Chapter 3 - What Matteo Remembered
Elena's office smelled exactly the same.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Lavender.
Old paper.
The faint perfume she'd worn every day for nine years.
I hadn't entered the room in months.
Now the door stood open.
Dominic drew my attention toward the desk.
A laptop sat there.
Screen glowing.
It wasn't Elena's computer.
"Nobody touches anything," I said.
Security swept the room.
No intruder.
No open window.
No hidden passage.
Nothing.
Yet someone had been there.
The laptop displayed one sentence.
YOU WERE WATCHING THE WRONG ROOM.
Clara stood behind me.
"That's comforting."
I glanced at her.
"You shouldn't be here."
"Your son asked me to come."
I turned.
Matteo waited in the hallway in his wheelchair.
He'd insisted on leaving his bedroom.
Another first.
I went to him.
"Did you know about this room?"
He nodded.
"Did Mom bring you here?"
Another nod.
"When?"
His eyes moved toward the desk.
"Before."
Again that word.
Before.
I crouched.
"Before the accident?"
Matteo's face tightened.
"Mom scared."
"What scared her?"
He shook his head.
"Someone?"
Nod.
"Who?"
He looked at Dominic.
Dominic noticed.
"So it was me?"
Matteo shook his head violently.
Then pointed.
Not at Dominic.
At Dominic's jacket.
Specifically, the security insignia.
"A guard?" I asked.
Matteo whispered, "Man."
"Which man?"
He closed his eyes.
Clara approached slowly.
"Don't make him remember everything at once."
I hated that she was right.
We examined the laptop.
No identifiable fingerprints.
Cheap machine.
Recently activated.
The surveillance system had been accessed through a maintenance account supposedly disabled a year earlier.
Someone had been preparing this.
Maybe for months.
Maybe longer.
Then Clara noticed a folder.
One file.
PLAY ME.
Dominic disconnected the laptop from every network before opening it.
Audio.
Static.
Then Elena's voice.
My knees weakened.
"Vincent, if you're hearing this, something happened before I could tell you myself."
I gripped the desk.
Matteo made a small sound behind me.
Elena continued.
"I made a mistake. I trusted someone because I thought protecting you meant keeping certain things away from you."
I closed my eyes.
Her voice.
God.
Her voice.
"There are records. Medical records. Financial transfers. Names I didn't recognize."
Clara stared at the computer.
"I started asking questions after Matteo became sick during our trip to Boston."
I looked at my son.
Boston.
Two months before the bombing.
Matteo had developed a fever.
Nothing serious.
Or so we'd believed.
Elena's recording continued.
"The hospital found something strange in his bloodwork. The follow-up report disappeared."
Dominic cursed quietly.
"I asked for another copy. Someone contacted me afterward and told me to stop."
A pause.
Then Elena sounded frightened.
"I didn't."
Of course she didn't.
That was Elena.
"I found a woman connected to the clinic. Clara Hayes. I don't know her personally. I only know she worked at one of the facilities tied to the records."
Clara covered her mouth.
Her employment gap.
Her assisted-living work.
It wasn't coincidence.
"I tried to contact her," Elena continued, "but I don't know if my message reached her."
Clara whispered, "It didn't."
Then the audio distorted.
Elena's final words came through broken static.
"Vincent, if anything happens, don't trust—"
Silence.
File ended.
"Don't trust who?" I snapped.
Dominic tried restoring it.
Nothing.
The recording had been cut.
Matteo suddenly whispered, "I know."
Every adult in the room turned.
I went to him.
"What?"
His eyes filled.
"Mom told me."
My chest tightened.
"Told you what?"
He began trembling.
Clara knelt beside him.
"It's okay."
Matteo looked at me.
"Car."
My heart stopped.
"You remember the car?"
He nodded.
For fourteen months, doctors had told me trauma could fragment memory.
I had assumed he remembered nothing.
"What happened?"
"Mom crying."
I swallowed.
"Why?"
"Phone."
"Someone called her?"
Nod.
"What did they say?"
Matteo struggled.
Then he whispered:
"They knew me."
I felt cold.
"What do you mean?"
"They said..."
His breathing quickened.
Clara touched his hand.
"Slowly."
Matteo looked at me.
"They said if Mom told Dad..."
He stopped.
"What?"
His face crumpled.
"They'd take me."
I couldn't move.
Elena had been threatened with our son.
And she'd kept it from me.
Not because she didn't trust me.
Because she was trying to protect Matteo.
I sat on the floor beside his wheelchair.
For once, I didn't care who saw.
"Matteo, listen to me."
He looked down.
"You don't have to tell me anything else today."
His eyes lifted.
"I'm sorry."
The words destroyed me.
I reached for him, then stopped.
Let him choose.
Matteo leaned forward.
I wrapped my arms around him.
Fourteen months of silence collapsed between us.
He cried against my shoulder.
So did I.
Quietly.
When we finally separated, he whispered:
"Mom said one name."
"What name?"
Before he could answer, the mansion alarm sounded.
Dominic's radio exploded with voices.
"East gate breach."
He stood instantly.
I moved in front of Matteo.
"How many?"
"One vehicle."
"Guards?"
"No response from gate two."
Clara pushed Matteo's wheelchair away from the windows.
Good instinct.
Dominic listened to his earpiece.
Then his expression changed.
"What?"
He looked at me.
"The vehicle stopped at the front entrance."
"Who is it?"
Dominic didn't answer immediately.
Then:
"He says he knew Elena."
My blood went cold.
"Name?"
Dominic looked directly at Matteo.
Matteo heard it too.
His face went white.
May you like
Because the man outside had given the same name Matteo had been trying to say.
"Dr. Adrian Vale."
