Chapter 3 - The Secret Evelyn Took to Her Grave
Clara stared at Dominic.
“No.”
He didn't answer.
“My mother had pancreatic cancer.”
“Yes.”
“She was dying.”
“Yes.”
“Then how can you stand there and tell me she was murdered?”
Dominic walked to the bar but poured water instead of whiskey.
“Because three days before she died, someone broke into the private hospice facility where she was staying.”
Clara's breathing became shallow.
“How do you know?”
“My people were watching her.”
“Why?”
“Because I knew who Evelyn Mercer was.”
The silence that followed was worse than shouting.
Clara tried to stand.
Pain immediately forced her back.
“You knew?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Two years.”
Her face hardened.
“Before she died?”
“Yes.”
“You knew my mother had worked for your father, and you never told me?”
“I didn't know she was your mother at first.”
“When did you find out?”
Dominic looked at her.
“The day she died.”
Clara laughed once, bitterly.
“And you still said nothing.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“People always say that after they've lied.”
Dominic accepted the blow.
“My father kept records on everyone who worked closely with him. Evelyn Mercer was one of four people who knew where the original financial ledger was hidden.”
“The ledger from the message?”
“Yes.”
“What is in it?”
“Names. Payments. Properties. Politicians. Police. Businessmen. Enough evidence to destroy people who have spent thirty years pretending they were respectable.”
Clara went quiet.
“And someone thinks I have it.”
“Yes.”
“Do I?”
Dominic's eyes narrowed.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
She looked toward the photograph.
“My mother gave me a box. Nothing looked like a ledger.”
“Where is the box?”
“My apartment.”
Dominic immediately reached for his phone.
Clara stopped him.
“No.”
“What?”
“My apartment has cameras.”
“Since when?”
“Six months ago.”
“You installed surveillance cameras?”
“My mother taught me not to ignore strange things.”
“What strange things?”
“Drawers left slightly open. Things moved. My computer waking from sleep by itself.”
Dominic stared at her.
“And you didn't think to mention any of this?”
“To the employer whose family might be responsible?”
Fair point.
They accessed Clara's apartment cameras remotely.
The first recordings showed nothing.
Then Clara stopped the footage.
“There.”
At 11:47 the previous night, twenty minutes after she had left home, a man entered her apartment.
No forced entry.
He had a key.
Dominic leaned closer.
The man wore a cap.
His face was hidden.
He walked directly toward Clara's bedroom.
“He knew where to go,” she whispered.
They watched him remove a wooden box from beneath her bed.
He searched it.
Then left.
Dominic replayed the footage.
“Pause.”
Clara froze the image.
The intruder's sleeve had risen slightly.
A tattoo was visible on his wrist.
A black crown.
Dominic knew it.
“Who is he?”
“One of Matteo Voss's men.”
“Who is Matteo Voss?”
Dominic looked at her.
“My father's former attorney.”
The name meant nothing to Clara.
But Dominic remembered everything.
Matteo had been twenty-nine when Vincent Gallo died.
Brilliant.
Ambitious.
And hungry.
He had built an empire of his own afterward.
Banks.
Construction.
Private equity.
Charities.
A respectable public face.
Dominic had never trusted him.
“Is he the son my mother feared?”
“I don't know.”
Dominic made three calls.
By noon, Clara's apartment was being searched by his security team.
Nothing appeared missing except several old papers from Evelyn's box.
Then one of Dominic's men called.
“We found something.”
“Where?”
“Inside the box.”
“You said it was empty.”
“It has a false bottom.”
Dominic put the call on speaker.
“What was inside?”
“A key.”
Clara looked at him.
“What kind?”
“Safe-deposit key. First Manhattan Trust.”
Dominic and Clara exchanged a look.
Three hours later, Dominic stood inside a private bank room.
Clara had insisted on coming.
“You have broken ribs.”
“I also have the key.”
The bank manager returned carrying a metal box.
Clara's hands trembled as she opened it.
Inside was no ledger.
Only an envelope.
On the front, in Evelyn's handwriting:
FOR CLARA. ONLY WHEN THEY COME FOR YOU.
Clara's eyes filled.
Dominic stepped away.
“This is yours.”
She opened it.
Inside was a handwritten letter.
My darling Clara,
If you're reading this, then I failed to keep the past away from you.
She continued silently.
Then stopped.
Dominic saw her face change.
“What?”
Clara handed him the letter.
One paragraph had been underlined.
Vincent Gallo discovered the theft. He planned to expose the man responsible. Before he could, he was killed.
Dominic reread it.
His father had officially died in a boating accident.
Clara pointed lower.
The man who betrayed Vincent is still alive. He built his fortune with money stolen from the Gallos. But money was never the worst thing he stole.
Dominic continued.
Then his body went rigid.
The final sentence read:
Dominic must never learn the truth about his mother unless there is no other choice.
Dominic slowly lowered the letter.
“My mother?”
Clara whispered, “What does that mean?”
He didn't know.
His mother, Isabella Gallo, had died when Dominic was eight.
At least that was what he had been told.
They searched the box again.
Nothing.
Then Clara noticed the envelope felt unusually thick.
She tore open the inner lining.
A small brass key fell onto the table.
Not a bank key.
A house key.
Attached was an address.
Dominic recognized it.
His childhood home in Westchester.
A house that had been abandoned since his father's death.
They arrived shortly before sunset.
The old Gallo estate stood behind rusted gates.
Inside, dust covered everything.
Dominic had not entered the house in seventeen years.
Memories waited in every room.
His father's study.
His mother's piano.
The staircase where Dominic had once sat listening to adults whisper downstairs.
Clara found a door beneath the stairs.
The key fit.
Behind it was a narrow staircase leading underground.
Dominic turned on his phone flashlight.
At the bottom stood a steel door.
Unlocked.
Inside was a room filled with filing cabinets.
And photographs.
Hundreds of them.
Politicians.
Police officers.
Businessmen.
Dominic's father.
Clara's mother.
Matteo Voss.
Then Clara found one photograph that made her stop breathing.
“Dominic.”
He turned.
She held it out.
The picture showed Vincent Gallo standing beside Evelyn Mercer.
Between them was a woman.
Beautiful.
Dark-haired.
Alive.
On the back was a date.
2001.
Dominic's mother had supposedly died in 1991.
His hand began to shake.
“That isn't possible.”
Clara turned the photograph over.
Beneath the date were six words written by Evelyn.
Isabella survived. Matteo knows where she is.
A floorboard creaked upstairs.
Dominic immediately killed the flashlight.
Someone had entered the house.
Then a man's voice drifted down the staircase.
“Dominic?”
He recognized it.
Matteo Voss.
May you like
And Matteo began to laugh.
“It's time somebody told you what your father really did.”
