Chapter 8 - THE DEAD WOMAN'S NAME
Roman did not speak for nearly ten minutes.
We moved upstairs from the basement while police processed Terminal Three.
My father and Chloe were checked by paramedics.
Both were shaken but physically unharmed.
Roman stood at a window overlooking the harbor.
Rain streaked the glass between him and the ships.
I approached slowly.
“Roman.”
Nothing.
“Your mother.”
His jaw tightened.
“Her name was Lucia.”
“How did she die?”
“Car accident.”
“You saw her?”
“No.”
That answer came too quickly.
I waited.
Roman turned.
“I was fourteen. Daniel was twenty-three. Our father said there had been an accident in Connecticut.”
“Was there a funeral?”
“Yes.”
“Open casket?”
“No.”
My stomach tightened.
“Did Daniel believe she was dead?”
“He did then.”
“Later?”
Roman looked toward my father.
“Apparently I need to ask.”
Dad had overheard.
He came closer.
“I never met your mother.”
“But you recognized her.”
“From photographs.”
“What photographs?”
“Your father kept one in his office.”
Roman frowned.
“My father removed every picture of her after she died.”
Dad nodded.
“This was before.”
Roman turned away.
I could see him rebuilding childhood memories against new information.
That is a cruel thing to watch.
Certainty breaking.
“Daniel never said she might be alive?” I asked.
“No.”
“Could the photograph have been altered?”
“Yes.”
Harris joined us.
“We’ll test it if we find it.”
Dad shook his head.
“They took it.”
“Describe it.”
“Polaroid. Daniel was near a car. Your mother stood behind him. There was a bridge railing.”
Roman closed his eyes.
“The same bridge.”
“Yes.”
Harris wrote notes.
“Date?”
“Written on the bottom. June nineteenth.”
Roman’s face went white.
“What?”
I asked.
He looked at me.
“That was my mother’s birthday.”
Silence.
Harris lowered his notebook.
“Who would know that?”
“Family.”
“Who is left?”
Roman laughed without humor.
“Too many.”
We returned to the Bellmont under heavier security.
Chloe refused to leave my side.
Dad called every executive at DuPont and suspended Arthur Halpern immediately, though no one knew where he was.
Naomi arrived with new information.
Kensington Capital had filed emergency actions claiming Roman’s debt acquisition was fraudulent.
Preston was trying to reverse the sale.
“He wants leverage back,” I said.
Naomi nodded.
“Or wants to create enough litigation to freeze DuPont.”
Roman entered.
“Let him.”
I stared.
“Let him?”
“A courtroom creates discovery.”
Naomi smiled slightly.
“He’s right.”
“I dislike how often people say that.”
Roman ignored me.
“If Kensington challenges the sale, we subpoena internal communications.”
“And they subpoena yours,” Naomi said.
“Fine.”
She raised a brow.
“You have nothing you don’t want discovered?”
Roman looked at her.
“I didn’t say that.”
Chloe, sitting on the sofa with a blanket, whispered to me, “He is terrifying.”
“I know.”
“Also weirdly funny.”
“I know.”
She looked at me.
“Oh.”
“What?”
“You said that too quickly.”
“Stop.”
Her smile appeared for the first time since the kidnapping.
Good.
Let her tease me.
It meant she was still herself.
Harris called shortly after noon.
They had found Walter Kincaid.
Alive.
He had been living under another name in Maine.
A federal task force detained him at a private airfield before he boarded a flight to Canada.
Roman wanted to go to the interview.
Harris said no.
Roman called someone.
Ten minutes later, Harris called back and said Roman could observe from another room.
I did not ask who he called.
I went too.
Harris objected.
I reminded him the case involved my company.
He objected again.
Naomi intervened.
Two hours later, we were in a federal building watching Walter Kincaid through one-way glass.
He was seventy.
Thin.
White hair.
The kind of face that could belong to a retired professor.
He did not look like a man who had haunted Roman’s family for twelve years.
Harris sat across from him with a federal agent.
“North Atlantic Marine,” Harris said.
Kincaid smiled.
“What about it?”
“Why is a dead company moving money?”
“Companies aren’t alive.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do.”
“Who controls the account?”
Kincaid looked directly toward the glass.
As if he knew Roman stood behind it.
“Lucia.”
Roman stopped moving.
I looked at him.
Kincaid smiled.
Harris leaned forward.
“Lucia who?”
“You already know.”
“Say the name.”
“Lucia DeLuca.”
Roman walked out of the observation room.
I followed.
“Roman.”
He kept walking.
I caught his sleeve.
He stopped.
“She’s dead.”
“I know what you were told.”
“She is dead.”
The certainty sounded desperate now.
I lowered my voice.
“What if she isn’t?”
He turned on me.
Not violently.
But with enough pain that I stepped back.
“My mother left two sons with a man she hated. If she lived, she chose not to return.”
I understood.
The question was not whether she survived.
It was why she never came back.
Roman looked through the hallway window.
“Daniel looked for her.”
“What?”
“Years later. Quietly.”
“You knew?”
“I found receipts after he died. Private investigators. Hospitals. Immigration records.”
“Did he find anything?”
“I thought no.”
“But maybe he did.”
