Chapter 14 - The Woman in the Blue Scrubs
Lucia Caruso Shaw was crying when Detective Blake brought her into an interview room two floors below Grace.
Grace watched through a secure video feed from her hospital bed.
Hannah had refused to let her go downstairs.
Grace had argued for exactly thirty seconds.
Then her blood pressure cuff inflated by itself and ended the discussion.
Vincent stood beside the television.
Teresa sat at the foot of Grace’s bed.
Anthony had arrived ten minutes earlier and had not spoken since seeing his sister in handcuffs.
Lucia looked nothing like the woman Grace had seen in family photographs online.
Her hair had been shoved under a surgical cap.
Mascara streaked beneath her eyes.
The oversized blue scrubs made her appear smaller than she was.
Detective Blake sat across from her.
“Tell me why you were trying to access Grace Miller’s medication cabinet.”
Lucia covered her face.
“I wasn’t going to hurt her.”
Anthony flinched beside the monitor.
Vincent’s expression did not move.
Blake leaned forward.
“Then explain what you were doing.”
Lucia looked toward the camera in the corner.
She knew Vincent was watching.
“Daniel told me to put something in the drawer.”
Grace’s stomach tightened.
Hannah stepped closer to the screen.
“What?” Blake asked.
Lucia shook her head.
“I don’t know exactly.”
“He gave me a sealed medical vial.”
“He said nobody would use it.”
“He said it only needed to be found there later.”
Blake’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
Lucia began to cry harder.
“To make it look like someone at the hospital was planning to harm her.”
Grace stared at the screen.
Vincent spoke quietly.
“A false trail.”
Hannah nodded.
“If hospital security found an unlogged medication in Grace’s assigned cabinet, everyone would start investigating staff access.”
“And Daniel would gain time,” Teresa said.
Anthony looked sick.
Blake continued questioning Lucia.
“Where is the vial?”
“Security has it.”
“Did Daniel tell you what it contained?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
Lucia’s mouth trembled.
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“That knowing would make me less believable.”
Grace’s skin crawled.
That sounded like Daniel.
Not because she knew him.
Because every move attributed to him had the same quality.
He did not merely plan actions.
He planned the explanations people would give afterward.
Blake placed a photograph of Daniel on the table.
“Where is your husband?”
“I don’t know.”
“When did you last see him?”
“This morning.”
“Where?”
“At our house.”
“What did he say?”
Lucia hesitated.
Anthony whispered at the screen.
“Tell them, Lucy.”
Lucia could not hear him.
She looked toward the camera anyway.
“He said the family was finally paying for what it did to his father.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
Blake leaned forward.
“Who was Daniel’s father?”
Lucia closed her eyes.
“Leonard Valesco.”
Teresa gasped.
Anthony stood so quickly his chair tipped backward.
“No.”
Lucia continued on the screen.
“Daniel’s mother changed his name when he was twelve.”
“She married a man named Shaw.”
“Daniel used his stepfather’s last name.”
Grace stared at Vincent.
“You hired Valesco’s son.”
Vincent looked as though he had aged ten years in one second.
“I did.”
Peter had recommended him.
Lucia had married him.
Daniel had spent more than two decades inside the family.
The son of Domenic Caruso’s secret fixer had become Vincent Caruso’s most trusted attorney.
Grace looked back at the screen.
Blake’s voice remained steady.
“When did you learn Leonard Valesco was Daniel’s biological father?”
“Six months ago.”
“What happened six months ago?”
“Leonard’s storage unit was going to auction.”
“He died years ago, but Daniel kept paying for the unit.”
“The automatic payment failed.”
“Daniel went to clear it out.”
“And?”
Lucia wiped her face.
“He found boxes.”
“Files.”
“Photographs.”
“Old recordings.”
“Documents from Northstar.”
Grace’s fingers tightened around the blanket.
“He found Rebecca.”
Lucia nodded.
“Her name was everywhere.”
Blake placed both hands on the table.
“Why did Daniel start watching Grace three months ago?”
Lucia’s voice became barely audible.
“Because his father had written that Rebecca had a daughter.”
“He didn’t know the daughter’s name.”
“Not until a data alert found Rebecca Miller listed in a pregnancy record as a deceased parent.”
Grace closed her eyes.
It was exactly what Blake had suspected.
A single line on a prenatal form had reopened a thirty-year conspiracy.
Lucia continued.
“Daniel thought Grace might have what Rebecca took.”
“The blue ledger?” Blake asked.
“Pages from it.”
“Maybe the original.”
“Daniel was never sure.”
Grace touched the open pendant lying on the table beside her.
