Chapter 3 - THE CASSETTE IN THE LIBRARY
Teresa did not take her eyes off me.
“Daniel Reed worked for Antonio,” she said.
I looked at Luca. He looked just as surprised.
Vanessa recovered before either of us.
“Half of Chicago worked for Antonio.”
Teresa shook her head. “Not like Daniel.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
She leaned back slowly, searching her memory.
“He was young. Quiet. Too honest for the room he was usually standing in.”
That sounded like my father.
He had spent my entire childhood returning extra change to cashiers and driving ten miles back to stores because somebody forgot to charge him for milk.
Luca opened the ledger again.
Beside Daniel Reed’s name were four columns of numbers, a date, and a handwritten note.
REFUSED AUTHORIZATION.
Below that:
TRANSFER REVERSED.
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“Authorization for what?”
Teresa looked toward the cassette tape.
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa moved closer to the desk.
“This is exactly why old records should go through counsel.”
Luca did not look at her. “You’re still here.”
“Because my family is being accused.”
“No. Your father is being mentioned.”
“My father is my family.”
“So is Teresa.”
That ended the argument.
For the moment.
I stared at my father’s name.
He was recovering from a stroke in a rehabilitation center forty minutes away. That morning, he had struggled to button his own shirt.
Now a ledger hidden beneath a Moretti library floor claimed he had once stood inside the center of a secret nobody had told me existed.
“I’m calling him,” I said.
Vanessa laughed.
“You think he remembers something from twenty-seven years ago?”
I pulled out my phone.
“He remembers every bill I forgot to pay in high school.”
Luca almost smiled.
Then I saw the time.
My father would already be asleep.
More importantly, he had been exhausted after therapy. The neurologist had warned me not to overwhelm him.
I lowered the phone.
“Tomorrow.”
Luca nodded.
Vanessa did not.
“Convenient.”
I turned toward her.
“You keep using that word whenever somebody has information you don’t like.”
Her eyes narrowed.
I had crossed a line.
I knew it.
So did every person in the room.
But Luca did not correct me.
Instead, he picked up the cassette tape.
On the label, written in Lucia’s handwriting, were two words.
DINNER — APRIL.
Teresa inhaled sharply.
“What?”
“I remember that night.”
Luca placed the cassette on the desk.
“Tell me.”
“Your parents had the Bellinis over.”
Vanessa’s posture changed.
“Which Bellinis?”
“Salvatore and his wife.”
“My mother?”
“Yes.”
Vanessa frowned. “My mother barely knew the Morettis.”
Teresa looked at her sadly.
“Children are told many useful stories.”
Luca opened a cabinet beneath the desk and removed an old stereo system.
I stared at him.
“You have a cassette player?”
“My father refused to throw anything away.”
Teresa glanced at the chipped plate still resting on the desk.
“Sometimes that is useful.”
Luca inserted the tape.
Static filled the library.
Then voices.
At first they were muffled.
Glasses clinked.
A chair scraped.
A woman laughed.
Luca froze.
He knew the voice before I did.
His mother.
Lucia sounded younger than the woman in the portraits. Warmer. Alive.
For several seconds, nobody spoke in the library.
We listened to a dead woman talk about wine.
Then a man’s voice entered.
Antonio.
“Enough about Marco.”
Lucia answered.
“You don’t get to say enough.”
Another man spoke.
Salvatore Bellini.
“Lucia, this is family business.”
“No. This is theft.”
Vanessa stepped toward the stereo.
Luca held up one hand.
She stopped.
On the tape, Antonio lowered his voice.
“Marco made accusations.”
“He brought records.”
“He brought copies.”
“Because Daniel refused to sign the originals.”
My lungs stopped working.
The room turned toward me.
On the tape, Salvatore said, “Daniel is a clerk.”
Lucia answered instantly.
“Daniel is the only man in this company who still understands the difference between loyalty and obedience.”
I gripped the back of a chair.
My father had never told me.
Not once.
Vanessa’s expression hardened.
“This proves nothing.”
Luca did not respond.
The tape continued.
Salvatore’s voice grew quieter.
“If Marco takes this outside the family, everyone loses.”
Lucia said, “Maybe everyone should.”
Antonio slammed something onto the table.
“Think about Luca.”
“I am thinking about Luca.”
“You want him growing up with his father in prison?”
Silence.
Even the old tape seemed to hold its breath.
Then Lucia said, “I want him growing up knowing his father is not a coward.”
