Chapter 2 - THE NAME THAT MADE DANTE STOP SMILING
“What is your name?” Dante asked.
Gia tucked the last brass clamp into the battered equipment case.
“Gia Parker.”
The faint amusement disappeared from Dante Moretti’s face so quickly that she noticed.
Not faded.
Disappeared.
The two men behind him noticed too.
One of them—the broader man with a scar near his left eyebrow—shifted his attention from the sidewalk to Gia.
Dante remained motionless.
“Parker?”
Gia straightened slowly.
“Yes.”
“Your father?”
She frowned.
“What about him?”
“What was his name?”
Every instinct Gia had spent thirty-eight years developing told her the conversation had just changed.
She closed the equipment case.
“Michael.”
Dante’s eyes became very still.
“Michael Parker.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dante looked toward the entrance of the auction house.
Then back at her.
“How old were you when he died?”
Gia’s hand tightened around the case handle.
“That’s an odd question from a stranger.”
“You are right.”
“Good.”
He glanced at the blood-stained handkerchief around her thumb.
“I should explain.”
“That would be refreshing.”
One of the guards made a sound suspiciously close to a cough hiding a laugh.
Dante ignored him.
“Your father worked for my family.”
Gia stared.
“No.”
“He did.”
“My father was a forensic accountant.”
“Yes.”
“He worked mostly for insurance companies and foundations.”
“At the end.”
She stopped.
“At the end of what?”
Dante looked at her carefully.
“How did he die?”
Gia felt irritation rise.
“A car accident.”
“Where?”
“New Jersey Turnpike.”
“When?”
She almost told him to mind his own business.
Then something in his expression stopped her.
Not curiosity.
Recognition.
“October 2005.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Six weeks after Luca died.”
Gia had no idea who Luca was.
Apparently that showed.
“My brother,” Dante said.
“Oh.”
Then:
“I’m sorry.”
“He died in a warehouse fire in Red Hook.”
Gia waited.
Dante continued.
“Your father was the last outside accountant to review the Moretti family trusts before that fire.”
The air suddenly felt colder.
Gia knew what rumors surrounded the Moretti family.
Shipping.
Construction.
Private security.
Restaurants.
Ports.
Businesses that existed on paper.
Businesses people did not discuss.
Her father had never mentioned them.
Not once.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does to me.”
“Well, congratulations.”
Dante almost smiled again.
Almost.
Gia crossed her arms.
“My father spent the last year of his life doing insurance fraud cases.”
“Because he was removed from every Moretti account.”
“Why?”
Silence.
There it was.
Gia’s irritation disappeared.
“What happened?”
Before Dante could answer, the auction house door opened.
A nervous young man in a tuxedo stepped outside.
“Mr. Moretti?”
Dante turned.
“Mr. Walsh.”
The man looked at Gia.
Then at her equipment case.
Then back at Dante.
“We have a problem with Lot Thirty-Seven.”
Something shifted across Dante’s face.
“What problem?”
“It’s missing.”
The scarred guard immediately moved toward the entrance.
Dante raised one hand.
He stopped.
Gia looked between them.
“Is this the part where everyone starts acting dramatic again?”
No one smiled.
The auction manager swallowed.
“Lot Thirty-Seven was in secure storage twenty minutes ago.”
“What is Lot Thirty-Seven?” Gia asked.
Walsh hesitated.
Dante answered.
“A small carved walnut reliquary.”
Gia frowned.
“That ugly little church box?”
Every man looked at her.
She pointed toward the building.
“Dark wood.”
“Silver hinge.”
“One corner repaired badly.”
“About this big?”
She held her hands apart.
Walsh looked horrified.
“You saw it?”
“I moved it.”
“When?”
“About an hour ago.”
“Why?”
“Because someone put it on a pedestal that was six inches too narrow.”
Gia looked at Walsh.
“I told your assistant it would fall.”
“Did you open it?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“Not while I was there.”
Dante stepped closer.
“Where did you move it?”
“Display cabinet B.”
Walsh shook his head.
“It isn’t there.”
Gia sighed.
“Fantastic.”
She grabbed her case.
Dante frowned.
“Where are you going?”
“Inside.”
“Why?”
“Because if something disappeared after I moved it, your auction manager is going to spend the next hour looking at me like I stole a haunted jewelry box.”
Walsh looked offended.
“I never—”
“You absolutely did.”
Dante’s mouth shifted.
Gia pointed at him.
“And you’re coming because apparently this is somehow about my dead father.”
The scarred guard stared at Dante.
Gia suspected few people spoke to him that way.
Dante opened the door.
“After you.”
Inside, the auction house had been transformed into controlled wealth.
Low amber lighting.
Champagne.
Old paintings.
Jewelry in glass.
Collectors speaking in voices so quiet they seemed afraid to wake the money.
Gia’s event company had spent three days building the temporary presentation.
She knew every riser.
Every curtain.
Every temporary wall.
That gave her one advantage over the men surrounding her.
She knew what had changed.
“Stop.”
Dante stopped immediately.
Walsh nearly walked into him.
Gia looked toward the alcove where Lot Thirty-Seven had been displayed.
The velvet runner beneath the glass cabinet was crooked.
She had aligned it herself.
Gia approached.
“Someone moved this cabinet.”
Walsh stared.
“It weighs almost three hundred pounds.”
“Two hundred eighty-six.”
Gia crouched.
“There.”
A shallow scrape marked the parquet.
Dante joined her.
“What?”
