Chương 6 - WHY BELLANOVA HIRED ME
Emma did not touch the papers.
Leonard Vale sat across from her as though they were discussing a research assignment.
“You arranged my job.”
“Yes.”
Two years of Bellanova shifts flashed through her mind.
Late nights.
Double shifts.
Managers approving her exam-week schedule.
Lucia always putting her on the floor instead of private events.
“How?”
“A recommendation.”
“I never asked for one.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Vale folded his hands.
“Because your father asked me to keep an eye on you.”
Emma stared at him.
“My father died nine years before I started there.”
“Yes.”
“Try again.”
Vale’s smile disappeared.
Good.
Emma had always mistrusted people who smiled through difficult truths.
“Michael believed certain records might surface eventually.”
“What records?”
“The ones you are now searching for.”
“Why Bellanova?”
“Because he believed the restaurant would matter.”
“That sounds like a line you prepared.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Then why didn’t you tell me any of this when I enrolled at Columbia?”
Vale leaned back.
“Because you were supposed to have a normal life.”
Emma almost laughed.
“You secretly arranged my employment at a restaurant tied to twenty-seven million missing dollars.”
“Yes.”
“That is an unusual definition of normal.”
He accepted that.
“What did my father know?”
“Too much.”
“About you?”
Vale looked toward the library windows.
“About everyone.”
Emma studied him.
He did not look afraid.
He looked tired.
That was more dangerous.
“You drafted the Parker protection trust.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Vittorio instructed me to.”
“Gabriel says the same.”
“Then Gabriel told you the truth.”
“About that.”
Vale’s mouth tightened.
Emma continued.
“Why use Bellanova Hospitality money?”
“Because it was liquid.”
“Whose money was it?”
“Complicated.”
“No.”
Emma leaned forward.
“People say complicated when the simple answer sounds incriminating.”
For the first time, Vale looked almost amused.
“You truly are Michael’s daughter.”
“Don’t use him to make me like you.”
His expression changed.
“I did like your father.”
“That didn’t stop you from lying to his family.”
“No.”
“Did it stop you from stealing?”
Silence.
Emma’s pulse changed.
Vale looked at the transfer record.
“The pension money did not disappear in one theft.”
“How many?”
“Years of inflated invoices. Freight contracts. Construction payments.”
“Moretti?”
“Yes.”
“Matteo?”
“Yes.”
“Vittorio?”
“Yes.”
That answer mattered.
Gabriel’s father had been involved longer than Gabriel liked to admit.
“And you?”
Vale looked at her.
“I structured companies.”
“That is not an answer.”
“I knew some of the money was dirty.”
“Some?”
“Yes.”
“And you continued.”
“For too long.”
Emma felt anger rise.
“You’re giving me just enough truth to sound remorseful.”
Vale’s eyes hardened.
“I am giving you enough truth to keep you alive.”
There it was.
Not a confession.
A threat shaped like concern.
Emma kept her voice flat.
“Were those men at Bellanova yours?”
“No.”
“Did you know they would be there?”
“No.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to verify it.”
That answer surprised her.
Vale reached into his briefcase.
Emma’s hand tightened.
He removed a photocopy.
Security footage.
The heavyset man from the bar stood outside a midtown garage three weeks earlier.
Beside him was another man.
Gabriel’s uncle.
Matteo Moretti.
Emma stared.
“You had this ready.”
“I knew eventually someone would blame me.”
“You’re saying Matteo ordered the ambush.”
“I’m saying the armed man works for him.”
“Not the same thing.”
Vale nodded.
“Good.”
Emma almost hated Gabriel for infecting people with that word.
“Why monitor me?”
Vale’s gaze moved to the papers.
“Because Michael hid something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then how do you know he hid it?”
“He told me.”
“Before he died?”
“Yes.”
Emma’s throat tightened.
“What did he say?”
Vale’s voice softened.
“He said, ‘If anything happens to me, Laura won’t know where to look. Emma might someday.’”
Emma’s heart stopped.
“Why would I know?”
“He said you noticed objects.”
She frowned.
“I was eleven.”
“He said you remembered where everything belonged.”
That was true.
As a child, Emma noticed when a picture frame had moved.
When her father left keys in the wrong bowl.
When her mother changed perfume.
“Did he say what I was supposed to notice?”
“No.”
Emma did not believe him.
But she believed Michael might have said it.
Vale stood.
“Leave this alone.”
Emma looked up.
“Why?”
“Because you are twenty-two years old, Miss Parker.”
“And?”
“And some of the people connected to this buried men long before you learned the word jurisdiction.”
He put the photograph of Matteo beside her notes.
“Your father wanted truth.”
Vale paused.
“But near the end, he also wanted you alive.”
Then he walked away.
Emma remained seated until he disappeared between the shelves.
She photographed the Matteo picture.
Then she texted Gabriel one sentence.
Law library. Now.
Gabriel arrived twenty-four minutes later.
Emma showed him the photograph.
His face changed immediately.
“Who gave you this?”
“Vale.”
Gabriel stared at Matteo.
“The man at the bar is Carlo Baresi.”
“You know him?”
“He handled security for my uncle.”
“Handled?”
“Until five years ago.”
Emma caught it.
“Past tense.”
“Yes.”
“So this doesn’t prove Matteo sent him.”
“No.”
“But you thought it did for one second.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“Yes.”
Emma gathered the papers.
“Vale wants us looking at your uncle.”
“Matteo has spent twenty years giving people reasons to look at him.”
“Which makes him convenient.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“Do not make the mistake of turning my uncle innocent because Vale is suspicious.”
“I’m not.”
She pointed to the photograph.
“I’m saying one guilty man can still be used by another.”
Gabriel was silent.
Then Emma noticed something in the security image.
Carlo Baresi’s wrist.
A black-beaded rosary bracelet.
At Bellanova, the heavyset man had worn the same thing.
She enlarged the photograph.
One bead was silver.
Gabriel stared.
“My grandmother gave those to all the men in the family.”
Emma looked at him.
“All?”
“Every son. Every nephew. Every godson.”
“How many people?”
“Too many.”
“So the bracelet does not prove Matteo.”
“No.”
Another reversal.
Then Gabriel’s gaze fixed on the garage sign behind Baresi.
VALE & CRANE — AUTHORIZED PARKING.
Emma felt cold.
“That could be coincidence.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“You don’t believe that.”
“No.”
He enlarged another part of the image.
A parking ticket protruded from Baresi’s hand.
The validation stamp was visible.
Not Vale & Crane.
BELLANOVA.
Gabriel’s expression hardened.
Emma whispered, “He wasn’t meeting Matteo at that garage.”
“No.”
“He was coming from the restaurant.”
Gabriel looked at her.
“And Bellanova’s owner knows far more than she told us.”
May you like
Lucia Bell had saved Emma by pulling the fire alarm.
She had also owned the building where someone had spent two years quietly watching Emma Parker.
