Chapter 10 - Grave Eleven
My father had been dead for four years.
That did not stop six men who once worked for him from appearing at Graceland Cemetery with rifles hidden beneath maintenance jackets.
Dante recognized two of them from old photographs.
Mara recognized another from a Moretti security payroll record that should have ended after the funeral.
No one recognized the man giving orders.
By the time we reached the cemetery, police sirens were converging from three directions.
Smoke rose behind the north service road.
Roman's SUV burned against a stone wall.
He had not been inside it when it exploded.
Of course he had not.
Roman rarely trusted a vehicle long enough to sit in it once something felt wrong.
The explosion had wounded one of his guards and created enough confusion for Isabella to disappear.
Luca had disappeared too.
The Moretti men vanished before police sealed the gates.
Dante's security team got us in through a funeral home entrance on the east side using credentials Mara refused to explain.
"This is a terrible idea," she said as we crossed the wet grass.
"You arranged the entrance."
"Professional competence does not equal approval."
Vanessa stayed at the safe house with Judge Lane and two guards.
She had wanted to come.
I told her one Castellano-adjacent woman in red heels running through a cemetery was enough for one week.
She had almost smiled.
Section seventeen lay beneath enormous elm trees stripped half bare by autumn.
Lot four was smaller than I expected.
There were six graves.
Five carried the Caruso name.
The sixth stone was plain except for one line.
SOFIA C.
No birth date.
No death date.
No prayer.
Just a name and an initial.
"Grave eleven," Mara said.
I looked at the ground.
The earth was undisturbed.
Dante crouched near the base of the stone.
"Someone cleans this."
There was no moss on the carved letters.
Fresh white roses lay beneath them.
My mother loved white roses.
I remembered them on our kitchen table every Sunday.
"Isabella," I said.
A voice behind us answered.
"Usually."
We turned.
An old man stood beneath a black umbrella ten yards away.
He wore a cemetery groundskeeper's coat.
Dante raised his weapon.
The man did not move.
"Put that away, Michael's boy."
Dante's expression changed.
"Carlo?"
The old man smiled faintly.
"You got taller."
"You died in 2008."
"Paperwork is a flexible thing."
Mara looked at me.
I was beginning to understand why lawyers drank.
The old man approached slowly.
"Carlo Bianchi," he said to me.
"I worked for your grandfather, then your father."
"You are one of the men who attacked Roman?"
"We did not attack Roman."
"His car exploded."
"Yes."
Carlo looked toward the smoke.
"That was Luca."
Of course it was.
"Where is he?"
"Trying to find his mother."
"Where is Isabella?"
"Not with Roman."
"That is not an answer."
Carlo studied me.
"You sound like Enzo."
"People keep saying things about my father instead of answering me."
"Then ask the right question."
I pointed toward the grave.
"Is Sofia Castellano in there?"
Carlo's face lost what little softness it had.
"No."
Dante exhaled.
Mara looked at the headstone.
"Then what is buried there?"
"Proof."
"Of what?"
Carlo looked at me.
"That Sofia survived the night everyone says she died."
I felt a coldness deeper than the October air.
"Isabella said she was murdered."
"She was."
"You just said she survived."
"For eleven years."
No one spoke.
Carlo lowered his umbrella slightly.
"Sofia escaped the first attempt."
"Your great-grandfather believed she was dead."
"Enzo Moretti helped her disappear."
My knees almost weakened.
"My father did not help kill her."
"No."
"He helped save her."
"Yes."
Roman had said Enzo helped bury her.
Technically true.
Morally inverted.
Exactly the kind of lie Roman loved most.
"Why did Isabella accuse him?"
Carlo's eyes narrowed.
"Because Roman has her son."
"Luca?"
"No."
The word stopped me.
"Roman is her son."
"Roman is one of them."
Carlo looked at the grave.
"There is another."
Dante swore under his breath.
"Who?"
Carlo did not answer.
Instead, he reached into his coat and produced a small iron tool.
"If you want truth, open the grave."
Mara stared at him.
"That is several felonies in one sentence."
"Then do not watch."
Carlo knelt beside the stone and inserted the tool into a nearly invisible seam.
A rectangular section of granite lifted.
Beneath it was not soil.
A narrow metal compartment had been built into the foundation.
There was a circular depression in the lid.
The exact size of the second ring.