“The cabinet moved about four inches.”
“Why?”
Gia looked toward temporary wall behind it.
Then she smiled without humor.
“Because your missing box didn’t go toward the door.”
She stood.
“It went through the wall.”
Walsh blinked.
“That’s a decorative partition.”
“I know.”
“I built it.”
Gia walked to the edge.
A section of fabric had been carefully slit near the molding.
Behind the partition was a narrow service corridor used by catering staff.
Dante’s guards moved.
Gia held up one finger.
“Do not tear my wall.”
Scarred guard looked personally insulted.
“We can remove it cleanly.”
Dante said:
“Marco.”
So scarred guard was Marco.
Marco stared at Gia.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
They entered the service corridor.
At the far end, a fire door was slowly closing.
Marco ran.
Another guard followed.
Dante stayed beside Gia.
Interesting.
“You’re not chasing?”
“I pay people who are faster.”
“At least you’re honest.”
A shout came from the corridor.
Then footsteps.
A young auction employee appeared around the corner.
His face white.
He was carrying nothing.
Marco held his arm.
“Let go!”
Walsh gasped.
“Evan?”
The employee looked perhaps twenty-five.
Sweating.
Dante’s voice became quiet.
“Where is the box?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco tightened nothing.
He didn’t need to.
Gia watched.
Dante did not threaten.
He simply stared.
Evan broke in less than ten seconds.
“A man paid me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“How much?”
“Ten thousand.”
Walsh looked like he might faint.
“To take the reliquary?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you put it?”
Evan looked toward service elevator.
“Laundry cart.”
Marco disappeared.
Dante asked:
“What man?”
“Older.”
“Gray hair.”
“Italian.”
“That narrows Manhattan to approximately half my relatives.”
Gia muttered.
Dante glanced at her.
Despite everything, Marco almost smiled.
Evan continued.
“He told me Lot Thirty-Seven belonged to the Moretti family and should never have reached auction.”
Dante’s expression hardened.
“Did he give a name?”
“No.”
“Anything else?”
“He said if I opened it, I’d regret it.”
Gia stared.
“Well.”
“That’s certainly how you get people not to open things.”
Dante looked at her.
“Would that stop you?”
“No.”
“I assumed.”
Marco returned carrying the walnut box in gloved hands.
“Found it.”
Walsh nearly collapsed.
Dante took the reliquary.
Gia leaned closer.
The box was older than she had thought.
Probably nineteenth century.
Dark walnut.
Small silver Madonna medallion on top.
And along the bottom edge—
three letters scratched into the wood.
Gia’s breath stopped.
M.P.
Michael Parker.
Her father’s initials.
She reached before thinking.
Dante moved the box slightly away.
Gia stared.
“Do not.”
His eyes met hers.
“Do not what?”
“Do not decide I’m suddenly too fragile to touch something because my father’s initials are on it.”
Dante went still.
Then he handed it to her.
No argument.
Gia hated how much that mattered.
She turned the reliquary over.
Her father’s initials were unmistakable.
Michael had carved those exact block letters into every toolbox, flashlight, cooler and camping chair he owned because apparently labeling household objects was a spiritual requirement.
Gia touched them.
“How did this end up here?”
Walsh answered.
“It came from the estate of Isabella Moretti.”
Dante’s great-aunt.
“She died last spring,” Dante said.
Gia looked at him.
“Did she know my father?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Dante hesitated.
Gia’s eyes narrowed.
“Careful.”
“He handled parts of her trust.”
“And?”
“And Isabella was the last person in my family who continued insisting Michael Parker had not stolen from us.”
Gia felt the floor change under her.
“What?”
Dante’s voice stayed calm.
“Your father was accused of moving fourteen million dollars out of a Moretti family trust shortly before my brother died.”
Gia stared.
“No.”
“I didn’t say he did it.”
“My father was not a thief.”
“I know.”
She froze.
“How?”
Dante looked at the box.
“Because three years ago I found evidence the missing money never left the Moretti system.”
Gia’s heart began pounding.
“Then who stole it?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Why didn’t you clear his name?”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Because publicly clearing Michael Parker would require explaining why my family blamed him.”
Gia laughed once.
Cold.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“Reputation.”
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
Gia continued.
“Powerful men always have a more elegant word for cowardice.”
Walsh looked like he wanted to disappear into the wall.
Dante did not get angry.
“That is fair.”
That surprised her.
Then Gia felt something shift inside the reliquary.
She looked down.
“Something’s loose.”
Dante moved closer.
“Do not shake it.”
“That was an order.”
“Yes.”
She raised eyebrow.
He corrected.
“Please.”
“Better.”
Gia examined bottom.
A narrow seam.
False base.
Of course.
Her father had built hidden compartments into Christmas presents when she was a child.
She recognized the trick.
“Do you have a butter knife?”
Walsh blinked.
“In an auction house?”
“Fine.”
Gia pulled a palette knife from her equipment case.
Dante stared.
“You carry that?”
“I work events.”
“I carry everything.”
She slid the thin metal edge beneath the seam.
The false bottom lifted.
Inside lay three objects.
A brass key.
A folded photograph.
And a small envelope yellowed with age.
Written across the front:
FOR DANTE — IF LUCA NEVER COMES HOME
No one spoke.
Dante’s face lost all color.
Gia looked at him.
“Luca was your brother.”
“Yes.”
“He died.”
Dante stared at the envelope.
May you like
Then whispered:
“That is what everyone told me.”
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