Chapter 5 - THE REHAB CENTER’S LOCKED CABINET
The state arrived at Willow Crest Rehabilitation Center before lunch.
So did police.
So did an attorney Carlo trusted because the man had once told him no in a room full of people who never did.
Carlo remained at the hospital.
That surprised everyone.
Especially Enzo.
“Boss, you don’t want to be there?”
“I want Ma here.”
Rosa sat propped in bed eating terrible scrambled eggs.
“They’re rubber.”
Carlo looked at the tray.
“You’ve been complaining about food since 1969.”
“Your father cooked better.”
“Dad burned water.”
“Still.”
Nico sat by the window.
For the first time since Carlo found him, the boy looked almost like a normal thirteen-year-old.
Almost.
Maya and Aisha visited at noon.
Maya carried a drawing.
Rosa in a wheelchair wearing a crown.
Carlo was depicted beside her with cartoon steam coming from his head.
He stared.
“Why am I angry?”
Maya looked confused.
“You were angry.”
Fair.
Rosa loved it.
Aisha sat near the bed.
“I gave my statement.”
Carlo nodded.
“Thank you.”
She looked uncomfortable.
“Mr. Coleman suspended me last month.”
Carlo frowned.
“You said you worked nights.”
“He reduced my shifts.”
“Why?”
Aisha glanced at Maya.
“Because I reported a patient left soiled for too long.”
Carlo went cold.
“Someone else?”
Aisha nodded.
“It wasn’t only your mother.”
There it was.
The story widened.
Not because Rosa was a DeLuca.
Because Rosa was one of several older people whose complaints became “confusion” whenever listening created work.
Carlo felt something darker than personal rage.
Recognition.
His family had power.
Most patients did not.
“What happens now?”
Aisha looked surprised by the question.
“The state investigates.”
“I mean to you.”
She shrugged.
“I probably lose the job.”
“No.”
She looked at him carefully.
Carlo caught himself.
There it was.
The old reflex.
Powerful man decides outcome.
He corrected.
“Do you want to stay there?”
Aisha thought.
“No.”
“Then what do you want?”
That surprised her more.
“I want to finish nursing school.”
Maya immediately said:
“She has three semesters left.”
Aisha smiled.
“My publicist.”
Carlo almost smiled.
He could offer money.
He almost did.
Then stopped.
Aisha was not asking.
Good.
Instead:
“If you ever want a reference about what you did for my mother, you have one.”
Aisha looked relieved.
“That would help.”
“Then ask.”
No debt.
No rescue.
A reference.
Appropriate.
That afternoon, the investigator called.
They had found Rosa’s hearing aids.
Locked in the administrator’s medication cabinet.
Her phone too.
Along with jewelry and personal items from other patients.
Carlo’s face hardened.
“Why?”
The investigator answered:
“Coleman claims valuables were secured for safekeeping.”
“Phones?”
Pause.
“No.”
They had also recovered internal emails instructing staff not to give Rosa access to outside calls without Teresa’s approval.
That was enough to escalate everything.
The sedatives were worse.
Rosa had been documented as “agitated” on nights when Aisha remembered her reading quietly or playing cards.
Someone had charted behaviors that apparently never happened.
Carlo looked at his mother.
“How many nights did you feel strange?”
Rosa thought.
“Almost all.”
“Dizzy?”
“Yes.”
“Sleepy?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“Aisha.”
Aisha nodded.
“She told the nurse the pills made her head foggy.”
“And?”
“The medication stayed.”
Nico’s hands clenched.
“They drugged her.”
Carlo looked at him.
“Yes.”
No euphemism.
Rosa touched Nico’s wrist.
“I’m here.”
The boy swallowed.
The detective assigned to Teresa’s case arrived at four.
Carlo stepped into the hallway.
“Your sister has requested an attorney.”
“As she should.”
The detective looked mildly surprised.
“She hasn’t given a statement.”
“Fine.”
“We expect charges.”
Carlo’s jaw tightened.
“Fine.”
“Assault. Elder abuse. Possibly unlawful imprisonment related to the boy, depending on interviews.”
Carlo looked through the glass at Nico.
“Don’t tell him like that.”
“We won’t.”
“Good.”
The detective studied him.
“Mr. DeLuca, I need to ask this plainly.”
Carlo waited.
“Are your people going to interfere with this investigation?”
“No.”
“Your sister may be charged with serious crimes.”
“I understand.”
“She may go to jail.”
Carlo’s face did not change.
“I understand.”
The detective nodded.
Carlo added:
“If anyone working for me contacts her, threatens her, follows investigators, or tries to influence witnesses, you call me.”
The detective’s eyebrows rose.
“And then?”