I pulled the sapphire from my pocket.
Dante caught my wrist.
"We do not know what happens when you use it."
"That sentence has followed me for twenty-four hours."
"It keeps being relevant."
Carlo looked at him.
"Michael trusted Enzo with his life."
Dante's voice turned cold.
"My father trusted many people who got him killed."
Carlo's eyes flickered.
"You still believe the wrong story too."
Before Dante could respond, I placed the ring into the depression.
The metal lock clicked.
Inside the compartment lay three objects.
A packet of old photographs.
A sealed legal deed.
And a cassette tape.
Mara almost laughed.
"A cassette?"
Carlo looked offended.
"It was reliable."
I opened the photographs first.
The top image showed Sofia years after her supposed death.
She stood outside a small house near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.
Beside her was my father.
Beside him was Michael Vale, Dante's father.
And beside Michael stood Isabella.
Alive.
Young.
Smiling.
On the back was a date from 2001.
Six years after Sofia's official death.
The next photograph showed my mother holding me as a toddler while Sofia touched my cheek.
I had no memory of it.
My great-grandmother had held me.
My father had erased her from my childhood to keep her alive.
I did not know whether to forgive him or hate him.
"How did she actually die?" I asked.
Carlo's face tightened.
"2006."
"Who killed her?"
"We never proved it."
"Roman?"
"Roman was nineteen."
"Old enough."
"Yes."
"Did he know she was alive?"
"Someone told him."
"Who?"
Carlo looked at the cassette.
"That is why Enzo kept the tape."
Mara broke the seal on the deed.
Her eyes moved rapidly across the pages.
Then she stopped.
"Evelyn."
"What?"
"This is an original beneficial ownership instrument."
"In normal words."
"Sofia transferred her controlling interest in Castellano Mercantile to Maria Moretti in 2003."
"My mother."
"And on Maria's death, it transfers to you."
I stared at her.
"How much?"
Mara looked almost stunned.
"Twenty-six percent of the parent entity."
"On top of the trust?"
"Potentially."
Dante spoke.
"Roman will kill for that document."
A gunshot cracked through the trees.
Carlo jerked.
The umbrella fell from his hand.
Blood spread across his chest.
Dante pulled me down behind the grave marker.
Mara dropped beside us clutching the deed.
A second shot chipped stone above my head.
Carlo collapsed onto the grass.
"Carlo."
I reached for him.
Dante dragged me back.
"No."
More shots came from the tree line.
Police shouted in the distance.
Carlo's men answered from somewhere behind the mausoleum.
The cemetery exploded into noise.
Mara shoved the deed inside her coat.
I grabbed the photographs and cassette.
Dante fired twice toward the shooter.
"Move to the mausoleum."
We ran bent low between stones.
A bullet struck a marble angel and sent white fragments into the air.
At the mausoleum steps, a black car skidded across the service road.
The rear door opened.
Luca leaned out.
"Get in."
Dante aimed at him.
"You blew up Roman's SUV."
"It was empty."
"Carlo said you did it."
"Carlo talks too much."
I looked back.
Carlo was not moving.
"He was just shot."
Luca's face changed.
"By who?"
"Get us out and we can compare family murder notes later."
We got in.
Luca drove himself, one-handed because his wounded shoulder was stiff.
He tore through the cemetery service gate seconds before police blocked it.
"Where is your mother?" I asked.
"Gone."
"Roman?"
"Gone."
"Who is the other son?"
Luca glanced at me in the mirror.
"What other son?"
"Carlo said Isabella has another son Roman is holding."
Luca's face went white.
The car drifted slightly before he corrected it.
"Carlo said that?"
"Yes."
Luca looked straight ahead.
"Then my mother has been lying to both of us for thirty-five years."
"Who is he?"
Luca's answer was barely audible.
"Dante."
The car went silent.
I turned toward Dante.
He looked as shocked as I felt.
Then the cassette tape in my lap clicked.
None of us had touched it.
A tiny red light appeared inside the old plastic shell.
Dante grabbed it from me.
"That's not a cassette."
The shell split along one edge.
Inside was a modern digital recorder and a blinking transmitter.
Someone had just activated it remotely.
A voice came through the tiny speaker.
Isabella's voice.
May you like
"Dante, if Evelyn opened the grave, Roman knows who you are now."
