Chapter 5 - My Wife's Last Appointment
Matteo was beside me.
That meant whoever entered his bedroom wasn't looking for him.
They were looking for something.
Dominic and security reached the room first.
Empty.
Window sealed.
Nothing visibly stolen.
Then Clara noticed the secret compartment.
Open.
Elena's envelope was gone.
The photograph too.
"Someone inside this house," I said.
Dominic nodded.
There was no other explanation.
We locked down the staff.
Twenty-three employees.
Guards.
Kitchen staff.
Housekeeping.
Maintenance.
Every person checked.
Nobody missing.
Then Vale gave us another possibility.
"Someone doesn't need to enter if they're already living here."
I looked at him.
"Choose your next words carefully."
"Elena suspected someone close to you."
"Who?"
"I don't know."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"No. I expect you to verify it."
He told us about Elena's last appointment.
She had visited him secretly forty-eight hours before the bombing.
She brought medical files.
Bank transfers.
And a recording.
"What recording?"
Vale looked toward Matteo.
"Not in front of him."
Matteo spoke immediately.
"I'm staying."
The room went quiet.
My son had spent fourteen months silent.
Now he was demanding a place in the truth.
I nodded.
Vale continued.
Elena had discovered someone had altered Matteo's Boston medical records after a routine test revealed unusual sedative compounds.
Not lethal.
Not experimental.
A medication used before certain diagnostic procedures.
But Matteo had never been scheduled for such a procedure.
Someone had taken him somewhere.
Or planned to.
"Why?" I asked.
Vale shook his head.
"That's what Elena was trying to discover."
Clara suddenly sat down.
Her face had gone pale.
"I know that medication."
Vale watched her.
"From where?"
She touched her temple.
"I don't know."
A memory surfaced in fragments.
A hallway.
White walls.
A child crying.
Clara wearing an employee badge.
A locked treatment room.
Then Elena.
Not outside the mansion.
At the facility.
Clara gasped.
"I met her."
I moved closer.
"What happened?"
"She asked about a boy."
"Matteo?"
"I think so."
Clara closed her eyes.
"She showed me his picture."
Matteo watched her.
"I told her..."
She stopped.
"What?"
"I told her children were being moved between facilities under false names."
Vale's expression darkened.
That was the secret.
The network wasn't harming children for spectacle or profit.
It was falsifying patient identities to hide illegal billing, unauthorized procedures, and financial fraud.
Elena had discovered Matteo's identity had accidentally appeared in the system.
Someone panicked.
Clara had helped her.
Then Clara disappeared.
Not voluntarily.
Vale believed she'd suffered an injury and subsequent memory loss after being found unconscious following a suspicious vehicle incident.
No graphic details.
No clear perpetrator.
Just missing time.
"I woke in another state," Clara whispered.
"I thought I'd had an accident."
"You did," Vale said.
"But someone made sure you couldn't easily reconstruct why."
Clara looked at me.
"That's why Elena knew my name."
"And why she wanted me to find you."
Matteo whispered:
"Mom trusted her."
I looked at Clara.
For the first time since Elena died, trusting someone didn't feel like weakness.
It felt terrifying.
Dominic entered with new information.
They'd found Samuel Keene.
Or rather, his records.
He hadn't disappeared after termination.
He had been receiving monthly payments.
From one of my companies.
"Which company?"
Dominic hesitated.
"Rossi Coastal Holdings."
"Who authorized them?"
His eyes met mine.
"Your electronic signature."
Forged.
I assumed.
Then Dominic showed me the dates.
Payments had begun before Elena died.
Someone had been using my credentials for years.
I checked the authorization history.
The account had been accessed from my home office.
Not Elena's.
Mine.
Only three people had regular access.
Me.
Dominic.
And my private financial manager, Lawrence Bell.
Lawrence had worked for me eleven years.
He attended my wedding.
Held Matteo the day he was born.
Stood beside me at Elena's funeral.
I called him.
No answer.
Dominic called.
Nothing.
Security checked his residence.
Empty.
Then Matteo spoke.
"Mr. Bell came here."
"When?"
"After Mom died."
I stared at him.
"Of course. He visited."
Matteo shook his head.
"Night."
My blood cooled.
"What night?"
Matteo pointed toward his wheelchair.
"He scratched it."
M + M.
Not Matteo and Mama.
Someone had carved it.
A message.
Or initials.
"Did Bell do that?"
Matteo shook his head.
"Who?"
Before he could answer, Clara's phone rang.
Unknown number.
She looked at me.
I nodded.
She answered on speaker.
Silence.
Then a man's voice.
"Clara."
Her face drained.
She recognized it.
"Who is this?"
"You remembered too much."
Dominic began tracing.
The voice continued.
"Ask Vincent what M plus M means."
I looked at Matteo's wheel.
"Who are you?"
The caller laughed softly.
Then:
"Ask him why his wife was in that car at all."
My chest tightened.
"What are you talking about?"
"Elena wasn't supposed to be in the SUV that morning."
I knew that.
She'd changed plans at the last minute.
Or so I'd always believed.
"Who told her to get in?"
Silence.
Then the caller said one name.
"Dominic."
I slowly turned toward the man who had stood beside me for fifteen years.
May you like
Dominic's face went white.
And his hand moved toward his pocket.
