Chapter 2 - The Name Buried in the Fire|
Matteo did not sleep.
At four in the morning, he stood in his study with three folders spread across the desk: the Serrano memorandum, the warehouse fire investigation, and Norah Bennett's employment file.
The first was missing.
The second had been sealed by a judge who later disappeared from public life.
The third contained a photograph of a young woman standing beside an elderly woman in front of a modest brick house.
Norah looked about seventeen in the picture. Her hair was longer, her smile unguarded. The older woman had one hand resting on Norah's shoulder.
Elizabeth Bennett.
Matteo remembered her clearly.
She had worked as a bookkeeper for his father before the Falcone family became synonymous with bloodshed. She had been one of the few people who spoke to his older brother, Adrian, as if he were a human being rather than the heir to a criminal empire.
After the fire, Elizabeth's name appeared on a list of the dead.
No body had ever been identified.
Matteo had assumed the uncertainty was one more bureaucratic failure in an investigation everyone wanted forgotten.
Now he wondered whether someone had deliberately left the question unanswered.
A knock interrupted him.
His security director, Gabriel Shaw, entered carrying a tablet.
“We reviewed the available recordings.”
“And?”
“Camila entered your study Tuesday afternoon. She stayed eleven minutes. Your chief administrator entered Wednesday. You entered yesterday.”
“What about Norah?”
“She was in the west corridor yesterday, but she never crossed the study threshold.”
“Who else could access the memorandum?”
Gabriel hesitated.
“Your administrator, Camila, you, and the people responsible for maintaining the security system.”
Matteo looked up.
“Names.”
Gabriel provided four.
One belonged to a technician who had died in a car accident two weeks earlier.
“Convenient,” Matteo murmured.
“There's something else. The west-wing cameras stopped recording for nine minutes yesterday.”
“Why?”
“The system reports a routine software restart.”
“Did you authorize it?”
“No.”
Matteo closed the folder.
“Find out who did.”
Meanwhile, Norah sat in a small guest room with her back against the headboard. A doctor had cleaned her injuries, and fresh bandages covered her shoulders. She had refused pain medication strong enough to make her sleepy.
She needed to think.
Camila had not beaten her because she believed Norah had stolen the memorandum. Camila had beaten her because Norah had discovered something that made the document dangerous.
Three days earlier, Norah had entered the pantry to collect supplies and overheard Camila speaking on the telephone.
The conversation had lasted less than a minute.
Norah remembered one sentence exactly.
“If Matteo reads the original, he'll know who ordered the fire.”
Then Camila had mentioned Elizabeth Bennett.
Norah had spent the next three days trying to determine what Camila knew about her mother. She had entered Matteo's study once, but only because she had found an envelope beneath a loose panel in the corridor outside it.
Inside was a photograph of Elizabeth with Adrian Falcone.
On the back, in her mother's handwriting, were six words.
If he returns, trust no Falcone.
Norah had taken the photograph.
She had not touched the memorandum.
When Camila searched her room, she must have found the photograph and mistaken it for evidence of something else.
Or perhaps she had understood exactly what it meant.
A knock sounded.
Norah tensed.
“It's Matteo,” came the voice outside. “I'm alone.”
She opened the door but kept one hand on the handle.
He noticed the movement and remained several feet away.
“I found your emergency contact,” he said.
“Elizabeth was my mother.”
“Was?”
“She died when I was seventeen.”
“I'm sorry.”
Norah watched his face.
“Did you know her?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“She worked for my father. She knew my brother.”
Norah's fingers tightened around the door.
“Adrian?”
Matteo's expression changed.
“You know his name.”
“My mother spoke about him.”
“What did she tell you?”
“That he was a good man trapped in a bad family.”
Matteo looked away.
It was the first time Norah had seen grief cross his face without being immediately buried beneath anger.
“Adrian died in a warehouse fire,” he said.
“So I was told.”
“You sound as though you doubt it.”
“My mother never believed he was dead.”
Matteo returned his attention to her.
“Why didn't you tell me this when you started working here?”
“Because I came here to find something, not to trust you.”
“What?”
Norah considered lying.
Then she remembered the rope, the crop, and the certainty with which Camila had assumed she could silence her.
“The truth about my mother's death.”
Matteo studied her for a long moment.
“Then we're looking for the same thing.”
“No,” Norah said. “You're looking for the truth about your brother. I'm looking for the truth about the woman who raised me.”
She started to close the door.
Matteo stopped her with words, not his hands.
“Norah, whoever called me last night knew your mother's name. He also knew about the memorandum.”
She froze.
“What did he say?”
“He told me to ask you about your mother.”
The blood drained from her face.
“Did he sound old?”
“Yes.”
“Did he call you Matteo?”
“Yes.”
Norah slowly opened the door again.
“My mother used to receive letters from a man who called you that. She kept them locked inside a tin box. The last letter arrived two days before the fire.”
“Do you still have the box?”
“I did.”
“What happened to it?”
Norah swallowed.
“It disappeared the night my mother died.”
Matteo's phone vibrated.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
It contained a photograph of Norah leaving the mansion as a teenager.
Below it were two lines.
She knows what happened in the warehouse.
If you want the rest, ask why Elizabeth was carrying a second identity.
Matteo showed Norah the screen.
She stared at the photograph until her eyes filled with tears.
“That picture was taken the day after the funeral,” she whispered.
“Whose funeral?”
“My mother's.”
May you like
She looked up at him.
“Because someone was following me.”
