Chapter 6 - THE HARBOR MEETING
|
They agreed that Clare would not attend the harbor meeting. She hated the decision, but Evelyn made the danger plain: a pregnant woman did not need to prove courage by standing where armed men might appear. Clare would remain at Evelyn's office with a secure phone, while Daniel and Alexander went to the harbor with no Romano guards.
“You're not leaving because I think you're weak,” Alexander told her before dawn. “You're staying because we need someone outside the trap.”
“That's the first time you've explained a decision without expecting me to obey.”
He accepted the criticism. “I should have learned sooner.”
Clare watched him leave and tried not to imagine all the ways a man could disappear in the space between one heartbeat and the next.
At the harbor, fog pressed low over the water. Daniel and Alexander found Samuel waiting inside a shuttered bait shop. He was in his sixties, thin from illness, with a scar crossing his jaw. He kept looking at the door.
“I drove Vittorio for fourteen years,” Samuel said. “He was not a saint. He could be ruthless. But he wasn't a fool, and he wasn't going to let Leonard steal from the company forever.”
He handed Daniel a small memory card. It contained scans of ledgers, recorded calls, and a photograph taken the night of the crash. In it, Leonard stood beside a second vehicle on the shoulder of the road, holding a flashlight. The picture was blurry but clear enough to establish that he had been there before the emergency crews arrived.
“Why didn't you go to the police?” Alexander asked.
“I did. Someone called my daughter and told her they knew where her children went to school. Then the investigator assigned to my statement was transferred. I took the money they offered and disappeared. I have regretted it every day.”
Alexander looked sick. “My father trusted you.”
“I failed him.”
“You survived. That's not the same as failing him.”
Samuel's eyes filled. He had expected anger, not mercy.
Before they could leave, a truck blocked the narrow lane outside. Two men emerged from the fog. Daniel recognized one from the courthouse. Alexander pushed Samuel toward the rear exit as the first man drew a weapon.
A gunshot cracked through the shop. Glass burst from the front window. Alexander and Daniel escaped through a storage room, but Samuel stumbled on the wet steps and fell hard against the dock. Alexander turned back for him. The second shot struck the railing inches from his hand.
They reached a fishing boat tied behind the building and pushed off under a rain of splinters. Daniel called the coast guard, while Alexander pressed a towel against Samuel's bleeding shoulder. The old driver remained conscious, cursing at anyone who suggested he lie still.
At the office, Clare heard the gunshots through the phone before the call cut out. She stood so quickly that her chair fell behind her. Evelyn caught her arm and steadied her.
“Breathe,” Evelyn said. “You can't help them if you collapse.”
Minutes stretched. Then Alexander's voice came through, rough but alive.
“We have the card. Samuel is hurt, but he's alive.”
Clare closed her eyes. “Are you?”
“I'm fine.”
“Don't lie to me.”
A pause. “I'm shaken. I'm sorry.”
The honesty made her knees weak.
Later, Daniel examined the memory card in a secure room. One file was encrypted, but another contained a recording of Leonard discussing a transfer with a second man. The man's face was never shown. His voice was unmistakable to Alexander.
It belonged to his uncle, Richard Romano, the family patriarch who had supposedly retired to Florida years earlier.
Alexander stared at the screen.
“Richard was at my father's funeral,” he whispered. “He held my shoulder and told me we would get through it together.”
On the recording, Richard laughed.
May you like
“Once Vittorio is out of the way, the boy will sign whatever we put in front of him.”
Clare, listening remotely, felt the last of her old assumptions fall apart. Leonard had not acted alone. The person who had helped raise Alexander had planned to use his grief as a weapon—and had been counting on him never discovering the truth.
