Chapter 5 - The Man Buried Under Another Name
Vittorio Moretti had a grave in a private cemetery and a marble angel taller than my house. Dominic took me there on a Sunday afternoon because he needed to see it with his own eyes.
The inscription said BELOVED BROTHER. There were fresh white lilies at the base.
“Who brings flowers?” I asked.
“My aunt Celeste. Every month.”
“Maybe we should ask her why.”
Celeste Moretti lived in a quiet condominium overlooking the lake. She was seventy, elegant, and unimpressed by Dominic's reputation. She poured coffee before he could accuse her of anything.
“Vittorio isn't dead,” she said.
Dominic gripped his cup. “You knew?”
“I suspected. I saw him once in Milwaukee, eight years ago. He turned away when I called his name. Mercer told me I was grieving.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“I did. You were twenty-nine and Mercer said I was confused. You believed him.”
Dominic flinched. Celeste did not soften the truth.
She handed us a packet of letters her late husband had hidden. The letters described a bitter family struggle over control of the shipping company. Dominic's father wanted to move the business away from organized crime; Vittorio and Mercer wanted the old arrangements preserved. Daniel Hodge had discovered a surveillance system intended to incapacitate a rival during negotiations. Then Daniel died, Dominic's father died, and Vittorio vanished.
“Do you think my father was murdered?” Dominic asked.
“I think we need proof,” Celeste said. “And I think you need to stop confusing loyalty with silence.”
Outside, Dominic leaned against his car, shaken. “I used to think Mercer was the reason I survived my father's death.”
“Maybe he made sure you needed him,” I said.
Dominic looked across the lake. “I have done things I regret, Penny. I can't pretend my business was always clean.”
“I don't need you to pretend.”
“Then what do you need?”
“A man who tells the truth, even when it costs him.”
He took that in. “I'm trying to become one.”
For the first time, I believed him.
The next week Dominic voluntarily provided company records to investigators and began removing illegal intermediaries from his operations. Some partners walked away. Others threatened him. Sofia helped establish a board with independent oversight, and Dominic stepped back from decisions that could compromise the investigation.
I kept working on electrical contracts. I refused his offer to pay my mortgage, although I accepted a legitimate consulting agreement for the safety audit. He didn't argue.
One evening he came to my workshop carrying two paper bags of takeout. My apprentice, Jo, stared at him until I sent her home.
“You came all the way here to bring noodles?” I asked.
“I wanted to see where you work.”
“It's dusty.”
“I noticed.”
He stood beneath the old fluorescent fixtures, studying the rows of tools on my pegboard. My father's wrench hung in the center, newly cleaned but still scratched from his bedroom door.
“Your father taught you all this?”
“He taught me to ask why something failed. The answer is usually more important than the repair.”
Dominic touched the edge of the workbench. “I wish I had met him.”
“He would have made you carry the ladders.”
That made Dominic laugh, a surprised sound that filled the little shop.
When he left, he stopped in the doorway. “Penny, I'd like to take you to dinner. Not because you saved my life. Not because you work for me. Because I like you.”
I studied him. “Ask me again when the investigation is over.”
“I will.”
His phone rang before he reached the car. Sofia's voice was audible even from the doorway.
“Dominic. We found Vittorio. He's alive.”
May you like
Then came the words that changed everything.
“He's been using your name to sign the transfer documents.”