Carlo looked at him.
“I fire them.”
Not kill.
Not punish.
Fire.
The detective seemed to appreciate the distinction.
So did Carlo.
Later, Nico found Carlo alone near the vending machines.
“You’re letting the police handle Teresa.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Carlo looked at him.
“Because if I handle her, everybody learns the wrong lesson.”
“What lesson?”
“That whoever is most frightening gets to decide justice.”
Nico thought.
“Isn’t that what you do?”
There it was.
Carlo almost told him the world was more complicated.
Instead:
“Sometimes.”
Nico waited.
Carlo continued.
“I’m trying to do less of it.”
The boy leaned against the wall.
“Dad hated that stuff.”
Carlo’s chest tightened.
“What stuff?”
“You.”
Simple.
Brutal.
Carlo did not flinch.
“Sometimes.”
Nico looked surprised.
“You knew?”
“Your father loved me.”
Carlo smiled sadly.
“He also spent fifteen years telling me I was an idiot.”
Nico almost smiled.
“That sounds like him.”
“It does.”
The silence between them warmed.
Then Nico asked:
“Why didn’t you stop?”
Carlo knew what he meant.
The business.
The violence.
The world Michael disliked.
“Because I told myself somebody had to keep the family safe.”
Nico frowned.
“Did it?”
Carlo looked toward Rosa’s hospital room.
His eighty-year-old mother had been drugged in a private rehab facility.
His grandson had been locked inside a bedroom in a suburban house.
And Carlo had been guarded twenty-four hours a day.
“No.”
The answer tasted bitter.
Nico nodded.
Then he reached into his pocket.
Pulled out Michael’s old watch.
Carlo froze.
His son had worn it for fifteen years.
“How did you get that?”
“Nonna took it from Teresa.”
“What?”
Nico opened his palm.
“She found Teresa packing Dad’s stuff.”
Carlo stared.
“That’s what they were arguing about before she fell.”
Nico continued.
“Teresa said she was donating everything.”
“Why?”
“She said I needed to stop living around dead people.”
Carlo’s jaw tightened.
That phrase.
He knew it.
Michael used to accuse Carlo of doing the opposite.
Building the entire DeLuca world around dead men’s rules.
Nico held out the watch.
“You want it?”
Carlo looked at it.
Then closed the boy’s fingers around it.
“No.”
“It was Dad’s.”
“Yes.”
“You’re his dad.”
“And you’re his son.”
Nico stared.
Then slowly put it on.
Too big.
The watch slid halfway around his wrist.
Carlo smiled.
“He’d hate that you’re wearing it loose.”
Nico adjusted it.
“Better?”
“No.”
“Good.”
The boy smiled.
For the first time, fully.
Then Rosa shouted from the hospital room:
“CARLO!”
He immediately turned.
Nico laughed.
“She doesn’t need the hearing aids to be loud.”
Carlo smiled.
“No.”
They went back together.
Rosa pointed at the television.
A news reporter stood outside Willow Crest.
Behind her, state inspectors carried boxes from the building.
The headline read:
PRIVATE REHAB CENTER UNDER INVESTIGATION AFTER PATIENT ABUSE ALLEGATIONS
Rosa stared.
“Turn it off.”
Carlo frowned.
“Why?”
“I look terrible in the picture.”
They had used an old charity-gala photo.
Nico laughed.
Carlo did too.
Then Rosa became serious.
“This better not become only about me.”
Carlo looked at her.
“What?”
“The other patients.”
Aisha watched.
Rosa continued.
“You make sure they listen to them too.”
Carlo felt something shift.
His mother had been injured.
Humiliated.
Drugged.
And still understood what power was for better than he did.
He nodded.
“Yes, Ma.”
Rosa raised an eyebrow.
“Not people who work for you.”
Carlo almost laughed.
“What?”
“Real investigators.”
“Yes, Ma.”
“Good.”
Then she added:
“And find Maya a better umbrella.”
Maya looked offended.
“My umbrella works.”
The top collapsed sideways.
Everyone stared.
Maya sighed.
“Mostly.”
For five minutes, the hospital room sounded like a family again.
Then Carlo’s phone buzzed.
Teresa’s attorney.
One message.
Teresa wants to speak to Rosa before charges are filed. She says there is something Rosa does not know about the night of the fall.
Carlo showed his mother.
Rosa read it.
Her face changed.
Not fear.
Something harder.
“What?”
Carlo asked.
Rosa handed back the phone.
“She’s going to blame Nico.”
Nico went pale.
Carlo looked at his mother.
“How do you know?”
Rosa stared at the door.
May you like
“Because that’s what she threatened to do while I was lying at the bottom of the stairs.”
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