Chapter 6 - THE MAN WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO DISAPPEAR
Nico Ferrara refused to be taken to the hospital.
He refused police.
He refused Leo's private doctor.
He refused to answer a single question until Beatrice arrived.
That alone made Leo suspicious enough to say no.
"Absolutely not."
Beatrice stood in Lily's hospital room with her coat already on.
"He knows something."
"He can tell me."
"He said he won't."
"Then he can sit there until he changes his mind."
Mateo watched them from the doorway.
"We may not have that long."
Leo turned.
"Why?"
"The people who left him alive may have done it for a reason."
Beatrice understood.
Nico might be bait.
Leo understood too.
That made his answer even harder.
"No."
Lily stirred beneath her blanket.
"Daddy."
Leo immediately lowered his voice.
"Go back to sleep, princess."
"Bee should go."
Beatrice blinked.
Leo looked at his daughter in disbelief.
Lily's eyes were barely open.
"Mr. Nico looked scared."
"That doesn't mean Beatrice needs to walk into a trap."
"You can protect her."
Leo glanced at Beatrice.
The maid folded her arms.
"Your six-year-old has more faith in you than you do."
Mateo coughed into his fist to hide a laugh.
Leo gave him a look.
"Fine."
Beatrice smiled once.
"But you do exactly what I say."
Her smile disappeared.
"Let's not ruin the moment."
Leo arranged for a nurse he trusted to remain outside Lily's room with two guards who had joined his organization after Serena's death.
No one else was told where they were going.
The vacant machine shop stood near an industrial canal beneath a row of dark warehouses.
Rain had begun again by the time their vehicle entered through a rusted gate.
Beatrice hated the place immediately.
Too many windows.
Too many shadows.
Too many doors.
Mateo checked the perimeter with two men before allowing Leo and Beatrice inside.
Nico sat in a metal chair beneath a hanging work light.
His lower lip was split.
One eye had swollen nearly shut.
A bandage wrapped his shoulder where the earlier gunshot had grazed him.
He looked older than he had that morning.
He also looked ashamed.
"Bee."
Beatrice stopped several feet away.
Only Lily called her that.
Hearing it from Nico felt wrong.
"Beatrice."
He nodded.
"Sorry."
Leo remained in the shadows behind her.
Nico could see him.
He pretended not to.
"You asked for me."
Nico looked at the two men near the door.
"Alone."
"No."
"Then I can't-"
"You disabled an alarm that almost got a child killed."
Beatrice's voice cut across him.
"You don't get to make rules tonight."
Nico closed his mouth.
Beatrice stepped closer.
"Talk."
For several seconds, the only sound was rain striking the metal roof.
Then Nico began.
"Serena found the garage access logs."
"We know."
His eyes widened.
"You found the card."
Leo moved forward half a step.
Nico saw the answer in his face.
"Then you know Victoria was in the garage."
"We know."
Nico rubbed his bound wrists.
"She wasn't alone."
Leo's voice came from behind Beatrice.
"Who was with her?"
Nico looked at him at last.
"I never saw his face."
Leo's expression chilled.
"You demanded Beatrice so you could tell us you don't know?"
"I know how he got in."
"How?"
Nico looked at Beatrice again.
"Through staff access."
Beatrice frowned.
"Whose credential?"
"Yours."
The answer hit like a physical blow.
Beatrice stared at him.
"I didn't have security access to the garage."
"Not personally."
"Then what are you talking about?"
"Every staff badge was linked to a master housekeeping credential before the system upgrade."
"Someone cloned it."
Leo's eyes narrowed.
"Who had the authority?"
"Head of estate operations."
Beatrice knew the title.
At the time, the position belonged to a man named Charles Dunning.
Charles had retired three weeks after Serena's death and moved to Arizona.
Or so everyone had been told.
Mateo stepped into the light.
"Dunning died last year."
Nico nodded.
"Car accident."
"You think it wasn't an accident?"
"I think a lot of people around this story have accidents."
Leo looked at Mateo.
"Why wasn't Dunning in the original investigation?"
Mateo's face tightened.
"Because the access log was removed before I saw it."
Nico laughed bitterly.
"By me."
Mateo stared at him.
"You deleted it."
"I was ordered to."
"By Victoria?"
Nico shook his head.
"No."
"Harold?"
Again, no.
Leo stepped closer.
"Then who?"
Nico looked toward the dark ceiling as if the answer might still be hiding there.
"A man called me from a blocked number."
"He knew my wife's name."
"He knew where my sons went to school."
"He told me the garage log had been corrupted and needed to disappear before morning."
Leo's patience snapped.
"That is not an order."
Nico looked at him.
"Then he sent me a photograph of my boys getting off their school bus."
Silence.
Beatrice felt some of her anger toward Nico shift, but not enough to become forgiveness.
"So you deleted it."
"Yes."
"And Serena found out."
"Yes."