Roman looked toward the interview room.
“That photograph.”
“Yes.”
He pressed a fist against his mouth.
Then lowered it.
“Daniel met her at the bridge.”
“Maybe.”
“The night he died.”
“Maybe.”
“Then she may know who killed him.”
“Yes.”
Roman’s grief changed direction.
It became purpose.
We returned to the observation room.
Kincaid was still talking.
“Daniel wanted to expose the network,” he said.
Harris asked, “What network?”
“Kensington’s father built it. Judges, customs officials, shipping executives. Daniel thought truth was enough.”
“And Lucia?”
“She knew truth needed protection.”
Roman whispered beside me, “That sounds like her.”
Harris asked, “Did Lucia order Daniel’s death?”
Kincaid laughed.
“No.”
“Who did?”
Kincaid stopped smiling.
“Richard Kensington.”
Preston’s father.
My stomach tightened.
Harris continued.
“Proof?”
“The ledger.”
“Where is it?”
Kincaid looked tired.
“Everyone asks the wrong question.”
“What question should we ask?”
“Which ledger?”
Roman leaned closer to the glass.
Kincaid continued.
“Daniel copied one book. Lucia kept another.”
Harris frowned.
“What was in hers?”
“Payments.”
“To whom?”
“Everyone.”
Judges.
Police.
Politicians.
Executives.
Maybe more.
“Where is it?”
Kincaid smiled again.
“With the bride.”
I froze.
Harris frowned.
“What bride?”
Kincaid looked at the glass.
“Eleanor DuPont.”
My heart stopped.
Roman turned to me.
I shook my head.
“I don’t have anything.”
Kincaid continued.
“She’s had it since she was nineteen.”
I stepped closer to the glass.
“No.”
Roman looked at me.
“Think.”
“I would know if I had a criminal ledger.”
“Maybe you don’t know what it is.”
Harris asked Kincaid, “How was it given to her?”
“Scholarship fund.”
My mind blanked.
Then filled.
At nineteen, I received a trust from my grandmother.
Not large by my family’s standards.
Enough for school.
Invested across several accounts.
“I have a trust.”
Roman’s eyes sharpened.
“Who manages it?”
“Bexley Private Bank.”
Naomi, standing behind us, immediately pulled out her phone.
Kincaid spoke again.
“Not money.”
Harris leaned forward.
“What?”
“The ledger is hidden in the trust records.”
Roman understood before I did.
“Safe deposit.”
My heart pounded.
I had a safe-deposit box.
I had never opened it.
My grandmother’s attorney gave me the key at nineteen and told me it held family documents.
I had put the key in a jewelry box.
Then moved apartments twice.
“Where is the key?” Roman asked.
“At my townhouse.”
Naomi was already calling security.
Roman stopped her.
“No.”
She looked up.
“Why?”
“If Kincaid knows, Kensington may know.”
My phone rang.
Preston.
This time I answered immediately.
“Where is my house?”
He laughed softly.
“Finally asking the right question.”
My blood went cold.
“What did you do?”
“I’m standing in your bedroom.”
Roman’s face became stone.
Preston continued.
“You always did keep sentimental things in obvious places.”
I thought of the jewelry box.
“No.”
“I found the key.”
Roman took the phone.
“Preston.”
Silence.
Then Preston said, “Roman.”
“If you touch her property again—”
“You’re late.”
A metallic click came through the speaker.
Preston sounded pleased.
“I’m on my way to the bank.”
The line went dead.
Roman was already moving.
Naomi called the bank.
I grabbed my coat.
Roman looked at me.
“You stay.”
“No.”
“Eleanor.”
“That box is mine.”
“It may be the most dangerous object in Boston.”
“Then I definitely want to know what is inside.”
He stared at me.
For one second, I expected another argument.
Instead he nodded.
“Fine.”
We ran.
Bexley Private Bank occupied a stone building downtown.
By the time we arrived, police had blocked the entrance.
A security guard lay conscious on a stretcher.
No gunshot.
Hit from behind.
Preston was gone.
The vault had not opened.
I almost collapsed with relief.
The bank manager approached.
“Ms. DuPont?”
“Yes.”
“Your box requires two keys.”
I frowned.
“I have one.”
“Correct. The bank holds the second.”
“So Preston couldn’t open it.”
“No.”
Roman looked at me.
“For once, old systems help.”
The manager led us downstairs.
I used a spare identity protocol to access my box without the original key.
Two officers watched.
The long metal box was placed on a private table.
My hands shook.
Roman stood beside the door.
Not touching.
Not crowding.
I lifted the lid.
Inside were three envelopes.
A pearl necklace.
A photograph of my grandmother.
And a black notebook.
Roman stopped breathing.
I opened it.
The first page contained names.
Payments.
Dates.
The second page held a sentence in handwriting I did not recognize.
IF YOU ARE READING THIS, ELEANOR, THEN THE MEN WHO USED MARRIAGE AS A WEAPON HAVE FAILED.
I looked at Roman.
He looked back.
Then I turned the page.
The first name listed was Richard Kensington.
The second was Arthur Halpern.
The third made Roman go completely still.
May you like
ANTONIO DELUCA.
His father.
