Chapter 5 - The Missing Six Minutes
Clara said no before Rico spoke.
“No.”
Marco laughed through the phone.
“You don’t remember?”
“I was working.”
“Where?”
Clara opened her mouth.
Stopped.
Six months earlier.
Friday night.
She had worked at a hotel banquet in Queens.
Or had she?
Her memory around that week was strange.
Double shifts.
No sleep.
A panic episode.
A hospital?
She rubbed her forehead.
Rico watched.
“Clara.”
“I don’t know.”
Dante looked in the mirror.
“That’s not a good answer.”
“I know.”
Marco said, “Check St. Catherine emergency department. Elena died at 10:42. Clara Vance arrived at 10:51.”
Clara went cold.
“I was injured?”
“Ask her.”
Marco hung up.
Rico stared at her.
She wanted him to accuse.
Anger was easier than his restraint.
“Do you remember going to St. Catherine?”
“No.”
“Do you remember that night?”
“I remember work.”
“Where?”
“Queens.”
“Who can verify?”
“Manager.”
“Name?”
“Paul Jensen.”
Dante was already checking.
Clara hugged herself.
Leo touched her elbow.
“Clara sad?”
She crouched.
“I’m okay.”
“No lie.”
The phrase stunned her.
Rico looked away.
Elena must have said that.
No lie.
Clara corrected herself.
“I’m scared.”
Leo nodded.
“Me too.”
Simple.
Honest.
They did not go to the police immediately.
Rico changed course to a private attorney’s office where surveillance could be controlled and calls made safely.
For the first time in his adult life, Rico contacted a prosecutor through counsel.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nina Park arrived before dawn.
She did not like Rico.
That helped.
She entered with two federal agents and said, “If this is a trick, I will enjoy the paperwork.”
Rico replied, “I like you already.”
“No, you don’t.”
Correct.
Clara sat apart with Leo.
Dante delivered records.
St. Catherine confirmed a Clara Vance had arrived the night Elena died.
Head injury.
Disorientation.
Cuts.
No insurance.
Left before full discharge.
Clara stared at the scan.
Her signature.
She did not remember writing it.
Nina asked, “How did you get hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you intoxicated?”
“No.”
“Drugs?”
“No.”
“Medication?”
Clara remembered.
A headache.
A woman in a green scarf giving her water.
No.
Not giving.
Clara had bought water.
Someone bumped her.
Then streetlights.
A horn.
Blood.
She pressed hands to her face.
“I was hit by a car.”
Rico stood.
“What?”
“Not badly. Side mirror maybe. I remember falling.”
“Where?”
Clara searched memory.
A street.
Rain.
A black SUV stopped crooked at the curb.
A woman on the pavement.
Clara stopped breathing.
“Elena.”
Rico froze.
“You saw her?”
“I think.”
Images returned in pieces.
Clara running toward a woman.
A child seat visible through a car door.
No child inside.
Gunshots already over.
A man yelling.
Clara kneeling.
Elena grabbing her wrist.
The crescent scar.
Recognition.
“Mama knew you.”
Leo’s words.
Clara began shaking.
“She recognized me.”
Rico crossed the room.
Nina held up a hand.
“Let her remember.”
Clara whispered, “She said my name.”
“What name?” Nina asked.
“Clara.”
Then another word.
“Rebecca.”
Clara cried.
“Elena said, ‘Rebecca is alive.’”
Rico knelt in front of her.
“What else?”
Clara pressed fingers to her temple.
“I tried to call 911. Someone hit me.”
“Who?”
“I didn’t see.”
Dante checked hospital notes.
“Possible concussion.”
Nina said, “So Marco used your missing memory to create suspicion.”
Rico’s face hardened.
“Why?”
“To divide you.”
Clara looked at him.
He had not accused her.
That mattered more than she wanted it to.
The hospital security archive still existed.
Nina obtained emergency access.
Video showed Clara entering at 10:51 p.m.
Blood on her forehead.
A woman in dark clothing followed three minutes later.
Not Marco.
Not Miriam.
Face partly hidden.
At 10:57, the woman approached the intake desk.
At 10:58, she signed something.
At 11:00, she left.
Nina froze the frame.
Rico stood.
Dante swore.
Clara asked, “Who?”
Rico said, “My sister.”
Isabella Moretti.
Thirty-five.
Rico’s older half-sister.
Publicly estranged from the criminal side of the family.
She ran a luxury design company in Miami.
She had not attended Elena’s funeral.
Claimed illness.
Rico called her.
Disconnected.
Dante checked travel.
Isabella’s private jet had landed in New Jersey two hours earlier.
Nina looked at Rico.
“You have a sister conveniently entering the story.”
“I hate convenient family.”
“Get used to it.”
They traced the jet.
Passenger list sealed.
Ground transport booked to Manhattan.
Destination: Vale Children’s Foundation headquarters.
Miriam.
Isabella.
Together.
Clara asked, “Why would your sister help kill Elena?”
Rico did not answer immediately.
Then said, “Because Isabella believes I stole her inheritance.”
“What inheritance?”
“The Moretti leadership.”
Clara stared.
Rico explained.
Their father chose Rico at twenty-four.
Isabella was older.
Smarter.
But their father believed a woman could not lead.
He gave her money and sent her away.
She never forgave either man.
“So she wants power?”
“Maybe.”
Nina interrupted.
“Stop assigning motives before evidence.”
Again, Rico liked her less.
Good sign.
At 6:20 a.m., Leo finally slept on Clara’s lap.
Rico covered him with his suit jacket.
Clara watched.
“You’re different with him than at the restaurant.”
“I was failing loudly.”
“You threatened to close a restaurant because a toddler cried.”
“I said failing loudly.”
She almost smiled.
Then Nina’s agent entered.
“We found Marco.”
“Where?”
“Il Destino.”
Rico stood.
The agent continued.
“He’s dead.”
Silence.
“Suicide?”
“No.”
Single shot.
No weapon.
Marco had been eliminated.
Before he died, he wrote one word in spilled wine across a service receipt.
Not BELL.
Not MIRIAM.
One word.
MOTHER.
Rico stared.
His mother, Bianca Moretti, had been dead for twelve years.
Or so he believed.
The hospital footage gave them one more detail.
At 10:58 p.m., Isabella did not merely approach the intake desk. She placed a sealed envelope beside Clara’s chart.
Nina had the envelope pulled from archives.
Inside was cash.
Two thousand dollars.
And a note instructing billing staff not to contact police unless Clara asked directly.
Rico stared at it.
“She paid to keep Clara quiet?”
Nina shook her head.
“Or alive.”
Clara looked at the money record.
That ambiguity hurt more than a clean answer.
If Isabella was purely cruel, Clara could hate her without complication. But a woman could help create an attack and still feel panic when an innocent witness stumbled into the aftermath. People rarely fit the shapes victims need them to fit.
Rico said, “She still left Elena in the street.”
“Yes,” Nina replied. “And maybe paid for Clara’s treatment. Both can be true.”
Rico looked away.
Clara said quietly, “Your whole family seems built out of people doing one decent thing after three terrible ones.”
He almost smiled.
“That may be the family crest.”
For the first time that morning, Clara laughed.
Leo stirred on her lap at the sound.
The boy opened his eyes, looked at Rico, then Clara, and whispered, “No yelling.”
Rico nodded.
“No yelling.”
May you like
It was a promise he could actually keep for the next five minutes.
Sometimes recovery began that small.
