograph.
Face leaner.
A scar crossing one eyebrow.
But it was him.
Michael Moretti.
Dominic did not move.
Neither did Michael.
For a long moment, the brothers simply stared at one another across three years of grief.
Dominic’s voice was almost unrecognizable.
“You’re dead.”
Michael’s eyes filled but stayed hard.
“That was the idea.”
Anna crossed the room before anyone could stop her and slapped him.
The sound cracked through the cabin.
Michael did not defend himself.
“Three years,” she said. “My daughter has cried for him for three years. Tell me where Noah is.”
Michael swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
Anna raised her hand again.
Dominic gently caught her wrist.
She spun on him.
“Let go.”
He did.
Michael lowered the pistol.
“I know he survived the car. I know Victor’s people moved him. I found the clinic six months ago, but Noah was gone by the time I got there.”
Dominic’s face became stone.
“You knew Victor was involved?”
“I knew someone was. I didn’t know if you were too.”
Dominic flinched.
Michael continued.
“Noah found money moving through the children’s foundation into shell companies tied to men you specifically banned from working with us. He came to me. We were going to show you.”
“What happened?”
“Victor found out first.”
Anna stared at him.
“Why fake your death?”
Michael’s laugh was bitter.
“I didn’t.”
Silence.
“He tried to kill me. I woke up in a motel bathroom two days later with enough heroin in the room to bury my name forever. The news said I was dead before I even knew where I was.”
Dominic went pale.
“They identified a body.”
“Not mine.”
“DNA—”
“Was bought.”
Then Michael removed a small brass key from inside his coat.
Anna stared.
“That was in my apartment.”
“I took it.”
“You broke into my home?”
“After Victor’s man left. He tore the place apart. I found the key afterward.”
He held it toward her.
“Noah gave this to you because he knew only you would recognize what it opens.”
“I don’t.”
“You do.”
Michael turned it over.
A tiny red enamel heart was etched into the key.
Anna remembered.
Noah’s grandmother’s old music store.
The basement.
A row of antique cabinets.
One cabinet had a red heart painted inside.
“The piano room,” she whispered.
Michael nodded.
Dominic looked between them.
“What’s there?”
Michael’s face hardened.
“The reason Victor was willing to kill two men.”
Glass shattered downstairs.
Dominic pushed Anna down as a bullet tore through the bedroom wall.
Michael killed the light.
Footsteps thundered toward the stairs.
May you like
And from somewhere outside, a man shouted the one thing that made Anna’s blood turn cold.
“We have the girl.”
