Chapter 9 - BLOOD IS NOT LOYALTY|
Gideon did not speak for several seconds.
Salvatore Ferraro had been dead for eight years. He had been his father's younger brother, a polished businessman who attended charity dinners and donated to hospitals. At family gatherings, he had been the one who told Gideon to keep his temper, respect the old ways, and never forget the people who had built the Ferraro name.
He had also been the man who took over the family businesses after Gideon's brother died.
“You're certain?” Gideon asked.
Isabella nodded.
“I heard him arguing with your brother. He said the records belonged to the family. Your brother told him they belonged to the truth.”
Camille looked between them.
“If Salvatore was responsible, who is still protecting him?”
Isabella's expression grew frightened.
“His son.”
Gideon straightened.
“Adrian?”
“He has the ledger now. Or he knows where it is.”
Gideon turned away.
Adrian Ferraro had been his cousin, his closest companion in childhood, and the man who had stood beside him at his father's funeral. He had been managing several legitimate Ferraro businesses since Salvatore's death.
If Isabella was telling the truth, the betrayal had never ended.
Camille looked at the old woman.
“Why did you stay hidden?”
“Because they told me Gideon would be killed if I spoke. They showed me photographs of him outside his home. They knew where he slept. They knew where he went.”
Gideon lowered his head.
“I should have found you.”
Isabella touched his sleeve.
“You found her.”
She looked at Camille.
“Your father believed you would finish what he started.”
Camille shook her head.
“I don't know how to do that.”
“You already began. You recognized the forgery when three experts could not.”
“That was a document.”
“And this is another one. Only now the handwriting belongs to people.”
They left St. Agnes with the director's promise that Isabella would be moved to a secure residence. Gideon ordered his men to protect the building without drawing attention.
Outside, Camille stopped beneath the oak trees.
“Your cousin,” she said.
“I know.”
“Could he really be involved?”
“I don't want him to be.”
“That's not the same as believing he's innocent.”
Gideon looked at her.
“You're very good at separating what you want from what you know.”
“My father taught me.”
“Then he taught you well.”
They drove back toward the city. Camille watched the river through the window, thinking about the sentence Isabella had given them.
The river remembers.
She had heard it countless times as a child. Her father used it when he talked about old records, saying that the river carried away ships but never erased the evidence of their passage.
At her apartment, she searched through the few books she had inherited. The old maritime atlas was still there, its cloth cover faded and its spine repaired with thread.
Inside the cover, her father had written the sentence in French.
Beneath it was a small drawing of a lighthouse.
Camille opened the book to the page showing the Louisiana coast. The lighthouse was marked near a narrow inlet outside New Orleans.
A handwritten number appeared beside it.
17.
She called Gideon.
“I found something.”
He arrived twenty minutes later.
Camille showed him the drawing and the number.
“Could it be a location?” she asked.
Gideon studied the map.
“There's an old customs station near that lighthouse. It was abandoned in the 1980s.”
“Could my father have hidden the ledger there?”
“Possibly.”
Before they could leave, Camille's phone rang.
It was Preston.
She almost declined the call, but something in her father's old warning made her answer.
“Camille,” Preston said. His voice sounded strained. “I know where the ledger is.”
She looked at Gideon.
“How?”
“Because I found a file in my office. A file with your father's name.”
“Why are you calling me?”
“Because Sloane knows I have it. He says he'll kill me if I don't deliver it tonight.”
Camille heard a door slam at his end.
May you like
Then Preston whispered:
“Camille, there's someone in my office.”
