Chapter 3 - The Letter Carlo Never Expected Anyone to Read
Victor Romano's car was gone.
The driver assigned to him was still downstairs.
That meant Victor had arranged another ride.
Carlo made three phone calls.
The first went to a man named Russo.
The second to someone Ethan didn't know.
The third was different.
Carlo called Victor directly.
Straight to voicemail.
"Call me."
Nothing else.
Ethan stood beside him in the church office.
"That's it?"
"What would you like me to say?"
"Maybe, 'Bring back the evidence you stole from the woman our family framed.'"
Carlo put the phone down.
"We don't know Victor took it."
Diane sat across the room.
"Yes, we do."
Carlo looked at her.
"How?"
"Because he bumped into me."
"When?"
"Outside."
Ethan frowned.
"You didn't mention that."
"I didn't think anything of it."
"What happened?"
"He came up behind me while I was standing across the street. Said my name. I turned. He looked like he'd seen a ghost."
"Then?"
"He told me leaving would be a good idea."
Carlo's jaw tightened.
Diane continued.
"I walked past him. He grabbed my arm. I pulled away. My bag fell."
"And he helped pick everything up," Ethan said.
"Yes."
Carlo swore under his breath.
Ethan looked at Diane.
"Why bring the original documents?"
"Because copies can be called fake."
"And the letter?"
Diane became quiet.
"Because that one wasn't for proving anything."
"What was it for?"
She looked at Carlo.
"For him."
Carlo stared at the desk.
Ethan waited.
Finally Diane said, "Your father wrote it the night I left Boston."
"What did it say?"
"Ask him."
Ethan laughed once.
"Of course."
Carlo walked toward the window.
For several seconds, he said nothing.
Then:
"It said I was sorry."
Diane's expression hardened.
"It said more than that."
Carlo turned.
"It doesn't matter."
"It mattered to me."
"What did it say?" Ethan asked.
Diane looked at him.
"It said your father knew I was innocent."
Ethan felt cold.
"He put that in writing?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you use it?"
Diane smiled without humor.
"Against whom?"
Ethan didn't understand.
She continued.
"The newspapers already had the story. The police had been told I had access to the accounts. People I worked with were being questioned. Victor had friends everywhere. Carlo told me someone had been watching my apartment."
Ethan glanced at his father.
"Was that true?"
"Yes."
"You knew who?"
Carlo hesitated.
"Not at first."
"But eventually."
"Yes."
"Victor?"
Silence.
Ethan slammed his palm against the desk.
"Say it."
Carlo's voice was barely audible.
"Yes."
Diane closed her eyes.
There it was.
Twenty-one years late.
Still, there it was.
Ethan sat.
"So Uncle Victor stole the money."
Carlo looked at him.
"No."
Ethan stared.
"What?"
Diane looked equally surprised.
Carlo pulled out a chair.
"Victor moved the money."
"What's the difference?"
"He wasn't keeping most of it."
Diane leaned forward.
"You never told me that."
"There were things you didn't need to know."
She laughed bitterly.
"Apparently that's going on my tombstone."
Carlo ignored it.
"The fund was being used to move money through several companies. Victor authorized transfers. Someone above him was taking the larger share."
"Who?"
Carlo looked toward Ethan.
"My father."
The words changed the room.
Ethan stared.
"Grandpa?"
"Yes."
Antonio Romano.
Dead fifteen years.
Family patriarch.
Founder of the children's fund.
The man whose portrait hung in the Romano Community Center.
The man whose name appeared on scholarship plaques across three Boston neighborhoods.
Ethan remembered sitting on his lap as a child.
Remembered cigars.
Peppermints.
A gravelly voice telling him that the Romano name meant responsibility.
"You're lying."
Carlo nodded.
"I wish I were."
Diane looked stunned.
"I thought Victor—"
"Victor did plenty."
"But Antonio was behind it?"
"At first."
Carlo leaned back.
"My father had debts. Business problems nobody knew about. He started moving money temporarily. He intended to put it back."
Ethan scoffed.
"They always do."
"Yes."
Carlo accepted the judgment.
"Then temporary became routine. Victor helped cover it."
"And you?"
"I found out after Diane did."
Diane shook her head.
"No. Your signature was on transfers."
"Transfers I authorized after discovering the shortfall."
"Why?"
"To replace some of the missing money without making my father suspicious."
She stared at him.
Carlo looked at Ethan.
"The eighty-five thousand Diane found wasn't going out."
"It was going in?"
"Yes."
Ethan remembered the notebook.
C. Romano — authorized transfer.
He had assumed guilt because the evidence looked like guilt.
Maybe that was the entire story.
Diane leaned forward.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you would have confronted him."
"Damn right."
"And you'd have been dead by morning."
The sentence came without drama.
That made it worse.
Diane stopped speaking.
Carlo continued.
"My father discovered someone was looking through the accounts. Victor told him it was you."
Diane's face changed.
"So Antonio ordered—"
"No."
Carlo paused.
