Chapter 4 - THREE DAYS BEFORE ANNA DIED
Nicholas held the photograph between two fingers.
“You knew her.”
Rebecca’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“How well?”
“Not the way you’re thinking.”
“I’m not thinking anything.”
His voice had become frighteningly quiet.
“I’m waiting for you to tell me.”
Rebecca looked at Anna’s silver bracelet inside the cedar box.
“I was twenty-six.”
“Nine years ago.”
“Yes.”
“I had just started working for my father.”
“At Vale Fiduciary?”
She nodded.
“Anna came into the office one afternoon.”
Nicholas’s face tightened.
“To see Charles.”
“Yes.”
“About the foundation.”
Rebecca looked toward the black notebook.
“I didn’t know that then.”
“What did you know?”
“That my father didn’t want to see her.”
Rebecca folded her arms tightly across herself.
“She stayed in reception for almost an hour. Eventually I came out and asked if she needed anything.”
“And?”
“She asked if I was Charles Vale’s daughter.”
Rebecca laughed softly through her tears.
“When I said yes, she told me I had his nose and my mother’s good judgment.”
Teresa almost smiled.
“That sounds like Anna.”
Rebecca nodded.
“She was furious, but she was funny.”
Nicholas looked down at the photograph.
“So you became friends?”
“No.”
Rebecca swallowed.
“She came back twice.”
“Why?”
“She wanted access to archived foundation files.”
“And you gave it to her.”
Rebecca hesitated.
“No.”
Nicholas looked at her.
“I was afraid.”
“Of your father?”
“Yes.”
“Or of losing your job?”
“Both.”
At least the answer was honest.
Rebecca continued.
“On the third visit, she showed me copies of transfer entries.”
The black notebook.
“She said millions had been taken from families after workplace injuries and deaths.”
I stared at her.
“Families like mine.”
Rebecca looked at me.
“Yes.”
The word was barely audible.
My anger changed temperature.
Cold was worse.
“You knew nine years ago.”
“I knew Anna believed it.”
“You saw transfers.”
“I saw copies of numbers. I did not know whether they were real.”
“You could have checked.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
My voice shook.
“My mother worked until her hands couldn’t button her own coat.”
Rebecca’s eyes closed.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Nicholas said my name softly.
I turned on him.
“And neither do you.”
He accepted that without argument.
That made it harder somehow.
Rebecca wiped beneath one eye.
“The photograph was taken the last day I saw Anna.”
Nicholas looked at the date again.
“Three days before she died.”
“Yes.”
“What happened?”
“She asked me to help her get one thing.”
“What?”
“My father’s personal account ledger.”
Nicholas’s jaw tightened.
“You refused.”
“Yes.”
“Then she died.”
Rebecca flinched.
“Yes.”
No one spoke for several seconds.
Finally Teresa said what all of us were thinking.
“The crash.”
Rebecca looked toward her.
“It was a crash.”
“You’re sure?”
“The driver who hit her went to prison.”
“For drunk driving,” Nicholas said.
Rebecca looked at him quickly.
“You don’t believe my father arranged Anna’s death.”
Nicholas said nothing.
“That is insane.”
“So was finding Anna’s name on your restoration ticket tonight.”
“My father is not a murderer.”
“You spent the last hour explaining that you didn’t know what your father was.”
Rebecca stepped toward him.
“I know that much.”
Nicholas looked away.
Leo had remained near the entrance to the storage corridor.
Now he spoke.
“Anna’s handbag was never recovered.”
Nicholas looked at him.
“What?”
Teresa frowned.
“I thought the hospital had it.”
Leo shook his head.
“Wallet and phone were found in the cab. No handbag.”
Nicholas’s eyes returned to the coat.
“The ledger.”
I understood.
“She may have been carrying it.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“Then how did it get here?”
Nobody had an answer.
I picked up Sophia’s pale blue coat again.
The lining had contained the notebook.
But there was something else wrong with the coat.
One button was different.
Not visibly different unless you had grown up around sewing tables.
Three buttons were covered in matching blue silk.
The lowest button had been recovered in almost identical cloth—
but the grain ran sideways.
I turned it over.
“What now?” Rebecca asked.
“Someone repaired this button.”
Nicholas looked tired.
“Does that matter?”
“I don’t know.”
I slipped a fingernail beneath the newer fabric.
There was something rigid under it.
Not a normal button form.
I carefully loosened one edge.
A small round metal disk dropped into my palm.
Teresa inhaled sharply.
“What is that?”
I knew.
My mother used one for years when taking dictation from brides who changed their minds every seven minutes.
“A microcassette.”
Nicholas stared.
“Can we play it?”
“If we find the right machine.”
Rebecca spoke immediately.
“My father has one.”
Everyone looked at her.
She swallowed.
“He never throws anything away.”
Charles Vale lived eleven blocks from Grand Central in a limestone townhouse filled with expensive paintings and very little warmth.
It was after midnight when we arrived.
He was awake.
That surprised Rebecca.
It did not surprise Nicholas.
Charles Vale was seventy-three.
Silver-haired.
Thin.
Immaculately dressed despite the hour.
He looked first at Nicholas.
Then his daughter.
Then the blue coat in my hands.
The color drained from his face.
“Where did you find that?”
Nicholas stepped inside without waiting to be invited.
“Locker 317.”
Charles closed his eyes.
Rebecca stared at her father.
“You knew.”
“Rebecca—”
“You knew exactly what the key opened.”
Charles looked toward me.
“Who is she?”
“Emily Carter,” Nicholas said.
Something flickered in his face.
Recognition.
That was worse than anything.
I stepped forward.
“Daniel Carter was my father.”
Charles did not pretend ignorance.
Instead he sat heavily in the nearest chair.
“I’m sorry.”
I laughed.
Twenty-three years.
And that was what rich men always seemed to have ready.
Sorry.
“Did you steal my mother’s settlement?”
“No.”
Nicholas dropped the black notebook onto the table.
“Your name says otherwise.”
Charles looked at the transfer page.
Then at Nicholas.
“Your father ordered those transfers.”
“And you signed them.”
“Yes.”
Rebecca whispered, “Why?”
Charles stared at his daughter.
“Because Dominic Marino owned half the men who decided whether people like me woke up employed.”
Nicholas’s expression did not change.
“That makes you frightened. Not innocent.”
“I never said I was innocent.”
Rebecca’s eyes filled again.
“Did you know Anna had this?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know she was investigating you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you know she came to me?”
Charles looked away.
That was enough.
Rebecca’s voice broke.
“You knew and you let me stand here defending you.”
He closed his eyes.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From what?”
“From understanding who paid for your childhood.”
The words struck harder than shouting.
Charles looked at the microcassette in my hand.
“I haven’t seen that in twenty-three years.”
Nicholas went still.
“This isn’t Anna’s?”
“No.”
Charles stared at Sophia’s coat.
May you like
“That recording belonged to your mother.”
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