Chapter 3 - The Secret Beneath the Car
Emma stared at the photograph until Lily's bedroom stopped looking like her daughter's room.
It became a crime scene.
Someone had been outside their apartment.
Someone had watched Lily sleep.
Someone had raised a camera to the window and taken a picture.
“How long?” Emma whispered.
Matteo looked at her.
“How long have they been watching us?”
“I don't know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because lying to make you feel better would be useless.”
She hated that he was right.
“It's my apartment.”
“You're not going back there.”
“You don't decide where I live.”
“Tonight I do.”
Emma glared at him.
Matteo didn't react.
“Someone photographed your child through her bedroom window and delivered the picture inside a locked security room. You can hate me tomorrow.”
He placed the photograph into an evidence bag.
“Tonight you're staying alive.”
Emma looked through the adjoining doorway.
Lily laughed at something on television.
The sound nearly broke her.
“How did they get the envelope here?”
“We're checking.”
“Your secure room isn't secure.”
“Apparently not.”
That seemed to anger him more than frighten him.
Matteo ordered the entire wing cleared.
Within minutes, Emma and Lily were moved upstairs to a bedroom guarded by two men Matteo said he trusted personally.
Emma no longer knew what that word meant.
Trusted.
Mrs. Russo had apparently accused her.
Vincenzo had apparently betrayed Matteo.
Security footage had vanished.
A threatening photograph had appeared behind a locked door.
Trust seemed like a luxury nobody in the Moretti estate could afford.
At noon, Matteo returned.
He carried Lily's red crayon.
She brightened.
“You found it!”
“I did.”
He handed it to her.
“Thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
Lily inspected him.
“Did you fix your car?”
“Not yet.”
“I can make the picture bigger.”
Emma closed her eyes.
Matteo almost smiled.
“I think it's big enough.”
Lily nodded solemnly.
“Okay.”
Then Matteo did something Emma didn't expect.
He sat on the floor.
“Can you draw the hiding man again?”
Emma immediately understood.
Lily looked uncertain.
“Why?”
“Because I forgot what he looked like.”
“You saw him on the car.”
“I have a bad memory.”
Lily considered this.
“You're old.”
Emma choked.
Matteo looked at her.
“Apparently.”
He placed paper on the floor.
Lily began drawing.
Emma watched.
First a circle.
Then a body.
Arms.
Legs.
A black scribble over one hand.
Matteo pointed.
“Why is his hand black?”
“Glove.”
“One glove?”
Lily nodded.
That was interesting.
Vincenzo's pair had included two.
“What else?”
Lily drew something near the man's neck.
A rectangle.
“What is that?”
“Pretty necklace.”
Matteo's eyes narrowed.
“A necklace?”
“It went shiny.”
Emma crouched.
“Like jewelry?”
Lily shook her head.
“Like Daddy's army thing.”
Emma froze.
Matteo looked at her.
“Her father was military?”
“No. My father was.”
Lily called Emma's father Daddy because she had learned it from old family videos.
“What army thing?”
“Dog tags.”
Matteo turned back to the drawing.
“The man had dog tags?”
Lily nodded.
Vincenzo had never served.
Matteo stood immediately.
Emma saw the realization.
“It wasn't him.”
“Maybe not the man beneath the car.”
“Then why the gloves?”
“Someone planted them.”
“To frame him.”
“Yes.”
Emma thought about Vincenzo's warning.
Don't trust anyone.
“Let him out.”
Matteo looked at her.
“That isn't your decision.”
“No. But if somebody is trying to kill you and frame your closest man, keeping him locked up is doing exactly what they want.”
Matteo studied her.
“You clean houses for a living?”
“I clean your house.”
“That's not what I asked.”
Emma folded her arms.
“I studied criminal psychology for two years before Lily was born.”
Matteo blinked.
“You never finished?”
“Life happened.”
He glanced at Lily.
Emma's expression hardened.
“She wasn't the problem.”
“I didn't say she was.”
“People usually do.”
Matteo nodded once.
“Point taken.”
He left.
Twenty minutes later, Vincenzo entered.
Two guards remained behind him.
His tie was gone.
His jacket was wrinkled.
But his confidence had returned.
He looked at Lily's drawing.
“Dog tags?”
Matteo nodded.
Vincenzo swore quietly.
“You know someone.”
“Maybe.”
“Who?”
Vincenzo looked at Emma.
Matteo understood.
“She stays.”
“Matteo—”
“She and her daughter are already targets.”
Vincenzo exhaled.
“Gabriel Rizzo.”
Matteo became very still.
Emma looked between them.
“Who is Gabriel Rizzo?”
“A dead man,” Matteo said.
Vincenzo shook his head.
“A man we thought was dead.”
He explained.
Gabriel had once worked security for Matteo's father.
Former military.
Explosives training.
Ten years earlier, he had disappeared after stealing money from the organization.
A burned vehicle had later been found.
Dental records identified the body.
Case closed.
Except Vincenzo had recently discovered irregularities in old financial accounts.
Payments that continued after Gabriel's supposed death.
“You didn't tell me?” Matteo asked.
“I was trying to verify it.”
“That's convenient.”