Luca closed his eyes.
Teresa began crying.
Vanessa did not move.
The recording crackled.
Then Marco’s name came again.
This time from Salvatore.
“Your brother has forty-eight hours to return what he took.”
Lucia asked, “Or what?”
There was a long pause.
Salvatore answered.
“Or he stops being our problem.”
The tape clicked.
Static.
Then nothing.
Luca stared at the machine.
Vanessa spoke first.
“That can mean anything.”
Teresa looked at her in disbelief.
“Can it?”
“My father could have been talking about firing him from a company.”
“Marco did not work for the company.”
Vanessa’s lips parted.
She had not known that.
Luca heard it too.
“You said your father barely knew my mother.”
Vanessa did not answer.
“Then you said he could have been firing Marco.”
“I was giving an example.”
“Of a man you claim had no relationship with any of them.”
Her face flushed.
“This is not a courtroom.”
“No,” Luca said. “In a courtroom, you would have a lawyer telling you to stop talking.”
I should not have enjoyed that sentence.
I did.
Vanessa looked at me and saw it.
“Do you find this funny?”
“No.”
“You look amused.”
“I look tired.”
“You look comfortable for an employee standing in her employer’s private library.”
The insult was quieter than the earlier ones.
Sharper too.
She wanted to put me back where she believed I belonged.
Before I could answer, Luca did.
“Emma is here because I asked her to be.”
Vanessa turned toward him.
“And why did you ask her?”
The question hung there.
Too personal.
Too early.
Luca’s eyes met mine for half a second.
Then he looked away.
“Because this began with something she saw.”
Vanessa gave a brittle smile.
“Of course.”
Teresa wiped her face.
“Enough.”
She pointed at the ledger.
“Find April.”
Luca turned pages.
Rows of payments passed beneath his fingers.
Properties.
Vendors.
Accounts.
Then he stopped.
APRIL 17.
A transfer for eight hundred thousand dollars.
Authorized by Salvatore Bellini.
Rejected by Daniel Reed.
Overridden by Antonio Moretti.
Three days later, the same amount had been withdrawn in cash.
Beside it was a handwritten notation:
M.M. SETTLEMENT.
Luca looked at Teresa.
“Marco Moretti?”
“I don’t know.”
Vanessa reached for the ledger.
Luca closed it.
“Don’t.”
She pulled her hand back.
“This is my father’s reputation.”
“This is my mother’s box.”
My second was to remember the fear on Vanessa’s face when Teresa said my father’s name.
She was already reaching for her phone.
“Who are you calling?”
She slipped it into her purse. “My driver.”
“You can wait.”
Her eyes flashed. “You are not keeping me prisoner.”
“No. I am asking my security team to verify who just arrived at my gate before anyone drives away.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“It is tonight.”
Vanessa looked at me again.
This time there was no contempt.
There was calculation.
That frightened me more.
She lowered her voice.
“Emma, your father is sick.”
I felt the room tighten around those words.
Luca’s expression turned dangerous.
“What does that mean?”
Vanessa lifted both hands. “It means she should be at the hospital instead of listening to old tapes and family gossip.”
“You knew he had a stroke?”
“She has mentioned it.”
“I never told you,” I said.
Vanessa stopped.
Only for a second.
But Teresa saw it.
Luca saw it.
And I finally understood why my father’s name had frightened her.
Somebody in the Bellini family had been paying attention to mine.
A knock sounded at the library door.
We all turned.
One of the security men entered.
“Mr. Moretti, there is a man at the front gate asking for Miss Reed.”
My heart jumped.
“Who?”
“He says his name is Peter Walsh.”
I had never heard it.
The guard hesitated.
“He says he worked with your father.”
Vanessa went completely still.
Luca noticed.
“So you know him,” he said.
She shook her head too quickly.
“No.”
The guard looked at me.
“He also said not to call Mr. Reed.”
“Why?”
“He said your father is safer if he doesn’t know Peter came here.”
Luca stepped toward the door.
“What else?”
The guard swallowed.
“He has an old employee badge from Moretti Holdings.”
I thought that was all.
Then he added the part that changed everything.
“On the back, someone wrote a message by hand.”
Luca asked, “What message?”
The guard looked at me.
“Daniel Reed saved Luca Moretti once.”
May you like
He paused.
“And if Emma wants her father to survive the week, she should not let Vanessa Bellini leave this house.”
