Chapter 5 - WHAT PAOLO REMEMBERED
“He knew?”
Alessandra’s voice broke.
Margaret reached toward her.
Alessandra stepped away.
“No. Mom. Look at me.”
Margaret blinked.
“Did Paolo see Dad alive at Terminal Four?”
“Yes.”
“Did he see Dominic?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Alessandra looked like someone had struck the floor out from under her.
“Then why has he spent his whole life blaming the Marinos?”
Margaret whispered, “Because he was thirteen.”
“That doesn’t answer me.”
“He was afraid.”
“So was I.”
“He thought if Dominic knew he saw—”
Margaret stopped.
Luca finished it.
“He’d be next.”
The words sat heavily in the room.
Alessandra turned toward him.
“He let me hate your family.”
Luca’s expression was unreadable.
“Fear makes people do ugly things.”
“You defending him now?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She picked up the old child’s drawing.
“All those years Paolo told me Antonio ordered it.”
Margaret shook her head.
“He believed that later.”
“What?”
Margaret rubbed her forehead.
“Memory changes.”
Alessandra stared at her mother.
“Whose memory?”
“Everybody’s.”
That answer frustrated her.
I understood why.
But I also understood Margaret.
People didn’t always lie deliberately.
Sometimes they repeated a story long enough that fear polished it into truth.
Luca held Joseph’s freight ticket.
“Paolo is at Terminal Four tonight.”
Alessandra nodded.
“Why?”
“He wanted you there.”
“You said you drugged me to keep me away.”
“I thought he was going to confront you.”
“About his father?”
“Yes.”
“After twenty-two years?”
“He found something last week.”
“What?”
She hesitated.
“A rosary.”
Luca’s face changed immediately.
“What rosary?”
“Silver. Small red bead near the cross.”
He went silent.
I had seen one like that before.
In a framed portrait of Sofia Marino.
Her hand rested against her chest.
A silver rosary hung between her fingers.
One red bead.
“My mother’s,” Luca said.
Alessandra nodded.
“Paolo found it inside Dad’s old truck.”
Luca stared at her.
“Where is the truck?”
“Storage yard in Chelsea. Mom kept paying for the space. Paolo finally cleaned it out.”
“And he found my mother’s rosary inside?”
“Yes.”
“That means Sofia was in Joseph’s truck.”
Margaret suddenly stood.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“She gave it to him.”
“When?”
“That night.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
“Why?”
“For protection.”
Margaret smiled sadly.
“Sofia believed in things Antonio didn’t.”
Luca looked away for a second.
I wondered how many times he had seen his mother holding that rosary.
How many memories were attached to something his fiancée’s brother now carried like evidence against his family.
Alessandra continued.
“Paolo thinks your mother was involved.”
“In Joseph’s death?”
“He thinks she paid him to leave Boston.”
“But he didn’t leave.”
“No.”
“He died.”
“Yes.”
“So why would the rosary prove anything?”
“Because there was something wrapped around it.”
“What?”
“A strip of green fabric.”
My mind went to Alessandra’s coat.
Then Joseph’s drawing.
The green box.
But she shook her head.
“Old canvas. Not silk.”
Luca looked at Margaret.
“Green box.”
Margaret stared at him.
The child’s drawing.
Slowly, she nodded.
“Joseph had it.”
“What was inside?”
“I never knew.”
Luca walked toward the door.
“We’re going to Terminal Four.”
Alessandra moved in front of him.
“No.”
“Move.”
“I drugged you to stop you from going there.”
“And Grace stopped me from taking it.”
“That doesn’t mean Paolo changed his mind.”
“Then he can tell me what he wants face-to-face.”
“You don’t know my brother.”
Luca gave her a cold look.
“You don’t know mine either, apparently.”
Dominic.
The name didn’t need to be spoken.
I stepped forward.
“Mr. Marino.”
Luca looked at me.
“I think Alessandra’s right about one thing.”
She glanced at me, surprised.
“If Paolo wanted to talk, he could have asked to talk.”
Luca’s expression didn’t change.
“You think I shouldn’t go.”
“I think we should know what’s waiting there first.”
“How?”
I held up the photograph of Sofia and Margaret.
“By looking at everything before we decide what it means.”
Luca watched me for several seconds.
Then he nodded.
We returned to the Marino house shortly after midnight.
Dominic was not there.
That mattered.
According to the security log, he had left two hours before dinner.
Destination not listed.
Luca said nothing.
We went directly to his mother’s old sitting room, a space kept almost exactly as she had left it.
Books.
A piano.
A cream-colored coat hanging behind a door.
Luca froze when he saw it.
“My mother’s.”
He hadn’t entered the room in months.
Maybe years.
Alessandra touched the sleeve.
A button was missing.
Green thread hung beneath the inner lining.
Not green silk.
Green canvas.
I felt my pulse quicken.
“May I?”
Luca nodded.
I examined the inside seam.
Someone had sewn something into the coat once.
Then removed it.
The stitches were old.
Uneven.
Hand done.
Inside the breast pocket was a tiny folded card.
Not a letter.
A cloakroom claim ticket.
CHELSEA UNION STORAGE.
Unit 317.
The same storage property where Joseph’s truck had been kept.
Alessandra stared at it.
“My mother pays for Unit 214.”
Luca looked at her.
“So who rented 317?”
We drove there.
The facility manager recognized the Marino name and opened the archived rental ledger after Luca insisted.
Unit 317 had been rented for twenty-two years.
Paid annually in cash until twelve years earlier.
Then the payments stopped.
Exactly when Sofia Marino died.
The unit had been emptied and reassigned long ago.
But the ledger still showed the original renter.
S. MARINO.
Luca leaned both hands against the counter.
“My mother had a storage unit here.”
The manager nodded.
“Looks that way.”
“Any record of what was removed?”
The man turned another page.
“One item.”
“What?”
“A green metal lockbox.”
Alessandra stopped breathing.
The green box from her childhood drawing.
“Who took it?”
The manager read the signature.
Then looked up.
“Paolo Vitale.”
Alessandra stepped closer.
“When?”
“Last Thursday.”
The same week he found Sofia’s rosary.
Luca’s face became stone.
The manager pointed toward another line.
“He wasn’t alone.”
Luca followed his finger.
A second signature.
One name.
May you like
Dominic Marino.
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