Chapter 11 - THE PAGES ISABELLE SAVED
The dollhouse had belonged to Isabelle when she was a child.
Later she gave it to Olivia.
It stood in the playroom beneath a window overlooking the gardens.
For fourteen months, nobody had touched it.
Not even the cleaning staff.
Olivia knelt beside it.
She lifted the miniature roof.
Then removed the tiny wooden floor of the attic.
Underneath lay folded sheets of blue paper.
Twenty-seven pages.
The missing ledger.
I stared at my daughter.
“You kept these all this time?”
“Mommy said they were important.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her eyes dropped.
“She told me not to tell anyone until I knew who the bad person was.”
I felt a terrible mix of pride and heartbreak.
A six-year-old girl had carried a burden no child should have carried.
I knelt beside her.
“Listen to me.”
She looked at me.
“From now on, the grown-ups carry this.”
“You do not have to protect Mommy’s secrets anymore.”
She nodded slowly.
“You can just be Olivia.”
Her chin trembled.
“Can I still remember her?”
I pulled her into my arms.
“Every day.”
Grace photographed every ledger page.
We made three encrypted copies.
The original pages went into a secure fireproof box.
Carlo arranged delivery to a federal attorney he trusted outside New York.
I had spent much of my life avoiding outside attention.
Now I wanted it.
Not because I had suddenly become naive about institutions.
Because Victor’s greatest advantage was secrecy.
I intended to take secrecy away from him.
The ledger showed companies.
Dates.
Initials.
Payments.
Some were obvious.
V.H.
Victor Hale.
C.R.
Cecilia Romano.
M.B.
Marco Bell.
Others were unfamiliar.
But one set of initials appeared more than any other.
E.R.
Anthony looked at me.
“Elena Romano?”
Our mother.
Grace shook her head.
“Not necessarily.”
My stomach tightened anyway.
There were transfers totaling nearly seven million dollars.
My mother entered.
She saw the initials.
“What?”
Anthony pointed.
“E.R.”
Her face changed.
“You think that is me.”
“Is it?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
She stared at the numbers.
Then slowly sat down.
“Edward Romano.”
My father’s younger brother.
Uncle Edward.
A man I had not seen in sixteen years.
Anthony laughed.
“Edward died.”
“No,” my mother said.
“He disappeared.”
Our family had always said Edward died overseas.
A heart condition.
No funeral because his remains supposedly could not be returned quickly.
I had been twenty-five.
I had believed it.
“What are you saying?”
Elena looked at me.
“Your father paid Edward to leave.”
“Why?”
“Because Edward had discovered Victor’s first theft.”
Everything stopped.
Victor’s connection to our family did not begin with my father.
It went deeper.
Edward had discovered him.
Victor had somehow survived.
And my father had chosen secrecy instead of exposure.
The original sin.
The decision that had allowed everything afterward.
“Is Edward alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did he go?”
“Canada at first.”
“Then?”
“I never knew.”
Grace checked the ledger.
The most recent E.R. payment had occurred six months earlier.
Edward was alive.
Or someone was using his identity.
I looked at Carlo.
“Find him.”
The ransom message remained on my phone.
Victor wanted the original ledger.
We had something better.
A copy he did not know existed.
We arranged a meeting.
Victor chose an abandoned waterfront warehouse in Brooklyn.
A place surrounded by enough roads and industrial buildings to make surveillance difficult.
I agreed to go.
Not alone.
But Victor would believe I was.
Anthony insisted.
“If Cecilia is there, I’m coming.”
“She betrayed you.”
“She’s still my wife.”
I studied him.
“Do you want to save her or ask why?”
“Both.”
Fair answer.
Grace stayed behind.
No argument this time.
My daughters needed her more.
Before leaving, Nora ran to me.
She held a small yellow ribbon.
“Mommy’s.”
I recognized it.
Isabelle had tied it around birthday gifts.
Nora placed it in my hand.
“For brave.”
I kissed her forehead.
“Thank you.”
Then Olivia whispered.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Victor lies when he touches his ring.”
I looked at her.
“What?”
“At school.”
“He kept touching his ring.”
A child notices things adults ignore.
I remembered Victor at his office.
Every time I mentioned Isabelle.
His hand had moved toward his wedding ring.
Except Victor had been divorced for nineteen years.
Why was he still wearing it?
I called Grace.
“Pull every photograph of Victor’s ring.”
Twenty minutes later, she called back.
“Dominic.”
“What?”
“It isn’t a wedding ring.”
“What is it?”
“A signet.”
“Symbol?”
“A crest.”
“Whose?”
She hesitated.
“The same crest appears on one of the companies in the ledger.”
“Which company?”
“Hale-Rossi Holdings.”
Rossi.
My mother’s maiden name.
I looked across the SUV at Elena.
She saw my face.
“What?”
“Mom.”
My voice felt strange.
“How exactly did you meet Victor Hale?”
May you like
She went pale.
And for the first time in my life, my mother refused to answer me.
