Chapter 4 - THE MAN CAMILLE TRUSTED SECOND
Daniel wanted Salvatore brought in immediately.
Marco refused.
The refusal lasted exactly three seconds.
“Boss, if Camille spent months building this because she thought confronting him too soon would destroy the evidence, maybe we should avoid proving her right within fifteen minutes.”
Daniel stared at him.
I almost applauded.
Instead, I said, “He has a point.”
Daniel looked at me.
“Apparently everybody does today.”
“Welcome to teamwork.”
He did not appreciate that.
Good.
We started with the watch.
Daniel had given it to Salvatore sixteen years earlier after Elena Russo died.
Daniel had been twenty-two.
Salvatore had practically raised him from childhood because Daniel’s father spent more time running crews than being a parent.
“Why the engraving?” I asked.
“My mother gave it to him before she died.”
“So it was already Salvatore’s.”
“Yes.”
“How did Camille get it?”
“I don’t know.”
We returned to St. Jude’s.
Leo had cried almost continuously for twenty minutes after I left.
Monica did not say that accusingly.
That somehow made the guilt worse.
“Rachel.”
Doctor Patel caught me before I entered.
“You are not personally responsible for whether this baby cries.”
“I know.”
“You said that too quickly.”
Apparently everyone in my life had learned my habits overnight.
“We’re adjusting his developmental-care plan.”
He handed me a chart.
“Low-stimulation handling. Clustered care. Limited staff.”
“That’s good.”
“And administration approved you staying primary through the next two shifts.”
I blinked.
“Daniel paid them?”
“No.”
Doctor Patel looked offended.
“I threatened administration.”
I smiled.
“Much more respectable.”
Inside, Leo began fussing the moment the incubator opened.
I dimmed the room.
Daniel watched from the chair.
“Let me try.”
I looked at him.
“What?”
“You said everybody keeps treating fear like an emergency.”
“Yes.”
“I’m his father.”
His voice dropped.
“I should learn.”
That mattered.
I showed him how to place one hand over Leo’s head and shoulders while the other contained his legs.
“Don’t rub.”
“I know how to touch a baby.”
“Your son disagrees.”
His eyes sharpened.
Then he stopped arguing.
Progress.
Leo cried.
Daniel’s face tightened.
“Stay still.”
“He hates this.”
“Maybe.”
Leo cried harder.
Daniel looked ready to surrender.
“Rachel.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“You don’t know—”
“Neither do you.”
He stayed.
Forty seconds.
Leo’s cry weakened.
Fifty.
Then his tiny legs stopped kicking.
Daniel looked at me.
“Don’t move.”
“I wasn’t.”
“Good.”
Leo did not become completely calm.
But he stopped panicking.
For Daniel, that might as well have been a miracle.
His eyes filled.
He looked away quickly.
I pretended not to notice.
That was dignity too.
Michael arrived twenty minutes later under Marco’s supervision.
He had shaved.
Badly.
“I know where Elias Grant is.”
Daniel turned.
“The traffic technician.”
“Yes.”
“He’s in Milwaukee.”
“How do you know?”
“He runs when he gets scared. Milwaukee is where his daughter lives.”
Marco checked.
Public records confirmed the daughter.
Three hours later, one of Daniel’s legitimate corporate investigators—not armed street soldiers, at my insistence—located Elias at an auto-parts warehouse.
He agreed to meet only if police were not immediately involved.
I objected.
Daniel said, “So do I.”
That surprised me.
“Camille died because everybody handled problems privately.”
His voice stayed flat.
“We talk. Then evidence goes somewhere it can’t disappear.”
Another change.
Elias arrived at St. Jude’s parking structure near sunset.
Sixty.
Thin.
Former municipal traffic-system technician.
He looked at Daniel as though calculating whether he would leave alive.
Daniel noticed.
“You’re leaving.”
Elias swallowed.
“Comforting.”
“It wasn’t meant to be.”
I almost laughed.
Michael asked, “Do you still have the sequence?”
Elias stared at him.
“You nearly got me killed buying it.”
“And you still took fifty thousand.”
“Fear is expensive.”
Daniel folded his arms.
“What did Michael buy?”
Elias removed a small hard drive from his coat.
“Raw traffic archive from the overpass corridor.”
Marco took it.
“Why wasn’t this in police evidence?”
“Somebody sent a deletion order six hours after the attack.”
“Who?”
“Authorization came through the city contractor.”
“Name.”
“Company called Northstar Traffic Solutions.”
Marco looked at Daniel.
“Russo Holdings subcontractor.”
Of course.
They loaded the footage on Marco’s laptop.
Time stamps.
Grainy angles.
Camille’s SUV.
Daniel’s SUV behind it.
Then the attack vehicle.
Another truck blocking the exit lane.
And a third vehicle parked beneath the overpass.
A black sedan.
A man stepped out.
Even from the poor image, Daniel recognized him.
“Bruno.”
Bruno Vale.
Camille’s suspected trucking captain.
Then another figure appeared.
Not Salvatore.
A woman.
Gray coat.
Short dark hair.
She walked to Bruno.
Handed him something.
I looked at Daniel.
“Who is she?”
He stared.
“I don’t know.”
Marco did.
His face had gone blank.
“Lucia Serrano.”
“Who?”
“Salvatore’s operations director.”
Daniel looked at him.
“She schedules trucking.”
“And handles his private accounts.”
The woman gave Bruno a folder.
Then walked away.
Twelve minutes later, the ambush happened.
Daniel’s jaw hardened.
“That connects Salvatore’s office.”
“Not Salvatore personally,” I said.
He glanced at me.
“You enjoy ruining certainty.”
“Professionally.”
Elias cleared his throat.
“There’s another angle.”
He opened a second file.
The black sedan again.
This time we could see through the windshield.
Something hung from the mirror.
Blue beads.
A rosary.
Daniel stopped.
Marco whispered, “Boss.”
“What?”
“Your mother’s rosary.”
Daniel stared.
“My mother was buried with that.”
“No.”
Marco’s face tightened.
“You thought she was.”
Another family story cracked.
“Who had it?”
Marco looked uncomfortable.
“Salvatore.”
Daniel laughed without humor.
“The watch.”
“The rosary.”
“How many things did my mother give him?”
“A lot.”
Marco paused.
“She trusted him.”
That was the problem.
Daniel stared at the image.
Then Michael pointed.
“Look at the passenger seat.”
A white envelope sat visible through the windshield.
Black handwriting on the front.
CAMILLE.
Daniel went still.
The sedan was not merely connected to Salvatore’s office.
Somebody inside it had carried something addressed to his wife before she died.
Then Marco said quietly:
“I know that envelope.”
Daniel looked at him.
“From where?”
Marco’s face tightened.
“Camille gave it to me the morning of the attack.”
“What was inside?”
“A letter.”
“To whom?”
Marco looked at Daniel.
“To you.”
Daniel stopped breathing.
“What did it say?”
“I never opened it.”
“Where is it?”
Marco’s answer changed the room.
“I gave it to Salvatore because Camille told me if she couldn’t reach you herself, he was the only other person allowed to deliver it.”
Daniel stared at him.
May you like
The envelope in the surveillance photograph had been in Salvatore’s custody.
Hours later, it was sitting inside a car beside the men who ambushed Camille.
