Chapter 9 - THE FATHER WHO WASN’T DEAD
“Is my father alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said he received money.”
“Someone using a beneficiary account under his name did.”
“Have you met him?”
“No.”
“Where do transfers go?”
“A prepaid account.”
“Why keep paying?”
“Catherine’s instructions.”
Harland opened another drawer.
Then removed a sealed envelope.
My name was written across it.
My mother’s handwriting.
“How long have you had that?”
“Seven years.”
Seven years.
Seven Christmases.
Seven years of breakfasts, renovations, business trips and hospital stays.
My mother’s letter had been sitting ten feet from my desk.
“You never thought to give it to me?”
“I was instructed to wait.”
“For what?”
“If the fund was endangered…”
He looked toward the security system.
“…or Gabriel contacted the estate.”
My phone buzzed.
Marcus.
He entered carrying a tablet.
“You asked me to preserve access logs.”
“What did you find?”
“Someone accessed archived employee records at 2:07 today.”
Harland frowned.
“I was near the laundry room.”
“That’s why I’m here,” Marcus said.
“Whose account?”
He turned the screen.
An administrative profile.
Inactive for nine years.
M. Moretti.
My mother.
“That’s impossible.”
“The login came from inside the estate.”
Harland stood.
“What file?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Nora Alvarez.”
The account hadn’t simply opened Nora’s file.
It changed her emergency contact.
Where Elena’s sister should have appeared, someone entered:
Gabriel Moretti.
Beside it was a local number.
“Call it,” I said.
Harland immediately stood.
“Wait.”
I turned.
“Why?”
No answer.
Marcus dialed.
Three rings.
Then:
“The number you have reached is unavailable.”
I stared at Harland.
“Did my father die when I was eight?”
His face looked exhausted.
“I don’t know.”
“My mother told me he did.”
“Did she use the word dead?”
I hated the question because I couldn’t remember.
She had said:
Your papa won’t be coming home.
He’s gone, Luca.
I had filled in the rest.
Then Marcus discovered the login came from a computer that supposedly didn’t exist.
An old terminal connected eight years earlier.
Its location?
The sealed western wing of my house.
A room I hadn’t opened since my mother died.
May you like
And according to the building plans…
the terminal was hidden inside the room I had once built especially for her.