“I knew you'd say that.”
Emma interrupted.
“Would Gabriel have a reason to kill you?”
Both men looked at her.
Matteo answered.
“My father ordered his execution.”
“Apparently unsuccessfully.”
“Yes.”
“And your father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“So you're next.”
Vincenzo shook his head.
“It's more than revenge.”
“How?”
“Three weeks ago, Matteo acquired a shipping company.”
Emma waited.
Neither explained.
She sighed.
“I'm not familiar with mafia shipping economics.”
Vincenzo almost laughed.
Matteo didn't.
“The company controls access to several ports,” he said.
“Gabriel wants them?”
“We think someone does.”
Emma looked at Lily.
“Then why us?”
Nobody had an answer.
At three that afternoon, investigators examined Matteo's car.
They found traces of military-grade explosive adhesive.
More importantly, they discovered something hidden inside the rear wheel well.
A transmitter.
Not a bomb.
A tracker.
Matteo placed it on the table.
“He wasn't trying to blow up the car this morning.”
Vincenzo nodded.
“He wanted to know where you were going.”
“Then why remove the device?”
Emma asked.
Both men looked at her.
“What?”
“If Lily saw him putting something under the car, why was it gone when you checked?”
Vincenzo frowned.
“He changed his mind.”
“No.”
Emma thought aloud.
“He installed one thing. Then removed something else.”
Matteo understood first.
“There were two devices.”
They returned to the sedan.
This time technicians dismantled part of the undercarriage.
Twenty-seven minutes later, they found it.
A tiny receiver connected to the vehicle's electronic control system.
Not an explosive.
A remote override.
“What does it do?” Emma asked.
The technician swallowed.
“Depending on configuration? Steering. Braking. Acceleration.”
Emma looked at Matteo.
Someone hadn't planned to blow up his car.
They had planned an accident.
A crash.
Something that might look mechanical.
“Where were you supposed to go today?” Emma asked.
Matteo's expression changed.
“The courthouse.”
“Why?”
“To testify.”
Vincenzo swore.
Emma understood.
This wasn't simply assassination.
Someone needed Matteo dead before he reached court.
“What were you testifying about?”
Matteo hesitated.
Then answered.
“Gabriel Rizzo.”
Emma stared.
“You knew he was alive?”
“I suspected.”
“And someone knew you were going to say it publicly.”
“Yes.”
“Then your enemy isn't just outside.”
Matteo looked toward the mansion.
“No.”
The implication settled over them.
Someone inside Matteo's organization knew confidential details about his testimony.
Someone had access to the estate.
Someone could manipulate cameras.
Someone could enter secure areas.
And someone knew about Emma and Lily before Lily witnessed anything.
At 6:40 that evening, Mrs. Russo asked to see Emma.
Matteo initially refused.
Emma insisted.
The elderly woman looked fragile in the medical room.
A bandage covered the back of her head.
“Emma.”
“You told them I stole your badge.”
Mrs. Russo began crying.
“I had to.”
“Why?”
“He threatened my grandson.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
Emma stepped closer.
“You saw him.”
“No. Messages. Photographs.”
Mrs. Russo's hands trembled.
“He knew where Anthony goes to school.”
Emma's anger vanished.
“He told me to say you took the card.”
“Why me?”
“I don't know.”
Mrs. Russo reached beneath her blanket.
She produced a small brass key.
“He made me hide something.”
Emma stared.
“What?”
“In your locker.”
“My locker?”
“I didn't look.”
“Where?”
“Staff changing room.”
Matteo, standing near the door, immediately spoke into his radio.
Mrs. Russo grabbed Emma's hand.
“I'm sorry.”
Emma squeezed hers.
“We'll get your grandson somewhere safe.”
Mrs. Russo looked at Matteo.
He nodded.
“Already done.”
The old woman began sobbing.
Emma turned away to give her privacy.
Twenty minutes later, a guard returned carrying a small locked metal box.
Found inside Emma's locker.
The brass key opened it.
Inside were stacks of cash.
A burner phone.
And a photograph.
Emma picked it up.
It showed her at nineteen years old.
Standing beside her father.
Her father wore his Army uniform.
Beside him stood another soldier.
Emma recognized the dog tags immediately.
On the back, someone had written one name.
GABRIEL RIZZO.
Emma's hands went numb.
“I know him.”
Matteo stared at her.
Emma turned the photograph over again.
A memory surfaced.
Her father laughing at a backyard barbecue.
A younger man lifting Emma onto his shoulders.
A nickname she hadn't heard in twenty years.
“Uncle Gabe.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“What?”
Emma looked up.
“He wasn't just watching Lily.”
Her voice broke.
“He knew exactly who we were.”
The burner phone inside the box suddenly rang.
Nobody moved.
Matteo answered it.
A distorted male voice spoke.
“Put Emma on.”
Matteo's expression hardened.
Emma took the phone.
“Hello?”
The voice became clear.
No distortion now.
Older.
Rougher.
But horribly familiar.
“Hello, Emmy.”
Her childhood nickname.
Emma stopped breathing.
May you like
Then Gabriel Rizzo said:
“Ask Matteo who really killed your father.”
