Chapter 4
Domenico did not listen to the final recording first.
He listened in order.
That choice saved him from making several wrong assumptions.
Elena’s early notes were uncertain.
She wondered whether accounting mistakes explained the invoices.
Then she questioned whether Marco had bypassed controls.
By the tenth recording, she sounded convinced money was being diverted.
By the fifteenth, Camilla had become part of the story.
“Elena, you're turning accounting questions into accusations,” Camilla had apparently told her.
Elena recorded her response afterward.
“If everything is legitimate, they should welcome an audit.”
Domenico remembered none of this.
That realization hurt.
Elena had been investigating a foundation bearing his family name while living under the same roof as him.
Yet she had not trusted him enough to tell him directly.
Rachel noticed his expression.
“Don't decide why yet.”
Domenico looked at her.
“She was my wife.”
“Yes.”
“Why hide it from me?”
“We don't know.”
That sentence became the rule of the investigation.
We don't know.
The outside forensic accountants reviewed Elena’s documents.
Within a week they confirmed enough irregularities to justify a full audit.
Money had flowed from the foundation to vendors connected indirectly to Marco.
Some payments returned through consulting fees to a company he controlled.
Marco denied theft.
He claimed the arrangements compensated vendors for real services and that the paperwork had been poorly handled.
The auditors did not accept or reject that explanation yet.
Camilla took a different position.
She admitted Elena confronted her.
She insisted she told Elena to stop investigating because the accusations were destroying family relationships.
“You were protecting Marco.”
“I was protecting everyone.”
Domenico stared at her.
“My wife thought millions were disappearing.”
“She became obsessed.”
“Was she wrong?”
Camilla looked away.
That was becoming her most reliable answer.
Then the auditors found a letter Elena had drafted to the foundation board.
She planned to request an independent review.
The date she intended to send it was Monday.
Elena died Saturday night.
Marco immediately accused Domenico of implying murder.
Domenico did not.
Not yet.
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But another detail troubled him.
Elena’s fatal crash happened after leaving a dinner at Camilla and Marco’s house.
