Chapter 6 - The Uncle Who Knew Too Much
Sebastian wanted to return to Chicago immediately.
Shaw wanted him to stay out of her investigation.
Norah wanted someone to explain why Victor Romano knew exactly which drawer belonged to Leonard Collins.
Luca wanted permission to break several laws.
Nobody got exactly what they wanted.
They drove south at speed.
Shaw followed in an unmarked state vehicle.
Isabel’s remains stayed with the forensic unit.
The crate stayed under evidence seal.
Norah hated leaving her father’s papers.
She hated more that Sebastian understood.
“You can request copies.”
She looked at him.
“You say that like you’ve been arrested often.”
“Not arrested.”
“Investigated.”
“Yes.”
“How often?”
He looked out the window.
“Enough.”
That answer belonged to a conversation they were not having yet.
Norah checked her workshop feed.
Victor remained inside.
He sat at her bench drinking her coffee.
Her coffee.
That made her irrationally angry.
“He used my mug.”
Sebastian looked at the screen.
“The red one?”
“Yes.”
“You have a preferred mug?”
“Everyone has a preferred mug.”
“I don’t.”
“That explains several things about you.”
Luca hid a smile.
Sebastian did not.
He was watching Victor.
His uncle.
The man named on Mirella’s tape as Alessandro’s partner.
The man Leonard said followed him.
Possibly the man who attacked Henri.
Possibly connected to Mirella’s crash.
“What does ‘come home’ mean?” Norah asked.
“My father’s estate.”
“Where?”
“Lake Bluff.”
“Your mother’s lake house?”
“No.”
“Different?”
“Yes.”
“How many lakeside properties does one family need?”
“Apparently several.”
Norah sighed.
Rich people and grief were exhausting.
They reached her workshop at 8:21 p.m.
Shaw insisted on entering first.
Victor remained seated.
No weapon visible.
Two men waited outside in a car.
He had obeyed some definition of alone.
“Evelyn,” Victor said.
Shaw stared.
“You know me.”
“I know everyone who spent ten years trying to prove my family was interesting.”
“I always found you tedious.”
Victor smiled.
Then looked at Sebastian.
“Your father would hate this.”
Sebastian entered.
“My father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“So are several people you lied about.”
Victor looked at Norah.
“You broke the clasp.”
“Yes.”
“Leonard would have liked you.”
“You knew him.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He repaired Mirella’s jewelry.”
“That is the public answer.”
Victor’s smile faded.
Good.
Norah crossed her arms.
“You knew which drawer to open.”
“I have been here before.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
Her stomach tightened.
“My father died eight years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Before or after?”
Victor looked at her.
“After.”
The room went cold.
Norah’s father died at home.
Heart attack.
She found him.
No sign of forced entry.
No suspicion.
“Why?”
“I came to collect something.”
“What?”
“The same thing everyone has been looking for.”
“The original necklace.”
“Yes.”
“Did he have it?”
“No.”
“Did you kill him?”
Sebastian stepped closer.
Victor did not look away from Norah.
“No.”
“Did you touch him?”
“No.”
“Did you threaten him?”
“Yes.”
Norah’s face tightened.
Victor continued.
“He laughed at me.”
That sounded like Leonard.
“He said I had spent twenty years chasing a piece of jewelry when the evidence had stopped being jewelry long before.”
Norah remembered Catherine.
The original necklace is not jewelry anymore.
It is evidence.
“What did he mean?”
“I hoped you would tell me.”
“No.”
Victor smiled.
“There is Leonard’s daughter.”
Sebastian’s voice cut between them.
“My mother.”
Victor turned.
“You found Isabel.”
Not a question.
Shaw said, “Careful.”
Victor ignored her.
Sebastian held up the photograph of Mirella alive after the crash.
“You knew.”
Victor’s expression changed.
Not surprise.
Pain.
Real or performed, Norah could not tell.
“Yes.”
