Chương 6 - THE STAR’S SECRET
Julian Cross returned to Costello House under a blanket.
He was furious about it.
“This is ridiculous.”
“It kept the cameras from seeing you,” Keane said.
“It also made me look like a kidnapped piano.”
“No one saw you.”
“That doesn’t improve how it felt.”
June met them in the underground garage just after eight that evening.
Julian emerged from the SUV carrying sunglasses despite the darkness and a paper bag from a cheesesteak place.
“You brought dinner?” June asked.
“I was told I might be entering a criminal fortress. I didn’t know the food policy.”
Rafe stood behind her.
“We have food.”
Julian looked at him.
“Of course you do.”
June stepped between them before male pride developed its own weather system.
“Both of you, please.”
They went upstairs to a private conference room where the cassette recorder, the sealed envelope, the film reel, and the safe-deposit card had been arranged on the table.
Julian stopped joking when he saw his mother’s name.
He sat.
For several seconds he simply stared.
“My mother never told me about this.”
“Mine didn’t either,” June said.
Rafe closed the door.
“My father apparently planned it with them.”
Julian looked up.
“So our parents were working together.”
“Looks that way.”
“To expose your family.”
Rafe’s expression remained controlled.
“To expose someone using my family.”
Julian gave a quiet laugh.
“That distinction means more to you than it does to me.”
“It may mean more once we know the truth.”
June touched the envelope with her name.
“We start here.”
She opened it.
Inside was a single sheet of paper in her father’s handwriting.
June recognized the slant immediately.
Her hands began to shake.
She read aloud.
“Junebug, if you are reading this, then I failed to explain something while I still had the chance.”
She stopped.
Rafe reached for her hand but did not touch it until she nodded.
Then his fingers closed around hers.
June continued.
“There are people who will tell you the Costellos are the danger and people who will tell you they are the answer. Both statements are too simple. Salvatore is helping us because he discovered a machine inside his own house that he did not build and cannot stop without proof. Margaret has evidence of men ruined through false scandal. I have the books. We are placing the pieces apart because no one can destroy what no one person possesses.”
Julian leaned forward.
June’s voice tightened.
“If anything happens to me, do not trust the loudest accusation. Follow who benefits when people stop asking questions.”
At the bottom her father had written:
“And June, if a Costello boy ever tells you he hates jazz, don’t believe him. Salvatore says they all pretend because they think it makes them look serious.”
June stared at the sentence.
Then she looked at Rafe.
He seemed offended.
“I do hate jazz.”
Julian barked a laugh.
June laughed too.
It came through tears.
For a brief moment, the dead felt close enough to tease them.
Then Julian touched the cassette recorder.
“My mother recorded something?”
“Probably,” June said.
Keane had found batteries.
Rafe pressed play.
Static filled the room.
Then a woman’s voice.
Julian closed his eyes.
“My mother.”
Margaret Cross sounded younger than June expected. Nervous. Fast.
“If this recording survives, then the photographs worked the way Gabriel said they would. That means Daniel’s reputation is already destroyed.”
Julian went rigid.
His father.
The recording continued.
“Gabriel Voss approached me six months ago. He said he could make the accusations against Costello Maritime disappear if Daniel withdrew his complaint. When Daniel refused, Gabriel said the public never remembers documents. It remembers pictures.”
Julian’s jaw clenched.
June looked at him.
Margaret continued.
“He showed me sample photographs. Altered images. He said he could make Daniel look unfaithful, corrupt, anything necessary. I told Salvatore. Salvatore believed me. Anthony verified money transfers from shell charities controlled by Gabriel and two partners. One partner is Dominic Varro.”
Rafe’s expression hardened.
Dominic Varro.
A name June knew.
Real estate developer. Nightclub owner. Publicly respectable. Privately rumored to have spent twenty years fighting Costello influence at the docks.
The recording crackled.
“The other partner is someone Salvatore refuses to name until we have proof. Someone inside the Costello family.”
The tape stopped.
No click.
Just silence.
Julian stared at the recorder.
“That’s it?”
Rafe turned the cassette over.
Side B.
He pressed play.
Margaret’s voice returned.
“If our children ever hear this, there is one thing they must understand. The plan was not to make them inherit our war. The plan was to give them enough truth to end it.”
June swallowed.
