Chapter 6 - THE MAN UNDER THE CAR
Frankie moved first.
She stepped toward Marco.
“Who?”
Marco did not answer.
“Who was underneath the car?”
Gabriel’s voice stopped her.
“Let him speak.”
Frankie looked at him.
His face had gone cold enough to frighten her.
Marco took off his overcoat and placed it over a chair.
“Salvatore called me that night.”
“Why you?” Gabriel asked.
“Because Vittorio was furious.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
Marco glanced toward the photograph.
“Your father had spent the previous year trying to change things.”
“What things?”
“Our shipping operations. The people we worked with. The kind of favors we accepted.”
Gabriel’s expression shifted.
He knew this part.
Marco continued.
“Vittorio wanted the Costa name to become legitimate enough that you would never have to inherit the parts he hated.”
Frankie looked at Gabriel.
“You knew?”
“That he wanted change. Yes.”
“Not why?”
“No.”
Marco gave a tired smile.
“Vittorio was a difficult man to question.”
Gabriel said, “So are you.”
“That is unfortunately a family trait.”
No one smiled.
Marco continued.
“Some people would lose money if Vittorio succeeded.”
“You?” Frankie asked.
“Yes.”
The direct answer surprised her.
Marco looked at her.
“I controlled two warehouse contracts that would have disappeared.”
“There.”
Frankie spread her hands.
“Motive.”
“To argue with my brother? Yes.”
“To sabotage him.”
“No.”
Gabriel stared at Marco.
“Who did Salvatore catch under the car?”
Marco exhaled.
“Rocco.”
Leo stood.
“The same Rocco?”
“Yes.”
Frankie felt sick.
Her father’s apprentice.
Gabriel’s club manager.
Twenty-two years later, still in Marco’s orbit.
“Why wasn’t he arrested?” Frankie asked.
“Because Salvatore didn’t actually see him cut anything.”
“He was under the car.”
“He claimed Vittorio had asked him to inspect a fluid leak.”
“Did Vittorio?”
“No.”
Gabriel stepped closer.
“So Salvatore fired him.”
“The next morning.”
“And you hired him.”
Marco hesitated.
Gabriel saw it.
“When?”
“Several years later.”
Frankie laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
“He was twenty-three and desperate.”
“He tried to kill your brother.”
“We did not know that.”
“You just told us Salvatore caught him under the car!”
“And the car did not fail the next day.”
Marco’s temper finally appeared.
“The brake line was inspected. Everything was clean. Vittorio drove the car afterward.”
Frankie looked at the hose again.
A first attempt.
Then a second.
Gabriel spoke.
“Did my father know about Rocco?”
“Yes.”
“And he still drove the car.”
“He thought the danger had passed.”
“That doesn’t sound like him.”
“No.”
Marco’s eyes darkened.
“It doesn’t.”
There was another layer.
Frankie could feel it.
“Why did he think it was safe?”
Marco looked at Gabriel.
“Because Rocco admitted who paid him.”
Silence.
Leo whispered, “Who?”
Marco looked at Frankie.
“Your father.”
For a second she thought she had misheard.
“My father paid Rocco?”
“That is what Rocco told Vittorio.”
Frankie stepped toward him.
“You’re lying.”
“I heard the argument.”
“My father saved Gabriel from the crash.”
“I know.”
“He kept the first brake hose.”
“Yes.”
“Why would he preserve evidence of something he paid for?”
Marco said nothing.
Exactly.
Gabriel looked at Frankie.
“He wouldn’t.”
She turned toward him.
“You believe me?”
“I believe evidence.”
Marco rubbed his forehead.
“Vittorio didn’t believe Rocco either.”
That reversed it again.
Frankie faced Marco.
“Then why mention it?”
“Because it explains why Vittorio returned here the night before he died.”
Gabriel understood.
“He confronted Salvatore.”
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
“Bad.”
Frankie’s chest tightened.
“What happened?”
“Salvatore called me at eleven-forty.”
“Why?”
“He wanted a witness.”
“To what?”
“To your father accusing him of trying to murder him.”
Frankie hated the picture forming in her head.
Two men who had trusted each other.
One frightened.
One furious.
A garage full of machines and old pride.
“What did Salvatore say?”
“That Rocco was lying.”
“And my father?” Gabriel asked.
“Eventually believed him.”
“Eventually?”
“They nearly came to blows first.”
That sounded painfully believable.
Marco looked at Frankie.
“Your father was not afraid of Vittorio Costa.”
“No.”
“I remember.”
A trace of respect crossed his face.
“He called him a rich Sicilian jackass and told him that if he wanted to die, he could do it somewhere else because blood was difficult to remove from concrete.”
Frankie closed her eyes.
Her father.
Absolutely her father.
Gabriel almost smiled despite himself.
Then it disappeared.
Marco continued.
“Salvatore took the first cut hose from the cabinet. Put it in Vittorio’s hand. He said, ‘If I wanted you dead, I wouldn’t have saved the part.’”
Gabriel looked at the old rubber.
“What did my father do?”
“Apologized.”
That surprised everyone.
Marco shrugged.
“He could do it occasionally.”
“What happened next?”
“Vittorio asked me to find Rocco.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He had disappeared.”
Frankie looked toward Leo.
“Until Marco hired him.”
“Years later,” Marco repeated.
Gabriel’s gaze hardened.
“Why?”
“Because he came to me and said he had lied about Salvatore because somebody threatened his mother.”
“Who?”
“He refused to say.”
Gabriel looked at him for a long moment.
“And you accepted that?”
“I was younger.”
“You were forty.”
“Younger.”
Gabriel almost lost his temper.
Almost.
Frankie stepped between the brothers’ line of sight.
“If Salvatore didn’t sabotage the second brake line, and Rocco disappeared before the crash, who had access?”
Marco looked at the shop.
“Everyone believed that was the question.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No.”
He pointed toward Frankie’s workbench.
“The second failure wasn’t done here.”
Her mechanic’s mind caught the implication.
“Where?”
“At Vittorio’s house.”
Gabriel frowned.
“The car was parked in our garage overnight.”
“Yes.”
“Security?”
“Two men.”
“Names.”
“One died fifteen years ago.”
“And the other?”
Marco looked at him.
“You know him.”
Gabriel’s expression changed.
“Who?”
“Rocco’s older brother.”
Frankie stared.
Gabriel whispered the name.
“Antonio Vale.”
Leo frowned.
“Who’s that?”
Gabriel did not answer.
Marco did.
“He ran security for the Costa family for eighteen years.”
Frankie looked at Gabriel.
“Where is he now?”
“Dead.”
Gabriel’s face had gone pale.
“Six years.”
Another dead end.
Then Marco shook his head.
“Antonio didn’t cut the line.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Marco looked at Teresa Costa’s rosary.
“Because your mother saw who entered the garage that night.”
Gabriel stared at him.
“My mother knew?”
“Yes.”
“All these years?”
“Yes.”
“Who did she see?”
Marco hesitated.
Frankie saw genuine fear in him now.
Not fear of Gabriel.
Fear of the answer.
“Marco.”
Gabriel’s voice became almost a whisper.
“Who?”
Marco looked directly at his nephew.
“Your father.”
Nobody moved.
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“My father was already inside the house.”
“No.”
Marco pointed toward the old photograph.
“He left after midnight.”
“To do what?”
Marco’s eyes settled on Salvatore’s empty workbench.
“To meet someone.”
Frankie asked, “Who?”
Marco looked at her.
May you like
“Your mother.”
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