Chapter 3 - The Secret Behind Romano Freight
For several seconds, neither of them moved.
Claire read the sentence again.
ANTONIO ROMANO DID NOT DIE IN AN ACCIDENT.
Nicholas closed the laptop.
Too quickly.
Claire looked at him.
“What are you doing?”
“Thinking.”
“You just found evidence your father might have been murdered.”
“I can read.”
His voice was sharper than she expected.
Claire stepped back.
Nicholas immediately regretted it.
She saw it.
He rubbed one hand over his face.
“Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize.”
“Yes, I do.”
“That must physically hurt you.”
A humorless breath escaped him.
“More than you know.”
Claire reopened the laptop.
Nicholas didn’t stop her.
The file contained more than the photograph.
Old insurance documents.
Police records.
Shipment logs.
An internal Bellmore memorandum dated two days before Antonio Romano’s death.
Claire scanned quickly.
“What happened to him?”
“Truck accident.”
“Where?”
“Outside Louisville.”
“Was he driving?”
“No. His driver was.”
“Did the driver survive?”
Nicholas’s face changed.
“No.”
“Name?”
“Samuel Cross.”
Claire searched the file.
There it was.
Samuel Cross.
Deceased.
The crash had been blamed on brake failure.
Antonio had been traveling in the passenger seat after inspecting a new freight terminal.
The truck crossed a median and struck a concrete support.
Two deaths.
Case closed.
Except the internal memorandum showed Antonio had requested an emergency meeting with Bellmore executives regarding “unauthorized cargo transfers.”
Claire looked at Nicholas.
“Your father knew.”
“Maybe.”
“He found the same thing we found.”
“Twenty years earlier.”
Claire’s skin prickled.
“This has been happening that long?”
“Or it started then.”
The next page showed one signature.
Nathan Bellmore.
Claire leaned back.
The room felt suddenly too small.
“Nathan was involved.”
Nicholas remained silent.
“You knew your father knew him?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“They did business together.”
“You never mentioned that.”
“You never asked.”
Claire shot him a look.
“Do you hear yourself?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I find myself irritating too.”
She almost laughed.
Almost.
Then another document appeared.
Antonio’s handwritten notes.
Three short lines.
N.B. knows.
M.C. moved invoices.
If anything happens, find Evelyn.
Claire stared at the initials.
“M.C.”
Nicholas looked at her.
“Martin Cole.”
“Twenty years ago?”
“He would have been what? Twenty-five?”
“Twenty-seven.”
Claire searched Martin’s employment history.
He had joined Bellmore nineteen years earlier.
Not twenty.
“That doesn’t fit.”
“Unless the initials mean someone else.”
Claire pointed to the final line.
“Who is Evelyn?”
Nicholas shook his head.
“No idea.”
They spent the next hour searching.
No Evelyn among current Bellmore executives.
No former legal counsel.
No Romano Freight employee with an obvious connection.
Then Claire found an archived charity report.
Evelyn Price.
Former accounting director, Bellmore Development.
Retired eighteen years ago.
No public address.
No recent employment.
Claire looked at Nicholas.
“We find her.”
“If she’s alive.”
“That’s optimistic.”
“I’m not known for optimism.”
“No kidding.”
At 4:10 a.m., Marco called.
Martin Cole had returned to his room.
Eric Harlan had not returned.
Claire looked at Nicholas.
“Maybe Martin was telling the truth.”
“Or he sent somebody else upstairs.”
“You really don’t trust him.”
“I don’t trust anyone whose name appears one letter away from a twenty-year-old murder.”
“That is technically reasonable.”
Nicholas called a private investigator.
By sunrise, they had an address for Evelyn Price.
Franklin, Tennessee.
Thirty minutes south.
Nicholas wanted Claire to stay behind.
Claire refused.
“You’re not going.”
“I found her.”
“That doesn’t mean you go.”
“My name is on the envelope.”
“Exactly.”
“They’re already watching me.”
“Exactly.”
“You realize repeating my argument louder doesn’t make it yours?”
Nicholas stared.
Claire stared back.
Marco quietly left the room.
Coward.
Nicholas lowered his voice.
“If something happens—”
“Something already happened.”
“You almost had an intruder enter this room.”
“And staying here guarantees they know where I am.”
He had no answer.
Claire folded her arms.
“I’m going.”
Nicholas stepped closer.
“Why are you so determined to put yourself in danger?”
“Why are you so determined to decide what I’m allowed to do?”
His jaw tightened.
There it was.
The battle beneath every battle between them.
Nicholas was used to protecting through control.
Claire was used to surviving through independence.
Neither knew how to bend.
Finally Nicholas exhaled.
“You stay beside me.”
“I can agree to that.”
“You do exactly what I say if something goes wrong.”
“That depends.”