The microfilm had already been taken into police evidence for forensic imaging.
Rebecca had possessed at least something.
Lucia looked toward the camera again.
“Daniel said if Grace came into contact with Vincent, the entire ownership structure around Northstar could collapse.”
“Why?”
“Because Grace is Rebecca’s legal heir.”
Blake nodded.
“We know that.”
Lucia shook her head.
“No.”
“You know part of it.”
Everyone in Grace’s room became still.
Blake waited.
Lucia continued.
“Daniel’s father created a contingency agreement.”
“Leonard?”
“Yes.”
“He was supposed to keep Rebecca’s identity available as long as the companies needed it.”
“But after Rebecca disappeared, Leonard and Daniel began moving the interests into a private legal trust.”
Grace looked at Maya Reynolds, who had entered silently during the interview.
Maya’s face hardened.
Lucia continued.
“The transfer never finished because Rebecca was still legally alive.”
“When she died, Daniel thought the interests would eventually fall into the trust.”
“But they didn’t?” Blake asked.
“Not if Rebecca had a living child.”
Grace whispered.
“Me.”
Lucia nodded as if she could hear.
“Daniel needed proof there was no living heir.”
“For years, he had none.”
“So the assets stayed frozen inside layers of companies.”
Maya leaned toward the screen.
“How much?”
Lucia began shaking.
“I don’t know.”
“Daniel said more than people think.”
“How much did he think?” Blake pressed.
Lucia swallowed.
“Over one hundred million now.”
Grace laughed once.
Nobody looked at her.
She laughed again.
“I’m sorry.”
Maya turned.
“What?”
Grace pointed at herself.
“I washed someone else’s coffee stains off a conference table last night for sixteen dollars an hour.”
She stared at the screen.
“And apparently men have spent decades committing felonies over money attached to my mother’s name.”
Vincent’s voice was quiet.
“Money does not make people rational.”
Grace looked at him.
“No.”
“It just makes irrational people more efficient.”
Maya almost smiled.
On the screen, Blake changed direction.
“Did Daniel kill Rebecca Miller?”
Lucia’s face collapsed.
Grace stopped breathing.
Anthony stared at his sister.
Lucia whispered.
“I don’t know.”
Blake did not move.
“Did he ever say he did?”
“No.”
“Did he know how she died?”
Lucia’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He said his father took care of the car.”
Grace felt cold from the inside out.
Vincent stepped closer to the television.
Lucia continued.
“Daniel said Leonard was protecting everyone.”
“Protecting them from what?”
“Rebecca.”
The word hit Grace harder than if Lucia had said murder.
Rebecca had been nineteen when the Carusos first decided she was dangerous.
Thirty-five when someone decided she was still dangerous enough to die.
Grace looked at Vincent.
His face was motionless.
Only his eyes gave him away.
Blake asked another question.
“Did Daniel know his father planned to tamper with Rebecca’s car?”
Lucia whispered.
“I think so.”
“Why?”
“Because Daniel was already working for Vincent then.”
Vincent’s eyes closed.
Grace understood.
Sixteen years ago, while Daniel served as Vincent’s attorney, he may have known Leonard Valesco was planning the act that killed Rebecca.
Daniel had sat across conference tables from Vincent afterward.
He had shaken his hand.
Protected his businesses.
Attended family dinners.
And never said a word.
Blake looked at Lucia.
“What does Daniel want now?”
Lucia shook her head.
“He said he wants what his father was owed.”
“What does that mean?”
“He thinks the Carusos used Leonard for decades and then discarded him.”
“He thinks Northstar belongs to his family.”
Grace stared at the woman.
“So this is revenge?”
Maya answered quietly.
“Revenge and money are not mutually exclusive.”
Lucia said one final thing before asking for a lawyer.
“He told me Grace was supposed to leave Philadelphia.”
Blake leaned forward.
“And when she didn’t?”
Lucia looked directly into the camera.
“He said the plan changed.”
The video feed ended.
Grace’s room remained silent.
Then Marco entered.
“Boss.”
Vincent turned.
“The microfilm has been imaged.”
Grace sat straighter.
“What’s on it?”
Marco looked at her.
“Ledger pages.”
“About a dozen.”
“And something else.”
“What?”
“A handwritten index.”
Grace’s heart began to pound.
Marco continued.
“It lists where Rebecca sent the rest of the evidence.”
Maya stepped forward.
“Where?”
Marco looked at Grace.
“To a law office that no longer exists.”
Grace’s hope fell.
Then Marco added one more sentence.
May you like
“But the lawyer who owned it is still alive.”
