Chapter 11 - SOMEONE INSIDE THE VALENTI HOUSE
We assumed Thomas had one spy inside the Valenti house.
We were wrong.
He had three.
The first was a security contractor.
The second was an accountant.
The third hurt.
Mrs. Alvarez.
She had worked in our home since I was fourteen.
She had made coffee for my mother during chemotherapy.
She had packed my suitcase when I left for college.
She had preserved Elena’s childhood bedroom after Maria died.
When Marco showed me the wire transfer records, I refused to believe them.
Elena did not.
“Ask her.”
Mrs. Alvarez admitted everything.
Thomas had approached her two years earlier.
Her grandson needed surgery.
He offered money.
At first, she gave him harmless information.
Schedules.
Visitors.
Then he demanded more.
“I never knew he would hurt Miss Elena.”
“You gave him access codes,” Marco said.
She cried.
“Yes.”
I wanted anger.
Instead, I felt tired.
Elena sat beside her.
“Did you know me when I was little?”
Mrs. Alvarez stared at her.
“I changed your bedsheets every Thursday.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“You remembered me?”
“Every day.”
“Then why help someone threatening us?”
Mrs. Alvarez covered her face.
“Because my grandson was dying.”
Again.
Love and destruction.
Our family’s curse.
Elena took her hand.
“You should have asked Dante.”
Mrs. Alvarez looked toward me.
“I was ashamed.”
“He would have helped.”
“I know.”
Elena said, “Fear makes people stupid.”
Vittorio, standing in the doorway, flinched.
Elena saw it.
She did not soften.
But she did not attack him either.
We had bigger problems.
The poem led us to Riverside Memorial Chapel.
Three stone saints stood near a bend in the Hudson.
Beneath a loose stone we found seven names.
All were employees killed or harmed by Moretti operations.
Each name corresponded to a number.
Combined, the numbers formed coordinates.
The coordinates led to a storage facility in Yonkers.
Inside locker 317 was not money.
It was a laptop.
Ancient.
Encrypted.
Elena touched the keyboard.
A prompt appeared.
QUESTION ONE: WHAT DID THE MOON FEAR?
She laughed softly.
“I know this.”
“What?”
“When I was little, Rosa used to ask riddles before bed.”
She typed:
THE DARK.
Accepted.
QUESTION TWO: WHAT DID THE MOON LOVE?
Elena hesitated.
“Stars?”
Rejected.
“One attempt left,” Marco said.
“Great.”
She closed her eyes.
Memory.
Then whispered:
“The boy who kept searching.”
I stared.
“What?”
She typed:
THE BOY WHO KEPT SEARCHING.
Accepted.
My throat closed.
Rosa had known.
She had told Elena about me indirectly for years.
The final prompt appeared.
WHO IS HOME?
Elena looked at me.
We both knew.
She typed:
DANTE.
The computer unlocked.
Inside were accounts.
Records.
Trusts.
Three hundred million dollars.
But Rosa had not stolen it for herself.
She had built restitution funds.
Families of warehouse victims.
Employees exploited by Moretti companies.
Witness protection accounts.
Scholarships.
Legal-defense funds.
And one final trust.
ELENA VALENTI — RETURN HOME FUND.
Balance: $12,430,000.
Elena stared.
“No.”
“It’s yours.”
“No.”
“Rosa created it.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You don’t have to decide now.”
She shook her head.
“I know what I want.”
“What?”
“Use it for the victims.”
“All of it?”
“Yes.”
“You should keep something.”
“I said all of it.”
I smiled.
“You’re definitely Mom’s daughter.”
That hit her.
But in a good way.
Then the laptop screen changed.
REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED.
Marco disconnected the network.
Too late.
Someone had copied files.
Thomas.
We evacuated the storage facility.
Halfway to Manhattan, police stopped our convoy.
The officer approached.
“Mr. Valenti?”
“Yes.”
“You need to come with us.”
“Why?”
“You’re under arrest.”
Elena leaned forward.
“For what?”
The officer looked uncomfortable.
“Murder.”
I almost laughed.
“Whose?”
“Thomas Keane.”
Silence.
Marco said, “Thomas is alive.”
The officer shook his head.
“Not anymore.”
He showed us a photograph.
Thomas’s body had been found in my Manhattan office.
My gun beside him.
My fingerprints on the weapon.
My security credentials used at the door.
Someone had not just framed me.
Someone had entered the most protected room in my life.
Elena looked at me.
“Who knew we were away?”
I thought of Mrs. Alvarez.
Security.
Vittorio.
Adrian.
Gabriel.
Then a worse possibility.
Someone who had not been questioned.
Someone who had been beside us from the beginning.
I looked at Marco.
He stared back.
“You think it was me?”
May you like
I said nothing.
For the first time in fifteen years, I did not know whether I could trust my closest friend.
