Chapter 16 - Helena'S Final Video
Bishop Serrano was not at the cathedral.
That was the first problem.
His secretary said he had left forty minutes earlier after receiving a call about a water leak at a church-owned restoration warehouse.
There was no water leak.
Daniel confirmed that before Lucia finished asking the question.
"Someone pulled him out of the building."
Lucia looked at the address attached to the Serrano Restoration Fund.
It matched a storage property two blocks from the cathedral.
Marco was already calling the bishop's phone.
No answer.
Giovanni reached for his coat.
Daniel pointed at his injured arm.
"You are staying here."
"No."
"That was not a request."
Giovanni looked at him.
"You still sound exactly like Helena when you say that."
Daniel's face changed.
Only for a second.
"Then maybe listen this time."
Giovanni actually did.
Lucia noticed the miracle and did not comment on it.
Agents reached the restoration warehouse in seven minutes.
Lucia arrived behind them with Daniel and Marco.
The building was smaller than Warehouse Nine, with stone samples stacked along one wall and wooden crates of cathedral fixtures labeled for repair.
The front door had been forced.
Inside, they found Bishop Serrano sitting on the floor behind an overturned desk.
He was angry, not injured.
"A man shoved me into a cabinet."
Lucia knelt beside him.
"Did you see him?"
"Yes."
"Carlo?"
"No."
Daniel frowned.
"Who?"
The bishop pointed toward the rear door.
"The one who stood beside Carlo at Helena's funeral."
Lucia thought of the mourners.
"Vincent?"
"No."
Marco showed him photographs from the family council.
Bishop Serrano pointed to Adrian Cross.
Lucia's stomach tightened.
The man who had hosted Emilio in the Cayman Islands was now inside Helena's last hiding place.
Agents cleared the building.
Cross was gone.
The rear office had been searched violently.
Drawers were open.
Paper covered the floor.
A wall safe had been cut open.
It was empty.
Lucia felt panic rise.
"He got it."
The bishop stood with help.
"No."
Everyone looked at him.
"Helena never put the video in the safe."
Daniel frowned.
"Then what was in it?"
"Old restoration contracts and enough useless paperwork to make a thief regret literacy."
Lucia stared at him.
"Mother told you to use it as a decoy."
"She enjoyed practical jokes more than people realized."
Marco almost smiled.
"Where is the real copy?"
Bishop Serrano pointed upward.
A small security camera faced the office entrance.
"Not that camera."
He pointed to a gray network box mounted near the ceiling.
"The restoration project maintains an off-site media archive for architectural scans."
Daniel understood first.
"She stored it inside the project archive."
"Encrypted under an old donor file."
"How do we open it?"
The bishop looked at Lucia.
"Helena said you would bring the key."
Lucia took the brass key from her bag.
"This key opened the storage box."
"Not that one."
Her pulse changed.
"Then which?"
The bishop made the sign of the cross over his chest.
Lucia suddenly understood.
"The rosary."
Helena's silver rosary had been removed before burial because the family kept heirloom religious items.
It was now locked in the estate chapel.
Giovanni arrived twenty minutes later despite being told to stay put.
No one was surprised.
He carried the rosary inside a velvet pouch.
Daniel looked at him.
"You were told to remain at the cathedral."
"I brought the thing you need."
"That does not make the instruction disappear."
"I raised you better than this."
Daniel's expression went cold.
"Helena raised me."
Giovanni stopped.
The room quieted.
Lucia took the pouch before either man could reopen thirty years of pain.
The rosary cross had a tiny removable back plate.
Inside, where Lucia had found the folded address earlier, there was also a micro-etched metal strip beneath the paper.
Marco examined it.
"Encryption token."
Daniel looked at Lucia.
"Your mother hid a digital key in a rosary."
"She once hid my birthday money in a cookbook because Emilio never opened one."
Emilio, who had arrived with Giovanni, looked offended.
"I cook."
Lucia looked at him.
"Name one thing."
"Coffee."
"That is not cooking."
For two seconds, the room felt like a family instead of an investigation.
Then Marco connected the token to a secure laptop.
The archive opened.
One file was labeled H.M. PRIVATE - 11:46 PM.
The date was the night before Helena collapsed.
Lucia's hands began to shake.
Daniel looked at her.
"You do not have to watch it first."
"Yes, I do."
Giovanni moved beside her.
Emilio remained behind them.
Marco opened the file.
The video came from a small hidden camera in Helena's bedroom.
The image showed the foot of her bed, the sitting area, and the door to the private hall.
At eleven seventeen, Helena sat in an armchair reading.
A tea cup rested on the table beside her.
Lucia covered her mouth.
Her mother was alive on the screen.
Not a posed will video.
Not a funeral photograph.
Alive.
She turned a page.
She adjusted her glasses.
She reached for the cup.
Giovanni whispered her name.
"Helena."
At eleven twenty-one, the bedroom door opened.
Carlo entered.
Giovanni's face hardened.
On screen, Helena looked up.
"You have a remarkable inability to understand the word no."
Carlo closed the door.
"We need to talk."
"You need to leave."
"Reeve will destroy Emilio."
"No."
Helena removed her glasses.
