Chapter 6 - WHAT SAM REALLY STOLE
Nobody touched dinner after that.
Rosa cleared the plates without being asked.
Aunt Sofia left the room crying quietly.
Michael followed her.
Only Nicholas, Dominic and I remained.
“The money was yours?”
I asked.
Dominic shook his head.
“No.”
His voice was tired.
“It belonged to Corsetti.”
“That makes even less sense.”
Dominic sat.
“For years, Anthony paid rebates through shell shipping invoices.”
Nicholas’s expression hardened.
“Kickbacks.”
“Call them what you want.”
“I’m calling them what they were.”
Dominic looked at him.
“I used the routes to keep Corsetti away from yours. He moved cargo through designated containers. No weapons. No drugs.”
Nicholas laughed bitterly.
“You trusted Anthony Corsetti’s inventory?”
“No.”
“I monitored it.”
“Without telling me.”
“Yes.”
“Stop saying yes like honesty arrived seven years late and deserves applause.”
Dominic accepted that.
I asked, “Where does Sam fit?”
“He found the duplicate manifests.”
“Then what?”
“He traced the money Corsetti paid me.”
“The six hundred twelve thousand?”
Dominic nodded.
“I never took it.”
Nicholas frowned.
“What?”
“I let Corsetti believe I did.”
“For seven years?”
“No.”
Dominic rubbed his face.
“The money accumulated in accounts controlled by one of his own financial men. It was supposed to be my cut.”
“But?”
“I never withdrew it.”
“Why?”
“Because I wanted leverage if Anthony ever broke the truce.”
Nicholas stared.
“You let a criminal accumulate evidence that could make it look like my organization was taking payments from him.”
Dominic gave him a dry look.
“We are not a church choir, Nicholas.”
“This was different.”
“Yes.”
“That is why I hid it.”
I felt sick.
“So Sam discovered the account.”
“Yes.”
“And Corsetti thought Sam stole it.”
“Because somebody moved it.”
“Who?”
Dominic looked at me.
“Sam.”
My anger returned.
“You said he wasn’t a thief.”
“He wasn’t.”
“You just said—”
“He moved the money where Corsetti couldn’t reach it.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at him.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Why would Sam do that?”
“To force the truth into daylight.”
Dominic’s eyes moved to Nicholas.
“He knew if the money vanished, Anthony would come to me. If I denied having it, Nicholas would eventually hear about the arrangement.”
Nicholas’s face darkened.
“He engineered a war.”
“No.”
Dominic shook his head.
“He was trying to end a lie.”
I looked down at my mother’s green ledger.
My brother had not been stealing.
He had been pulling one thread because he wanted to see who panicked when the sweater came apart.
“And you met him that night.”
“Yes.”
“At nine-fifteen.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“He brought flowers for Peter.”
Dominic’s voice changed.
“He said he knew what losing family could make a man justify.”
My mother’s words came back.
They still did the bad thing.
“He wanted you to tell Nicholas.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Nicholas stared at his uncle.
“Why?”
“Because I was afraid of what you would do.”
Nicholas stood.
“You didn’t trust me.”
Dominic stood too.
“I knew you.”
The words struck harder.
“You were still your father’s son when it came to Corsetti.”
Nicholas’s jaw worked.
“I am not my father.”
“No.”
Dominic’s voice softened.
“You became better.”
Nicholas looked away.
“But I did not know that then.”
I interrupted.
“What happened after Sam left you?”
Dominic’s face closed.
“He left.”
“To where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was he alive?”
Dominic looked at me.
“Yes.”
“Did you follow him?”
“No.”
“Did someone?”
“I don’t know.”
I slammed my hand on the table.
“You know what I am tired of?”
Neither man spoke.
“I am tired of powerful men telling me exactly enough truth to make the next lie harder to see.”
Dominic flinched.
Good.
I picked up the green ledger and Sam’s watch.
“Nobody touches this.”
Nicholas nodded.
Dominic did not object.
I walked toward the doorway.
“Clara.”
Nicholas.
I stopped.
“I’m not leaving the house.”
“That wasn’t what I was going to ask.”
I turned.
“What?”
“Do you want me to come?”
That simple question nearly broke me.
