Chapter 3 - The Man Lorenzo Trusted Most
Lydia replayed the final second twelve times.
Nothing.
Her father's mouth formed the beginning of a word, but the audio disappeared before the name emerged.
Lorenzo sent the file to his technical team.
“No copies outside this house,” he ordered.
Lydia stood by the window with her arms folded.
“You think Vincent sent it?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Vincent doesn't warn people.”
“Maybe he wants us looking somewhere else.”
“Possible.”
She turned.
“You say that like betrayal is a spreadsheet.”
“For me, it usually is.”
“That's depressing.”
“It keeps people alive.”
Lydia looked toward Mateo's wing.
“Not always.”
Lorenzo absorbed that without argument.
By morning, the blizzard had weakened.
The estate remained sealed.
Every employee was questioned.
Three guards had suspicious financial transfers.
Two claimed gambling debts.
One disappeared before dawn.
Lorenzo trusted the walls more than the people inside them.
Lydia understood now why he'd installed cameras.
She still hated it.
“You watched me,” she said.
They were alone in the study.
Lorenzo didn't pretend otherwise.
“Yes.”
“For two weeks?”
“Yes.”
“While I worked?”
“Yes.”
“While I ate?”
“In common areas.”
“That's supposed to make it better?”
“No.”
That answer surprised her.
Lorenzo leaned against the desk.
“I thought someone near Mateo was feeding information to Blackwood.”
“And the desperate new maid looked convenient.”
“Yes.”
“You could've asked me questions.”
“People lie.”
“So you watched me fold underwear.”
His mouth twitched.
“Mostly towels.”
“Lorenzo.”
“I know.”
She stared at him.
Then something unexpected happened.
He apologized.
“I was wrong.”
Not “if you felt violated.”
Not “circumstances required it.”
Just wrong.
Lydia's anger didn't vanish.
But it changed shape.
“Turn off the camera in my room.”
“There isn't one.”
“Good answer.”
“It's also true.”
“And Mateo's?”
Lorenzo hesitated.
“That decision belongs to him now.”
Lydia nodded.
“Better answer.”
A knock interrupted them.
Carlo entered carrying a tablet.
“We found Vincent's vehicle.”
“Where?”
“Waukegan.”
“Vincent?”
“No.”
“Blood?”
“No.”
Carlo hesitated.
“But there was something in the trunk.”
He turned the tablet.
A photograph showed a hospital badge.
Lydia recognized it immediately.
Her old employee badge.
The one she'd lost the week before the accusation destroyed her career.
Lorenzo's expression changed.
“They've been setting you up for years.”
Lydia felt strangely calm.
Maybe because she'd spent so long thinking the universe had randomly crushed her.
Randomness was easier than this.
“Why me?”
Lorenzo looked through her father's files.
“Maybe it wasn't you.”
He tapped Daniel Mercer's name.
“Maybe you saw something.”
“I treated hundreds of gunshot victims.”
“But only one led to your career being destroyed.”
Lydia remembered Mercer.
Forty-seven.
Gray suit.
Wedding ring.
Terrified eyes.
He had grabbed her wrist while she applied pressure to the wound.
Don't let them change what happened.
Those had been his words.
She had thought he feared dying anonymously.
Maybe he'd feared something else.
“Find Mercer,” Lydia said.
“He disappeared six years ago.”
“So did my career.”
Lorenzo called someone.
Within an hour they had a property record.
Daniel Mercer had owned a storage unit under a corporation that dissolved shortly after his disappearance.
The unit still existed.
Someone had continued paying cash.
Lorenzo wanted Lydia to stay at the estate.
She refused.
“If this is connected to my father, I'm coming.”
“It's dangerous.”
“Yesterday I hit an assassin with an oxygen tank.”
“I remember.”
“Then stop talking to me like I'm decorative.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“Fine.”
The storage facility stood near the river.
Lorenzo brought four men.
Lydia brought her father's old key ring.
One key fit.
Inside were filing boxes.
A desk.
A disconnected computer.
And a metal lockbox.
Lydia opened it.
Documents filled the interior.
Payments.
Names.
Dates.
City contracts.
Hospital administrators.
Police officers.
Blackwood companies.
And Moretti companies.
Lorenzo went still.
“My father's signature.”
“Was he working with Blackwood?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“No.”
The honesty mattered.
Lydia found another folder.
Coppola Auto Repair.
Her father's shop.
Inside was a photograph of her father shaking hands with Daniel Mercer.
Behind them stood a younger Vincent Rizzo.
Lydia's knees nearly gave way.
“My father knew Vincent.”
Lorenzo caught her elbow.
She didn't pull away.
A sound came from behind the storage unit.
Metal scraping concrete.
Lorenzo drew his weapon.
“Stay here.”
“Absolutely not.”
He glanced at her.
She grabbed a heavy flashlight.
“Fine.”
They moved toward the rear partition.
A narrow door was hidden behind shelving.
Lorenzo reached for the handle.
Before he touched it, someone on the other side whispered:
“Lydia?”
She froze.
Nobody here should have known her name.
The lock clicked.
May you like
The door began opening from the inside.
And a man who had officially been dead for six years stepped through.