"You will destroy Emilio if I let you keep using him."
Emilio made a sound behind Lucia.
The recording continued.
Carlo stepped closer.
"Give me the ledger."
"Which ledger?"
"Do not play with me."
"Then stop being so easy to play with."
Even now, Lucia almost smiled.
Carlo's face darkened on screen.
"You ruined my life once."
"Your brother tried to kill mine."
"Sofia paid for it."
"Sofia paid for men around her making decisions she was never allowed to question."
Clarissa's story suddenly sounded different.
Helena had not hated Sofia.
She had pitied her.
Carlo moved toward the tea table.
"You always thought you were better than us."
"No."
Helena looked at him.
"I thought we could be better than what we were taught."
Carlo laughed.
"And now you run to a prosecutor."
"I ran to my son."
Daniel flinched.
Giovanni looked at him.
Daniel did not look back.
On screen, Helena stood slowly.
"Leave my house."
Carlo's expression changed.
"This was my brother's house before it was yours."
"Then ask him for a room."
Helena walked toward the bathroom.
"I am finished with you."
She disappeared from camera view.
Carlo stood alone beside the tea.
For three seconds, he did nothing.
Then he reached into his coat.
Lucia stopped breathing.
Carlo removed a small amber vial.
He looked toward the bathroom.
Then he poured liquid into Helena's tea.
Giovanni stepped backward as if struck.
Emilio whispered, "No."
Carlo returned the vial to his pocket.
When Helena came back, he was near the door.
"Think about what happens to Emilio if you hand those records to Reeve."
Helena looked at him.
"I have done nothing but think about what happens to Emilio."
Carlo opened the door.
"Then you know blood matters more than paper."
Helena's answer was immediate.
"Blood is not permission."
Carlo left.
The bedroom became quiet again.
Helena sat.
She reached for the tea.
Lucia wanted to scream at the screen.
Do not drink it.
Helena took one sip.
Then another.
She made a small face at the taste.
She looked into the cup.
For a moment, Lucia thought she knew.
Then Helena set it down and continued reading.
At eleven thirty-nine, Salvatore entered.
He looked around the room.
He picked up the cup.
He carried it out.
The recording ended.
No one spoke.
Giovanni sat down heavily.
His eyes were wet.
"He killed her."
Daniel's prosecutor voice returned because someone needed it.
"The video strongly supports deliberate administration of a substance."
Giovanni looked at him.
"He killed her."
"We still need the laboratory link between the vial and the drug in Helena's blood."
"You watched him poison her."
"I watched him put an unknown liquid in her tea."
Giovanni stood.
"Do not do that."
"Do what?"
"Turn my wife into careful words."
Daniel met his eyes.
"Careful words are how we make sure Carlo cannot walk away from what he did."
Lucia heard Helena's instruction in the bishop's envelope.
Do not let Giovanni turn this into revenge.
Make it evidence.
She placed a hand on her father's arm.
"Daniel is right."
Giovanni looked at her.
Pain became anger.
Then grief.
Then something quieter.
He sat again.
"Fine."
Marco's phone rang.
He answered.
His expression sharpened.
"Clarissa just contacted the emergency line."
Emilio stepped forward.
"Where is she?"
Marco put the call on speaker.
Clarissa's voice was faint beneath road noise.
"Lucia?"
"I am here."
"Did you find the video?"
"Yes."
Clarissa exhaled.
"Then listen carefully."
"Where are you?"
"With Carlo."
Emilio grabbed the edge of the desk.
"Clarissa."
She went silent.
"Emilio?"
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Get away from him."
"I cannot yet."
Lucia looked at Daniel.
He was already signaling technicians to trace the call.
"Why are you with him?" Lucia asked.
Clarissa lowered her voice.
"Because he thinks I found Helena's original ledger."
"The original is safe."
"I know."
"Does he?"
"No."
Lucia understood.
Clarissa had created her own trap.
"What are you doing?"
"Finishing what I started."
"Do not."
Clarissa almost laughed.
"Your mother said the same thing."
"My mother is dead."
The silence after that was painful.
Clarissa whispered.
"I know."
Road noise grew louder.
Then Carlo's voice appeared in the background.
"Who are you talking to?"
Clarissa answered quickly.
"No one."
The line shifted.
Lucia heard movement.
Then Carlo's voice came closer.
"Give me the phone."
Clarissa said one thing very fast.
"Old Moretti boathouse."
The call ended.
Daniel replayed Clarissa's final words only once.
Old Moretti boathouse.
Giovanni immediately named the location.
"North shore property."
Marco was already pulling maps.
Emilio looked at the black screen where Helena's final video had ended.
"Carlo knows she helped us."
Lucia understood the pronoun could mean Clarissa or Helena.
Both were true.
Daniel ordered a tactical response and told the family to remain behind.
Giovanni opened his mouth.
Lucia pointed at him.
"Do not."
For once, he closed it again.
Emilio looked at her.
"You know I am not staying."
"I know."
"Then why argue?"
"Because someday I want you to remember that someone gave you the correct option before you chose the reckless one."
Emilio almost smiled.
Then he looked back at Helena frozen on the laptop screen.
May you like
"I already have enough of those memories."
