Chapter 3 - THE MAN I USED TO LOVE CAME TO THE GATE
Daniel looked older.
That was the first thing I noticed.
Not remorseful.
Not broken.
Older.
The last photographs I had seen of him online showed a carefully constructed new life.
Tailored suits.
A luxury apartment.
His arm around Madison Price, the woman he left me for.
Pregnant.
Beautiful.
Smiling beside him at charity dinners as though the three years Daniel and I spent crying in fertility clinics had been nothing more than inconvenient background material before he found the correct woman.
Tonight he stood inside Gabriel’s security room wearing a wrinkled coat and looking as if he had not slept in days.
I stopped six feet away.
“You have five minutes.”
Daniel stared at me.
“Olivia.”
“Four minutes fifty-eight.”
He almost smiled out of habit.
Then remembered he had no right.
Gabriel stood near the wall.
Dante beside him.
Two security officers monitored the doors.
Daniel glanced at them.
“I wanted to talk privately.”
“No.”
“Liv—”
“Don’t call me that.”
His mouth closed.
Good.
“What does this have to do with Sofia Duca?”
Daniel looked toward Gabriel.
“I need protection.”
Gabriel’s expression did not change.
“I don’t provide protection to men who begin conversations by withholding information.”
Daniel swallowed.
“Four years ago, Sofia Duca came into Brooks & Bloom.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“She came several times.”
“No.”
I would have remembered her.
Wouldn’t I?
Daniel saw the question.
“She used another name.”
“What name?”
“Mrs. Morelli.”
Memory hit.
A woman in a camel coat.
Dark hair.
Quiet voice.
She always ordered white garden roses.
She never waited for arrangements.
Preferred loose bundles wrapped in brown paper.
I had served her twice.
Maybe three times.
She tipped too much.
I stared at Gabriel.
“Sofia’s mother’s maiden name?”
His face had gone still.
“Morelli.”
Daniel continued.
“She chose the shop because you didn’t know who she was.”
“Why?”
“She was investigating payments from the Duca Foundation.”
Gabriel took one step forward.
“What payments?”
Daniel’s eyes widened.
“You didn’t know.”
“Know what?”
Daniel looked at me.
“I was doing the books for Brooks & Bloom then.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You were stealing from Brooks & Bloom then.”
His face tightened.
“Yes.”
At least he didn’t deny it.
“Continue.”
“Sofia noticed several invoices in the Duca Foundation’s annual report that listed floral services from small Manhattan businesses.”
I frowned.
“So?”
“Brooks & Bloom was one.”
Cold moved through me.
“We never did Duca Foundation events.”
“I know.”
Gabriel’s voice turned quiet.
“How much?”
Daniel swallowed.
“About eighty thousand over eighteen months.”
I stared.
“My shop never received eighty thousand dollars.”
“No.”
“Where did it go?”
“Through an account opened using the business tax ID.”
My stomach dropped.
“You opened an account in my company’s name?”
Daniel looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
I felt the room tilt.
“How much money moved through it?”
“Not just floral invoices.”
“Daniel.”
“Almost six hundred thousand dollars.”
I stopped breathing.
No wonder tax notices had appeared after the divorce.
No wonder I had found unexplained liabilities.
No wonder Daniel transferred money into private accounts before leaving.
He had not simply stolen our savings.
He had buried my business inside somebody else’s financial scheme.
I stepped toward him.
“You used my shop.”
“Yes.”
“You let me refinance it because we were ‘paying for treatments.’”
His face crumpled.
“Some of that money did pay for treatment.”
“Some?”
Silence.
I could have hit him.
I didn’t.
That would have been for him.
I wanted answers.
“Who asked you to open the account?”
Daniel looked toward Gabriel.
“Vanessa Whitmore.”
The name hit like ice.
The woman at the Winter Festival.
White fur coat.
Diamond earrings.
The person who seemed delighted to turn my divorce into public entertainment.
Gabriel’s expression became murderous.
Dante whispered something under his breath.
I stared at Daniel.
“How did you know Vanessa?”
“I handled bookkeeping for one of her family’s hospitality companies before we married.”
“You never told me.”
“It was occasional consulting.”
“And she asked you to use Brooks & Bloom.”
“At first she said it was temporary.”
“For what?”
“Vendor pass-throughs.”
“That phrase means nothing.”
“Political-event expenses. Development consultations. Payments they didn’t want showing under Whitmore Development.”
Gabriel stepped forward.
“Who is they?”
Daniel answered:
“Vanessa. Councilman Hale. Two people from the Duca Foundation.”
Gabriel’s eyes became cold.
“Names.”
“I only knew one.”
“Who?”
“Steven Caruso.”
Gabriel’s face changed.
I noticed.
“Who is that?”
Gabriel answered without looking at me.
“Former deputy director of my foundation.”
“Former?”
“He left after Sofia died.”
Of course.
Daniel continued.
“Sofia found duplicated vendor invoices. She came to me because Brooks & Bloom’s name appeared on them.”
“What did you tell her?”
“The truth.”
I laughed.
Daniel winced.
“Some of it.”
“Which part?”