“Anthony says the full ledger is in box 4417. Salvatore placed a copy of the partnership agreement there. I placed originals of the fabricated photographs. We agreed the box should require representatives from all three families. If one of us dies, our children become the representatives.”
Julian looked at June.
Rafe stared at the table.
Then Margaret said the sentence that changed the room.
“Rafe Costello is not one of the children named for access.”
Rafe looked up.
June frowned.
The tape continued.
“Salvatore said his son would be watched too closely. The Costello representative is his younger nephew, Luca.”
Rafe’s face emptied of expression.
June knew Luca Costello.
Everyone did.
He was Rafe’s cousin, thirty-four, charming, reckless, permanently photographed at restaurants with models and athletes. He ran Costello Hospitality and spent most of his time pretending not to care about family business.
He had toasted June at her wedding.
He had called Rafe “the human funeral” during Christmas dinner.
He had been one of the few people capable of making Rafe laugh.
Julian asked, “Is that bad?”
Rafe stood.
“Luca disappeared this morning.”
June’s pulse jumped.
“What?”
“He missed two meetings. His phone is off.”
“Could Gabriel have taken him?”
“Or Luca already knows what’s in the box.”
Keane entered carrying a tablet.
“Boss, you need to see this.”
He placed it on the table.
Security footage from First Commonwealth Bank.
Timestamp: 6:43 a.m.
A man in a baseball cap entered a private banking corridor.
His face turned toward the camera.
Luca Costello.
June stood.
“He went to the box this morning.”
Keane nodded.
“With Gabriel Voss.”
Rafe stared at the image.
Julian’s voice was quiet.
“So the lawyer who blackmailed a maid and staged a scandal went to the bank with the one person legally able to open the evidence?”
“Looks that way,” June said.
Rafe did not speak.
His phone rang.
Luca.
Everyone looked at the screen.
Rafe answered.
“Where are you?”
Luca’s voice came through cheerful and tired.
“Nice to hear you too, cousin.”
“Where are you?”
“At the airport.”
“Doing what?”
“Leaving.”
Rafe’s eyes turned cold.
“Why?”
“Because Gabriel told me enough to understand that Philadelphia is about to become very unhealthy for people named Costello.”
June leaned closer.
“Luca,” she said, “did you open box 4417?”
Silence.
Then Luca laughed once.
“Hello, June.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
“What was inside?”
“Not what Gabriel expected.”
Rafe’s voice hardened.
“Where is the evidence?”
“I have it.”
“Bring it to me.”
“No.”
Rafe went still.
Luca continued.
“You always think the family is safest when everything comes to you. Dad thought that. Uncle Sal thought that. Look how well it worked for them.”
“What do you want?”
“Ten minutes without Keane, without ten guys outside a door, without you deciding who gets to speak.”
“Where?”
“Thirty Street Station. Main hall. Midnight.”
Rafe looked at the clock.
Three hours.
“Why there?”
“Cameras. People. Public place. Harder for everyone to act stupid.”
Julian murmured, “I like him already.”
Rafe ignored him.
“Luca, is Gabriel with you?”
“No.”
“Did he shoot himself?”
A pause.
“Ask him.”
The line went dead.
June looked at Rafe.
“What does that mean?”
Rafe stared at the silent phone.
“It means Gabriel’s wound may have been staged.”
Keane cursed.
Julian leaned back.
“So let me summarize. Your lawyer may have faked an assassination attempt, engineered photographs of me and your wife, blackmailed a maid, accessed a twenty-year-old evidence box, and possibly framed June for ordering his death.”
Rafe looked at him.
“That is the current summary.”
Julian nodded.
“And people think Hollywood is dramatic.”
June ignored them both.
She was staring at the television mounted on the wall.
The sound was muted, but a red BREAKING NEWS banner had appeared.
A reporter stood outside City Hall.
The caption beneath her read:
COSTELLO SCANDAL DEEPENS: SOURCES CLAIM RAFE KNEW OF WIFE’S HOTEL MEETING.
Then another line appeared.
FAMOUS STAR JULIAN CROSS EXPECTED TO MAKE STATEMENT TONIGHT.
Julian stood abruptly.
“I am?”
Keane checked his phone.
“Your publicist announced a press conference at ten.”
Julian’s face changed.
“I did not authorize that.”
June understood before anyone said it.
The scandal was still being directed.
The city was being fed scenes on a schedule.
May you like
And someone had just written Julian’s next line for him.
END OF CHAPTER 6