Sebastian took one step.
Luca shifted.
Shaw’s hand moved near her weapon.
“You let me bury her.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Alessandro would have killed her.”
Sebastian laughed.
“He already tried.”
“No.”
Victor’s answer was immediate.
“Then who?”
Victor looked at Norah.
Not Sebastian.
That was strange.
“Leonard believed Alessandro arranged the crash.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
“You expect me to believe you.”
“No.”
Victor looked tired suddenly.
Older.
“I expect you to listen long enough to hate the correct man.”
Shaw muttered, “Promising.”
Sebastian’s voice dropped.
“Who?”
“Michael Bellucci.”
Silence.
Sebastian’s biological father.
Norah stared.
“He died in 1989.”
Victor shook his head.
“No.”
Shaw stepped forward.
“State records—”
“Were fabricated.”
Victor smiled without humor.
“Organized crime prosecutors learned tricks from organized crime.”
Sebastian looked at the photograph of Bellucci.
“My father is alive.”
“I did not say that.”
“Then say what you mean.”
“Michael Bellucci survived the hit-and-run.”
Of course.
Apparently no one in this story stayed dead on schedule.
Victor continued.
“Mirella helped him disappear.”
“Why?”
“Because Alessandro learned who Sebastian’s father was.”
Sebastian went still.
“Alessandro knew.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“1989.”
“Why didn’t he kill me?”
Victor’s expression softened.
“He loved you.”
Sebastian laughed bitterly.
“Do not.”
“I know what he became.”
“No.”
“You know what he was to you.”
Silence.
That was different.
Victor continued.
“Alessandro knew Mirella had loved Bellucci before him. He knew there was a chance you were not his. He chose not to test it.”
“Then why did Mirella run seventeen years ago?”
“Because Bellucci came back.”
Norah looked at Sebastian.
He had gone completely still.
“Back to Chicago?”
“Yes.”
“What did he want?”
“The evidence Mirella collected.”
Shaw frowned.
“Why would a prosecutor need evidence against Romano after faking his death?”
Victor looked at her.
“Because he was no longer a prosecutor.”
There it was.
The next fracture.
“What was he?” Norah asked.
Victor’s face hardened.
“A broker.”
“For who?”
“Federal agents. rival families. foreign buyers. Whoever paid.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened.
“My biological father sold information.”
“Yes.”
“And my mother trusted him.”
“At first.”
“What happened?”
“She discovered Bellucci was using her evidence to blackmail Alessandro rather than prosecute him.”
Norah thought of Leonard’s note.
Mirella was right. The thief was inside the family.
Maybe thief did not mean jewelry.
Maybe it meant evidence.
“Bellucci stole the original necklace,” Norah said.
Victor looked at her.
“Partly.”
“How do you partly steal a necklace?”
“He took the center setting.”
Norah’s mind moved.
The payment records were behind the center setting.
The necklace itself could be separated.
“Then Leonard dismantled the rest.”
Victor nodded.
“He distributed the evidence.”
“Where?”
“To people he trusted.”
“Who?”
“Henri. Catherine. Isabel. Others.”
Norah looked around her workshop.
“My father.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Bellucci could not steal what no one person had.”
Shaw said, “And Mirella?”
“She disappeared after the crash.”
“Where?”
Victor looked at Sebastian.
“That is the reason I came.”
Sebastian’s body tightened.
“Where is she?”
“My brother’s estate.”
“Alessandro’s?”
“Yes.”
“Impossible.”
Victor shook his head.
“You spent six days grieving a man without opening the oldest wing of his house.”
Sebastian’s face changed.
The will.
Lake house.
Necklace.
Instructions.
His father had been directing him toward buried rooms.
“What do you mean waiting?” Sebastian asked.
Victor’s eyes softened.
“Mirella came back two years ago.”
No one spoke.
“She has dementia.”
The room went very quiet.
Sebastian’s anger disappeared.
