Chapter 3 - The Record Nobody Was Supposed to Find
Mateo didn’t wait for permission.
He ran.
Enzo followed.
Adeline did too.
“Stay upstairs,” he told her.
“No.”
“Adeline.”
“That record belonged to my father.”
“You don’t know what’s downstairs.”
“That’s exactly why I’m going.”
For half a second, something passed across Enzo’s face.
Frustration.
Respect.
Maybe both.
“Stay behind me.”
They entered the service stairwell.
The glamour of the mansion vanished immediately.
No chandeliers.
No gold molding.
Only concrete walls, fluorescent lights, security wiring, and the hum of machinery beneath the floor.
Mateo spoke into his radio.
“South corridor. Lock garage exits.”
Static.
Then silence.
He tapped the radio.
“Control?”
Nothing.
Enzo’s expression sharpened.
“That’s not good.”
The basement corridor stretched beneath the mansion.
Wine storage to the left.
Mechanical rooms to the right.
A private shooting range farther down.
Adeline had never known any of it existed.
They reached the intersection where Vincent had appeared on camera.
Nobody there.
Mateo crouched.
A black cable lay across the floor.
Cut.
“Camera relay.”
Enzo glanced upward.
“He knew where it was.”
“He helped design the security upgrade three years ago.”
Of course he did.
Adeline looked at the floor.
A small piece of paper rested near the wall.
She picked it up.
“Don’t touch—” Mateo started.
Too late.
It was a torn record sleeve.
Blue.
White letters.
Sinatra.
Her pulse jumped.
“He came this way.”
They followed.
At the end of the corridor was a steel door.
Locked.
Mateo entered a code.
Nothing.
Enzo tried his own.
Denied.
“Changed remotely,” Mateo said.
Adeline stared at the frame.
“What’s behind it?”
“Old service tunnel.”
“To where?”
“Garage annex.”
Enzo stepped back.
“Open it.”
Mateo gave him a look.
“With what?”
Enzo pointed to the fire cabinet.
A steel emergency bar hung inside.
Mateo almost smiled.
“You’ve been watching too many movies.”
“Open the door.”
It took three minutes.
The lock finally bent.
The tunnel beyond smelled of dust and damp concrete.
They moved quickly.
Halfway down, Adeline saw something glint.
An emerald ring.
Beatrice’s.
She picked it up.
Mateo stared.
“She was here.”
Enzo’s face went hard.
They found Beatrice twenty yards farther.
Alive.
Barely conscious.
She sat against the tunnel wall, one shoe missing, blood at her temple.
Adeline knelt.
“Beatrice?”
The older woman opened her eyes.
For a second, terror crossed her face.
Then she recognized Adeline.
“I’m sorry.”
Adeline froze.
“For what?”
“All of it.”
Enzo crouched.
“Where’s Vincent?”
Beatrice swallowed.
“He took the record.”
“We know.”
“No. You don’t.”
Her hand closed around Adeline’s wrist.
Weak.
Desperate.
“He knows what’s inside.”
“What’s inside?”
Beatrice’s eyes filled.
“Your father’s insurance.”
Adeline leaned closer.
“Insurance against what?”
“Us.”
The word landed like a stone.
Enzo looked at Beatrice.
“Us?”
She shook her head.
“Not you.”
Then she lost consciousness.
Mateo called medical.
Security arrived minutes later.
Vincent was gone.
The record was gone with him.
But Beatrice survived.
By 2:30 a.m., the mansion had transformed into something between a fortress and a crime scene.
Guests were moved into three rooms.
Phones were cataloged.
Cars checked.
Private security from two outside firms arrived.
Camilla remained under guard.
Owen had been transferred to a secured floor at St. Catherine’s.
And Vincent Rourke had vanished through a service exit connected to a neighboring property.
Enzo stood in his study with both hands on the desk.
Adeline sat nearby.
She hadn’t realized how exhausted she was until her hands stopped shaking.
Mateo entered carrying a folder.
“We pulled the old financial investigation.”
Enzo looked up.
“And?”
“Twenty-eight-point-four million didn’t disappear.”
Adeline frowned.
“What?”
Mateo opened the file.
“It moved.”
He spread bank records across the desk.
“Shell companies. Construction vendors. Medical foundations. Consulting firms.”
Enzo scanned them.
“Vale Foundation.”
Mateo nodded.
“And Marchetti subsidiaries.”
Enzo went still.
“My father?”
“Possibly without his knowledge.”
“Possibly?”
“Some documents have his signature.”
Enzo stared.
“My father had a heart condition. Vincent handled a lot during that period.”
Mateo turned to Adeline.
“Thomas Croft found the transfers.”
“How?”
“He maintained elevators in the financial center.”
“That doesn’t give him access to bank records.”
“No.”
Mateo slid forward a security report.
“But an elevator jammed between executive floors three days before the accident.”
Adeline remembered.
Her father had come home late that night.
He had barely eaten.
He had checked the door lock twice.
Mateo continued.
“Your father was called to release two executives trapped inside.”
“Which executives?”
“Vincent Rourke and Gerald Vale.”
Adeline looked toward Camilla’s aunt’s family name.
“Beatrice’s husband?”