"He told Victor to solve the problem."
Ethan knew Romano language.
Everyone in the room did.
Nobody needed the phrase translated.
Olivia had been quiet for several minutes.
Now she spoke.
"And Carlo decided the only way to protect Diane was to make her disappear."
Carlo nodded.
"I had maybe twelve hours."
Diane stared at him.
"You told me I had two."
"I didn't know how close Victor was."
"You gave me eighty-five thousand dollars."
"Yes."
"A passport."
"Yes."
"A car."
"Yes."
"And told me to drive."
"Yes."
Her voice became quieter with every question.
"Then what?"
Carlo didn't answer.
Diane stood.
"No. Say that part."
Carlo looked at her.
"I let them blame you."
"Say it properly."
"I let people believe you'd taken the money."
"My mother."
Carlo swallowed.
"Yes."
"My brother."
"Yes."
"My coworkers."
"Yes."
"The families whose children depended on that fund."
Carlo looked down.
"Yes."
Diane's eyes filled with tears, but she refused to wipe them away.
"You saved me from your father."
"Yes."
"And then you gave him my name."
Carlo looked at her.
"I thought I could fix it later."
"When?"
"When he was gone."
"He died fifteen years ago."
"I know."
"You had fifteen years."
"I know."
"Then why didn't you?"
That was the question Carlo Romano couldn't answer.
Not because there was no answer.
Because the answer was ugly.
Ethan could see it.
By then, restoring Diane's name would have meant destroying Antonio Romano's.
The patriarch.
The legend.
The family.
Carlo had chosen the dead man's reputation over the living woman's dignity.
Diane understood too.
"That's why."
Carlo said nothing.
"You weren't protecting me anymore."
"No."
"You were protecting him."
Carlo looked toward the floor.
"Yes."
Diane nodded.
Slowly.
As if she had spent twenty-one years needing one syllable.
Ethan felt something inside him settle.
Not forgiveness.
Understanding.
There was a difference.
Carlo had saved Diane.
Then betrayed her.
Both were true.
A phone rang.
Carlo's.
He answered.
"Yeah."
His expression changed.
"Where?"
He listened.
"Don't touch anything. We're coming."
He hung up.
Ethan stood.
"What?"
"They found Victor's car."
"Where?"
"At the old Romano Community Center."
Diane went pale.
The building had been closed for renovations for six months.
Ethan grabbed his jacket.
Carlo stopped him.
"You stay here."
Ethan looked at him.
"My wedding is already destroyed."
"Your wedding isn't destroyed."
"Dad."
"Stay."
Ethan stepped closer.
"No more."
Carlo stared at his son.
"No more deciding what everyone else gets to know. No more protecting people by lying to them. No more disappearing women and family secrets."
Diane looked away.
Ethan lowered his voice.
"Whatever is in that building belongs to all of us now."
Carlo didn't like it.
But this time he moved aside.
Twenty minutes later, Ethan stood inside the abandoned community center where his grandfather's portrait still hung above the entrance.
Victor's car was outside.
Victor wasn't.
They searched the offices.
Nothing.
Then Diane stopped beside the old records room.
The door was open.
Inside, paper covered the floor.
Boxes had been pulled from shelves.
Someone had been searching for something.
Diane walked toward a metal filing cabinet.
Her fingers touched an empty drawer.
"This was mine."
Ethan looked at her.
"Twenty-one years ago?"
She nodded.
Carlo entered behind them.
His face tightened.
"Why would Victor come here?"
Diane didn't answer.
She was staring beneath the cabinet.
Something white protruded from underneath.
Ethan crouched.
An envelope.
Old.
Yellowed.
Diane stopped breathing.
"No."
Ethan picked it up.
Her name was handwritten across the front.
Diane Mercer.
Carlo recognized it instantly.
"Don't."
Ethan looked at him.
"This is the letter?"
Diane nodded.
Victor had apparently dropped it.
The envelope was already open.
Ethan pulled out the paper.
Carlo stepped forward.
"Ethan."
But his son was already reading.
The first lines were enough.
Diane,
If you ever read this somewhere safe, then at least one thing I did tonight worked.
Ethan continued.
Halfway down the page, he stopped.
He read one sentence again.
Then looked at his father.
Carlo knew exactly which sentence he'd reached.
Ethan held up the letter.
"You knew even then."
Carlo said nothing.
Diane stepped closer.
"What?"
Ethan read the line aloud.
"Keeping you alive may require me to let people believe something about you that isn't true. I don't know if you'll ever forgive me for that."
Diane stared at Carlo.
Twenty-one years disappeared.
Not from her face this time.
From his.
Carlo Romano suddenly looked like the thirty-four-year-old man who had written those words while knowing exactly what he was about to do.
Diane whispered:
"You knew."
Carlo looked at her.
"Yes."
"You knew what it would cost me."
His answer was almost inaudible.
"Not enough."
A sound came from the hallway.
Everyone turned.
May you like
Victor Romano stood in the doorway.
And in his hand was the missing file.