“That Vanessa asked me to process fake invoices.”
“And the rest?”
“I didn’t tell her I had started keeping a percentage.”
There it was.
His own theft inside theirs.
“How much?”
“About ninety thousand.”
My stomach twisted.
The money that disappeared from our marriage.
The amount wasn’t all of it.
But enough.
Daniel said:
“Sofia told me she would give me forty-eight hours to produce every record.”
Gabriel’s hands tightened.
“When?”
“Three days before she died.”
The room went silent.
I looked at Gabriel.
His face had become unreadable.
“What happened?”
I asked.
Daniel looked down.
“I called Vanessa.”
I stopped breathing.
“You warned her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was scared.”
“Of prison?”
“Yes.”
“Of losing your money?”
“Yes.”
He swallowed.
“And I thought if I cooperated, they’d keep my part quiet.”
I felt sick.
“What did Vanessa say?”
“That she would handle Sofia.”
Gabriel moved.
Fast.
Dante stepped between him and Daniel.
Not stopping his boss exactly.
Reminding.
Gabriel halted.
His voice was barely audible.
“Did she say kill my wife?”
“No.”
“Did she say hurt her?”
“No.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Daniel’s breathing quickened.
“She said, ‘Sofia won’t be a problem after Friday.’”
Gabriel closed his eyes.
Sofia died Friday night.
I felt the horror move through the room.
“Why didn’t you tell police?” I asked.
Daniel laughed once.
“Because by Saturday morning Vanessa had sent me photographs.”
“What photographs?”
“Of you.”
My skin went cold.
“Me?”
“Leaving the fertility clinic.”
My stomach dropped.
“Entering our apartment.”
“Your mother’s house.”
I stared.
“She told me if I talked, they could make anything happen.”
Daniel looked at Gabriel.
“And I believed her.”
Gabriel said:
“You should have told me.”
Daniel laughed bitterly.
“You were the last person Sofia told me to trust.”
That stopped everyone.
“What?”
Gabriel asked.
Daniel reached inside his coat slowly.
Security tensed.
He removed an old receipt.
Brooks & Bloom.
My handwriting at the top.
Daniel turned it over.
On the back, in black ink:
IF SOMETHING HAPPENS TO ME, DO NOT GIVE GABRIEL THE ORIGINAL UNTIL YOU KNOW WHO INSIDE HIS HOUSE IS COMPROMISED.
S.M.
Sofia Morelli.
Sofia Duca.
Gabriel stared.
Inside his house.
Someone close to him.
Daniel continued:
“She gave me a flash drive.”
“Where is it?” Gabriel asked.
“I hid it.”
“Where?”
“In a storage unit connected to the old flower shop.”
My pulse jumped.
“When did you last check?”
“Two days ago.”
“And?”
“It had been searched.”
I stared.
“Was the drive gone?”
“No.”
Relief.
“Because it wasn’t there.”
“What?”
Daniel looked at me.
“I hid it in your old floral-order ledger.”
My stomach tightened.
“The green one?”
“Yes.”
I remembered.
Heavy green binder.
Every wedding.
Every funeral.
Every absurd apology bouquet from the first three years of Brooks & Bloom.
“When the shop closed, I packed it into your grandfather’s cart.”
I turned.
“My cart?”
Daniel nodded.
My old wooden flower cart.
The only thing I saved.
The thing Gabriel had carried through the Winter Festival crowd.
The thing currently sitting in the Duca garage.
I stopped breathing.
We went downstairs immediately.
The cart looked ordinary beneath garage lighting.
Wood scarred from years of markets.
Brass corners.
One wheel that always squeaked in rain.
I knelt beside the bottom storage panel.
Pulled out wrapping paper.
Ribbon.
Old invoices.
Then the green ledger.
My hands shook.
I opened it.
Weddings.
Birthdays.
Funerals.
Page after page.
Near the back, the cardboard cover felt thicker.
Daniel whispered:
“There.”
I cut the inner seam.
A slim black flash drive fell into my palm.
Gabriel stared.
Four years.
Sofia’s evidence had spent four years inches beneath bouquets.
At street markets.
Inside my studio.
At the Winter Festival.
While rich women laughed at me beside the cart containing proof of whatever had killed Gabriel’s wife.
Dante took the drive.
“Offline computer.”
Gabriel nodded.
Then I noticed something else inside the hidden seam.
A photograph.
I pulled it free.
Sofia stood outside Brooks & Bloom.
Date stamp.
Three days before her death.
Beside her stood Daniel.
And across the street, partially reflected in a parked car window, was a woman wearing a white coat.
Vanessa Whitmore.
I looked at Daniel.
“You said you called her afterward.”
“I did.”
“She was already watching the shop.”
His face drained.
“I didn’t know.”
Gabriel took the photograph.
His hand shook.
Sofia had not walked into my life by accident.
Daniel had not destroyed my business alone.
And Vanessa’s cruelty at the Winter Festival suddenly looked much less random.
She had recognized me.
May you like
Not just as Daniel Brooks’s discarded wife.
As the woman whose broken flower shop once sat at the center of a secret Sofia Duca had died trying to expose.
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