Not Are you okay?
Not Calm down.
Not Let me handle it.
Do you want me to come?
“No.”
He nodded.
“All right.”
I went upstairs alone.
Twenty minutes later, I spread the ledger, watch, brass flower and crash photographs across my bed.
Sam had hidden things in patterns.
Flowers marking dates.
A photograph in an old cash box.
The missing key.
My mother used to say Sam couldn’t remember birthdays but could remember the location of every quarter he ever dropped.
He thought visually.
Not numerically.
I opened the ledger again.
Twelve flower marks.
Each transfer date.
But one page was different.
A tiny line of blue ink ran down the inner binding.
I pulled gently.
The binding lifted.
Something was hidden beneath the green cloth cover.
I used my mother’s shears to cut three stitches.
A folded photograph slid out.
My hands started shaking.
Sam again.
This time outside a harbor warehouse at night.
Dominic stood beside him.
And Anthony Corsetti.
Three men.
But there was a fourth reflection in the dark window behind them.
Nicholas.
I stared.
Impossible.
He had said he knew nothing about Dominic’s arrangement.
Yet the photograph placed him at a meeting with both men.
I carried it downstairs.
Nicholas was alone in the library.
He looked up.
I dropped the photograph in front of him.
“Tell me I’m misunderstanding this.”
He looked down.
All color left his face.
“Clara.”
“No.”
I pointed.
“You said you didn’t know about Dominic and Corsetti.”
“I didn’t.”
“You were there.”
He stared at the image.
Then turned it over.
A date.
Five years earlier.
His voice dropped.
“I remember this night.”
“So you lied.”
“No.”
“You are standing twenty feet from them.”
“I remember being there.”
He looked up.
“I did not remember them being there.”
I laughed.
“That might be the worst answer you’ve given me yet.”
“It’s the truth.”
I turned away.
He did not follow.
“Sam took this photograph,” Nicholas said.
I stopped.
“How do you know?”
“Because I remember seeing him afterward.”
I turned slowly.
“You knew Sam five years ago?”
“No.”
Nicholas rubbed his forehead.
“I knew his face.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“At that time, no.”
He looked at the photograph again.
“It was Peter’s memorial benefit.”
Dominic’s dead son.
Of course.
“Corsetti came because the shooting that killed Peter ended one of the worst conflicts Boston had seen in years.”
“And Sam?”
“He worked the event through the shipping company.”
Nicholas stared at the reflected figure of himself.
“I remember asking who he was because he kept photographing the room.”
My throat tightened.
“He had been tracking this for five years.”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
Nicholas’s eyes shifted.
“Because his job gave him access.”
“To what?”
“Manifests.”
“Money?”
“Routes.”
He stood.
“Clara, your brother may have discovered Dominic’s arrangement years before he confronted him.”
My anger faltered.
“He waited five years?”
“Or he was building proof.”
Nicholas reached for the photograph.
Then stopped before touching it.
“May I?”
I nodded.
He held it beneath the lamp.
After a moment, his expression sharpened.
“What?”
He pointed toward Corsetti’s jacket.
A small white flower was pinned to the lapel.
Carnation.
Then toward Dominic.
Another.
Memorial flowers.
But Sam had drawn a tiny symbol beside the photograph date.
The same symbol appeared beside one set of ledger entries.
Not D.
A small cross with two lines.
Nicholas knew it.
“That isn’t a flower.”
“What is it?”
“Pier Twelve.”
My pulse quickened.
“The waterfront?”
“Yes.”
Nicholas looked toward the window.
“Sam wasn’t coding people.”
He looked back at me.
“He was coding places.”
The D in the ledger might never have meant DeMarco or Dominic.
We had been reading the entire thing wrong.
Then Rosa appeared in the doorway.
She held something wrapped in a dish towel.
“Mr. DeMarco.”
Nicholas turned.
“What?”
“I found this behind the wine cabinet.”
She unwrapped it.
A black onyx cufflink.
Silver border.
Diagonal groove.
My blood went cold.
Nicholas stared.
“That cabinet was moved into this house three months ago.”
“From where?” I asked.
May you like
Rosa looked toward Dominic’s empty seat.
“His apartment.”