“Her late husband.”
Gerald Vale had died nine years ago.
Officially from a heart attack.
“What happened in the elevator?”
Mateo pointed to another page.
“The men were carrying physical financial ledgers because the accounting system had been compromised during an audit.”
Enzo leaned back.
“My father required paper backups.”
“Thomas may have seen account numbers, transfer sheets, something.”
Adeline shook her head.
“That wouldn’t be enough.”
Mateo nodded.
“There’s more.”
Thomas returned to the building after midnight.
Not for maintenance.
Security logs showed he entered the accounting floor.
Twice.
“Why?” Adeline whispered.
“We think someone asked him to.”
“Who?”
Mateo turned a page.
A name had been blacked out.
Enzo stared.
“Can you recover it?”
“Maybe.”
Adeline thought about her father.
Find the music.
She suddenly stood.
“What?”
Enzo looked at her.
“The record.”
“What about it?”
“My father didn’t hide evidence in one place.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he was paranoid after the accident.”
She hated the word the moment she said it.
Paranoid.
Everyone had called him that.
Her mother.
Doctors.
Neighbors.
Even Adeline, once.
Stop it, Dad. Nobody is following us.
He had looked at her so sadly.
Maybe because he knew one day she would understand.
“He kept duplicates.”
Mateo leaned forward.
“Where?”
Adeline closed her eyes.
Their old apartment.
Kitchen cabinet.
Toolbox.
Record player.
Then memory returned.
Not a place.
A phrase.
Blue Moon.
Her father used to write it on envelopes.
She had assumed it was because of the song.
“Blue Moon,” she whispered.
Enzo frowned.
“What?”
“My mother still has my father’s records.”
“Except the Sinatra album.”
“Yes.”
“Anything called Blue Moon?”
Adeline grabbed her phone.
Her mother answered after five rings.
“Adeline?”
“Mom, listen carefully.”
“What happened? Owen called me—”
“I’m okay. Is Dad’s record collection still in the storage unit?”
Silence.
“At this hour?”
“Please.”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember anything labeled Blue Moon?”
Her mother didn’t answer.
“Mom?”
Then:
“There was a box.”
Adeline’s heart hammered.
“What box?”
“Your father told me never to open it.”
“Where?”
“In storage.”
“Do you have the key?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
Enzo was already signaling Mateo.
Two vehicles left immediately.
Adeline’s mother met them outside a storage facility at 3:40 a.m.
Her name was Elena Croft.
Small woman.
Gray beginning at her temples.
The moment she saw Enzo Marchetti, she slapped him.
Mateo froze.
Adeline gasped.
Enzo didn’t move.
Elena’s hand trembled.
“You people ruined my husband.”
Enzo touched his cheek.
“I was twenty-three when the accident happened.”
“Your name was on the building.”
“My name was on a lot of things I didn’t understand yet.”
Elena stared at him.
Adeline stepped between them.
“Mom. The box.”
Storage unit 318 smelled like dust and cardboard.
They found it beneath old Christmas decorations.
A wooden box.
BLUE MOON written across the lid in black marker.
Inside were seven records.
One notebook.
Three photographs.
And a sealed envelope.
TO ADELINE.
Her hands started shaking.
She opened it.
The letter was short.
Sweetheart,
If you are reading this, then somebody finally came looking for what I found.
Trust evidence before names.
Trust actions before promises.
And if Vincent Rourke tells you he loved me like a brother, understand that he is telling the truth.
That is what makes what he did worse.
Adeline stopped.
Enzo looked over her shoulder.
There was another page.
Vincent did not plan the elevator failure.
He covered it up.
The person who ordered it was more dangerous because nobody ever suspected her.
Adeline’s breath caught.
Her?
She kept reading.
The proof is on Side B.
Track four.
Mateo immediately grabbed one of the records.
Blue Moon compilation.
He examined the center label.
Nothing.
Then the groove.
“Track four?”
Adeline placed it on an old turntable stored nearby.
The needle dropped.
Music crackled.
Thirty seconds.
Forty.
Then static.
A man’s voice appeared.
Thomas Croft.
Her father.
Adeline covered her mouth.
“I don’t know how much time I have.”
Her knees weakened.
The recording continued.
“I copied the ledger entries. Gerald Vale and Vincent Rourke moved the money, but they weren’t acting alone. The person who approved every transfer used hospital foundations because nobody audits charity the way they audit construction.”
Mateo looked at Enzo.
The recording crackled.
“If something happens to me, look at Beatrice Vale.”
Adeline closed her eyes.
Then her father added:
“But she isn’t the top of it.”
Everybody froze.
“There’s someone inside Marchetti who gave her access. Someone close enough to sign as family.”
Static.
Then one final sentence.
“If Enzo Marchetti is old enough when this comes out, tell him to ask who really killed his mother.”
The record ended.
Enzo didn’t move.
Adeline stared at him.
His face had gone white.
“My mother died in a car accident.”
Mateo said nothing.
Enzo looked at him.
“You know something.”
Mateo’s silence answered.
“What?”
Mateo slowly opened another file.
“Her brakes failed.”
“I know.”
“No.”
May you like
Mateo looked at him.
“They were cut.”