“Claire.”
“Fine.”
“That sounded dishonest.”
“It was.”
For the first time since discovering the photograph, Nicholas laughed.
The sound surprised both of them.
They left the hotel through a service elevator.
A black SUV waited in the underground garage.
Marco drove.
Another vehicle followed.
Claire sat beside Nicholas in the back.
Nashville faded into suburban roads.
As daylight strengthened, Claire glanced at him.
He looked exhausted.
“Did you sleep at all?”
“No.”
“Because you were watching the door?”
“Yes.”
“You could have woken me.”
“For what?”
“To take a turn.”
Nicholas looked at her.
“You were terrified and pretending not to be.”
Claire frowned.
“I was not terrified.”
“You were gripping the duvet so hard your knuckles turned white.”
“You noticed that?”
“I told you. I notice everything about you.”
Again.
The same sentence.
This time Claire did not look away.
Neither did Nicholas.
Marco cleared his throat loudly.
Claire turned toward the window.
Nicholas’s mouth twitched.
Evelyn Price lived in a modest brick house at the end of a quiet street.
No security gate.
No expensive car.
No sign that its owner had once worked around millions of dollars.
Nicholas stopped Claire before she exited the SUV.
“Wait.”
Marco checked the property.
Two minutes later he returned.
“Clear.”
They approached together.
Claire rang the bell.
Nothing.
Again.
Then a chain rattled.
The door opened three inches.
An elderly woman looked out.
Gray hair.
Sharp eyes.
“Mrs. Price?”
“Who’s asking?”
Claire introduced herself.
Evelyn’s expression remained guarded.
Then Nicholas stepped into view.
Everything changed.
The woman’s face drained of color.
“Antonio?”
Nicholas stopped.
“No, ma’am.”
Evelyn stared at him.
Tears filled her eyes.
“You’re his boy.”
Nicholas swallowed.
“Yes.”
She closed the door.
Locks turned.
Claire expected rejection.
Instead the door opened fully.
“Get inside.”
They entered.
Evelyn immediately closed the curtains.
Nicholas looked around.
“Mrs. Price, did you know my father?”
“I knew enough to know he was scared before he died.”
Nicholas became still.
Evelyn pointed toward the kitchen.
“Sit.”
No one argued.
She brewed coffee with trembling hands.
Then she retrieved a metal cash box from beneath a pantry shelf.
“I wondered if someone would come.”
Nicholas watched her place it on the table.
“For twenty years?”
“For twenty years.”
She unlocked it.
Inside were ledgers.
Photographs.
A cassette tape.
And a small silver key.
Claire picked up the first ledger.
Payments.
Dates.
Freight routes.
Bellmore.
Romano.
Dozens of shell companies.
Evelyn sat down.
“Your father found out Nathan Bellmore was using legitimate freight contracts to hide illegal shipments.”
“What shipments?” Nicholas asked.
Evelyn looked at Claire.
“Anything that paid enough.”
Nicholas’s expression went dark.
Claire kept her voice steady.
“Why use Romano Freight?”
“Because Antonio’s company passed inspections. Clean records. Trusted drivers.”
“He discovered it.”
“Yes.”
“What did he do?”
“He confronted Nathan.”
Nicholas looked toward the tape.
“Is that—”
“Antonio.”
Silence.
Evelyn pushed the cassette toward him.
“He gave it to me three days before he died.”
Nicholas didn’t touch it.
Claire watched his hand curl slowly into a fist.
“What’s on it?”
“A conversation.”
“With Nathan?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you go to police?”
Evelyn’s eyes hardened.
“I did.”
Nicholas stared.
“What happened?”
“The detective I spoke to disappeared.”
Claire felt cold.
“And after the crash?”
“I ran.”
Evelyn looked at Nicholas.
“Your father told me if anything happened, I should disappear until his son was old enough to survive the truth.”
Nicholas stood.
“I was twenty-two.”
“He thought you were still too angry.”
“That wasn’t your decision.”
“No.”
“Twenty years.”
“I know.”
“You let me believe he died because of bad brakes.”
“I let you live.”
The room went silent.
Nicholas turned away.
Claire wanted to touch his arm.
She didn’t.
Not yet.
Evelyn picked up the silver key.
“This opens a private box at Cumberland Trust.”
“What’s inside?”
“I don’t know. Antonio put it there.”
Nicholas took the key.
For the first time, his hand trembled.
Then Marco appeared at the kitchen doorway.
“Boss.”
Nicholas looked up.
Marco’s face was tense.
“We have company.”
Outside, a black Escalade had stopped across the street.
Claire recognized it.
Eric Harlan’s vehicle.
The rear door opened.
A man stepped onto the pavement.
Not Eric.
May you like
Martin Cole.
And in his hand was a photograph of Evelyn Price’s house.