Not forgiven.
Interrupted.
Victor continued.
“She remembers pieces. Sometimes me. Sometimes Alessandro. Sometimes she asks for you.”
Sebastian looked away.
Norah felt something twist inside her.
Seventeen years imagining a dead mother.
Now alive.
But perhaps unable to give answers.
“Why hide her?” Sebastian asked.
“Alessandro’s decision.”
“Why?”
“Bellucci.”
“Alive?”
Victor nodded.
Shaw swore softly.
Victor continued.
“Your father believed Bellucci would come if Mirella’s return became known.”
“My father.”
Victor understood the correction.
“Alessandro.”
Sebastian’s face tightened.
“Where is Bellucci?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then how do you know he is alive?”
Victor looked toward Norah.
“Because he killed Leonard.”
Everything inside her stopped.
“No.”
Victor reached into his coat.
Luca moved.
“Easy.”
Victor removed a photograph.
Placed it on Norah’s bench.
Security image.
Eight years old.
Date stamped the night Leonard Collins died.
A man entered the alley behind the workshop.
Tall.
Gray-haired now.
Face visible in profile.
Victor placed Michael Bellucci’s old photograph beside it.
Same nose.
Same jaw.
Older.
Alive.
Norah stared.
“You had this for eight years.”
“Yes.”
“And never told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought Leonard still had part of the evidence.”
“You used my father as bait.”
Victor’s silence answered.
Norah’s hand moved before she decided.
She slapped him.
Hard.
Victor turned with the impact.
Luca’s eyes widened.
Shaw did not react.
Sebastian watched Norah.
Victor touched his cheek.
Then nodded once.
“Fair.”
“No.”
Norah’s voice shook.
“Do not make yourself noble by accepting it.”
Victor lowered his hand.
Good.
Sebastian picked up the photo.
“If Bellucci killed Leonard, why?”
“He thought Leonard knew where the final evidence key was.”
“What key?”
Victor looked at the necklace pieces.
“The original center ruby.”
Norah froze.
The synthetic ruby from cabinet 314 had contained a code.
But the original center ruby—
“The real stone is a key?”
“Not metaphorically.”
Victor nodded.
“Bellucci had a custom data vault built in the nineties. Physical optical key. Cut pattern encoded through the ruby.”
Norah almost admired the madness.
A gemstone used as an authentication token.
“Where is it?”
Victor smiled faintly.
“Leonard hid it.”
Norah looked around the workshop she inherited.
Eight years.
Every cabinet.
Every wall.
Every tool.
She had never found a ruby worth millions.
Unless—
Her eyes moved to the object on her desk.
A cheap red glass paperweight.
Her father’s.
She had used it for invoices since she was sixteen.
Round.
Ugly.
Never appraised because he called it junk.
Norah walked toward it.
Sebastian saw.
“What?”
She picked it up.
Heavy.
Red.
Not glass?
She had never tested it.
Because why would a jeweler test her father’s worthless desk junk?
She carried it to the microscope.
The surface was resin.
Inside:
Something dark red.
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed.
Norah used a small saw.
Cut the resin.
Victor stepped closer.
Everyone watched.
A gemstone appeared.
Oval.
Deep red.
Large.
Old.
Sebastian inhaled.
His mother’s center ruby.
Norah stared.
For eight years, the key everyone killed for had been holding down her invoices.
Then the workshop lights went out.
Shaw drew her weapon.
Luca moved toward the door.
Glass shattered in the back room.
A figure.
Fast.
Norah heard Sebastian say her name.
Then someone grabbed her from behind.
Cold metal pressed against her throat.
A man’s voice whispered into her ear.
“You have your father’s curiosity.”
The lights flickered back.
Sebastian froze.
Norah looked into the mirror above her bench.
The man holding her was Michael Bellucci.
Sebastian’s biological father.
May you like
Alive.
And smiling at his son.