"Then she asked you for help."
Nico nodded.
"I gave her a copy of the deleted access record."
"And took money afterward."
His face tightened.
"Victoria found out I had talked."
"She offered the house."
"She offered safety."
Beatrice shook her head.
"You sold the truth."
"I bought my children distance."
"And Lily almost died for it."
Nico looked down.
"I know."
"No."
Beatrice's voice rose.
"You know she lived."
"You don't know what it felt like when she stopped making sound behind that door."
Nico's face crumpled.
"I heard it on the monitor."
Beatrice froze.
"What monitor?"
Nico lifted his head.
"The cellar had audio."
Leo's expression changed.
"There is no audio feed in the cellar."
"There was tonight."
Nico swallowed.
"Victoria had me activate an old maintenance microphone."
"Why?"
"She said she wanted to make sure Lily was scared enough to learn a lesson."
Leo took another step.
Mateo blocked him with one arm.
"Let him finish."
Nico closed his good eye.
"At first Lily was crying."
"Then she was coughing."
"Then Beatrice was pounding on the door."
"I tried to restore the alarm."
"Someone locked me out of the system remotely."
Mateo frowned.
"From outside the estate?"
"Yes."
"Can you trace it?"
"I tried."
"Where did it go?"
Nico looked at Leo.
"Kensington National Bank."
Leo's face hardened.
"Harold."
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
"The bank has thousands of employees."
"But only a few people could bury an internal network trace before I copied it."
Nico shifted painfully.
"I copied it anyway."
Mateo leaned forward.
"Where?"
Nico looked at Beatrice.
"That is why I asked for her."
Beatrice stared at him.
"Why me?"
"Because Serena told me something before she died."
"What?"
Nico's eyes filled with shame.
"She said if everything went wrong, the safest person in Leo's house would be the woman no one important bothered to notice."
Beatrice could not speak.
Leo looked at her.
Nico continued.
"I thought she meant you."
"So I hid the trace where only you would find it."
"Where?"
"Your locker at the old staff gym."
Beatrice frowned.
"That room was closed last year."
"Exactly."
"What did you hide?"
"A memory card."
"With the network trace?"
"And a copy of the payment records."
Mateo looked toward Leo.
"We need it."
Nico laughed again.
"You may be too late."
"Why?"
"Because Victoria knew I copied something."
"Did she know where?"
"No."
"Then we're not too late."
Nico looked at Beatrice.
"There is more."
She waited.
"The man who attacked me tonight asked about the maid."
Leo's face sharpened.
"Beatrice?"
"He didn't use her name."
"What did he say?"
Nico's voice dropped.
"He asked whether Serena had ever told the big maid where the second book was hidden."
Beatrice felt the old insult hit harder because it came from an unseen stranger who had apparently been watching her for years.
Leo noticed.
Something dangerous passed across his face.
"What second book?"
"I don't know."
"The red ledger?"
"No."
Nico shook his head.
"He already had that."
Mateo and Leo exchanged a glance.
The intruder who escaped with Victoria had taken the red ledger.
Yet someone was still searching for another book.
Beatrice remembered Serena's nonprofit plans.
She remembered boxes of papers.
She remembered one battered black notebook Serena carried everywhere during the final month of her life.
At the time, Beatrice thought it contained donor lists.
"Black cover," Beatrice whispered.
Nico's eyes widened.
"You saw it?"
"Serena had a notebook."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Leo moved closer.
"Think."
Beatrice closed her eyes.
She saw Serena at the kitchen island.
Serena in the sunroom.
Serena beside Lily's crib.
The black notebook appeared in memory after memory.
Then one image sharpened.
The morning of the bombing.
Serena had entered Lily's nursery while Beatrice folded blankets.
She had placed the black notebook inside a white diaper bag.
Beatrice opened her eyes.
"Lily's old nursery bag."
Leo frowned.
"Where is it?"
"Storage."
"At the house?"
"No."
Beatrice felt her pulse accelerate.
"Serena donated most of Lily's baby things after Lily turned four."
"To where?"
Beatrice stared at him.
"Her women's shelter."
Leo's expression shifted.
The shelter Serena had been planning before her death had still opened after the funeral because Beatrice and several volunteers refused to let the project disappear with her.
It operated under another name now.
And nobody connected to the Rossi organization had visited in almost two years.
Nico looked at Beatrice.
"If the notebook is there, Victoria will figure it out."
"How?"
Nico's answer was immediate.
"Because Serena told Victoria about the shelter before she told Leo."
A crash sounded outside the machine shop.
Mateo killed the hanging light.
Darkness dropped over them.
A second later, headlights appeared through the dirty windows.
Three vehicles entered the yard.
Leo pulled Beatrice behind a steel column.
Mateo drew his weapon.
Nico whispered from the chair.
"They found me."
Leo looked toward the approaching lights.
"No."
His voice was calm again.
May you like
"They followed us."
