Chapter 7 - Blood Beneath His Mother's Memorial—and the Ledger Someone Was Willing to Kill For
The first thing I did when Detective Cole told us about the blood was look at Miguel.
He hadn't moved. His hand remained wrapped around the back of a chair, and his face had gone so still that I knew he was fighting to keep his fear from becoming anger.
"Whose blood?" he asked.
"We don't know yet," Cole said. "The caretaker is missing. The responding officers have secured the building, and the crime scene team is on its way. Nobody is going inside until they've documented what they found."
Miguel took a breath through his nose. "His name is Arthur Bell. He has worked for my family for twenty-six years. His wife is recovering from surgery."
"We'll send someone to check on her," Cole said.
I wanted to go to the chapel. Every part of me wanted to run there, find the ledger, and finally put a name to the person who had killed my father. But the baby shifted inside me—or perhaps I imagined it, because it was still early—and I remembered that I was responsible for more than my own impatience.
"What can we do?" I asked.
"Give me everything you know about the chapel's renovations. The contractor, the plans, anyone who had keys."
Miguel reached for his phone. "I'll have my office deliver the records."
Cole nodded. "And Catherine? Don't contact Rafael. Not even to ask a question."
"I wasn't planning to."
The detective's expression suggested he had met enough angry daughters to know that plans could change.
We spent the next three hours in a conference room at the district attorney's office. Amelia sat beside me, holding a paper cup of water she never drank. She had come to New York to tell the truth about a transaction she'd been tricked into making. Now she was afraid her decision had put a stranger in danger.
"Victor told me the hiding place was behind the plaque," she said for the third time. "He never said anything about a caretaker."
"You didn't send anyone there," I reminded her.
"I gave them a reason to go."
"You gave investigators a reason to look. Rafael is responsible for what Rafael chooses to do."
Miguel looked at me when I said that. I couldn't tell whether he was surprised by my certainty or ashamed that I had to explain it.
At eleven forty, Cole returned with a photograph of the chapel floor. He placed it face down before speaking.
"Arthur Bell is alive," he said.
My shoulders dropped. Miguel closed his eyes for half a second.
"An ambulance took him to the hospital. He has a head injury and a deep cut to his arm, but the doctors expect him to recover. He was found in the garden shed, locked inside."
"Did he see who attacked him?" Miguel asked.
"He was conscious long enough to say two men came with a maintenance order. They said Rafael had sent them. He refused to open the memorial. One of them struck him."
"And the ledger?" I asked.
Cole turned the photograph over. The marble plaque had been removed from the wall. Beneath it was a rectangular cavity, empty except for gray dust and a broken brass hinge.
My stomach sank.
"Someone got there first," I whispered.
"Maybe," Cole said. "The forensic team found something behind the back panel. It's a second compartment."
He slid another photograph across the table. It showed a small envelope wrapped in deteriorating blue fabric.
"We haven't opened it yet. The chain of custody matters."
Miguel leaned forward. "That fabric belonged to my mother."
"How do you know?" Nora asked.
"She kept her letters in blue silk. I remember the color. I remember her telling me it was the only beautiful thing she owned before she married my father."
The room went quiet.
I had spent months living in Miguel's mansion, walking past Sofia Vasquez's portrait without understanding how much of her life had been spent trying to stop the same man who had destroyed mine.
"Did Rafael know about the second compartment?" I asked.
Miguel shook his head. "He thought he knew everything about that chapel. My mother never made that mistake."
That afternoon, Arthur's wife called Miguel from the hospital. I listened as he promised to cover the family's expenses without asking Arthur to keep quiet or accept a private settlement. When he ended the call, I said, "That was the right thing to do."
He gave me a tired smile. "You shouldn't have to grade me on basic decency."
"No," I said. "I shouldn't."
He accepted the answer.
We walked outside to the courthouse steps, where rain had turned the street silver. Miguel held an umbrella over us but left a careful distance between our shoulders.
"You can go home," I told him.
"I know."
"You don't have to wait for me."
"I know that too."
I looked at him. "Then why are you still here?"
"Because I want to know you're safe. Because your father deserved better than what happened to him. And because I love you. None of those things obligates you to come back."
For months I had wanted to hear those words. Now that he said them, they frightened me more than his silence ever had.
"You hid the reason you married me," I said. "You knew my father had been investigating your family. You had a document that connected him to your mother's warnings. You could have told me."
"I was afraid you'd believe I had chosen you as a way to control the investigation."
"Didn't you?"
He didn't answer immediately. "At first, I told myself marriage would protect you and give me time to uncover what Rafael had done. I convinced myself I could separate that decision from what you deserved to know. It was arrogant. Then I fell in love with you, and telling you became even harder because I knew what it might cost me."
"So you let me believe I was temporary."
"Yes."
It was the first answer he'd given me that didn't contain an excuse.
"I'm not moving back because you finally said you love me," I told him.
"I don't expect you to."
At Elena's apartment that evening, I found a paper bag on the counter. Inside were prenatal vitamins, crackers, and the ginger candies I had been eating to settle my stomach. Miguel had left them with the doorman, along with a note: NO NEED TO CALL. JUST THOUGHT THESE MIGHT HELP.
Elena read the note and raised an eyebrow.
"What?" I asked.
"Nothing. I'm just pleased the man has discovered the concept of groceries."
I laughed for the first time all day.
At eight, Cole called again. The envelope had been opened under controlled conditions. It contained a key, a photograph, and a letter in Sofia's handwriting.
The photograph showed Daniel Bennett standing beside Sofia and a young Miguel in a hospital courtyard. My father had one hand resting on Miguel's shoulder. Miguel looked about eleven, solemn and uncomfortable in a school uniform.
"I remember that day," Miguel said when Cole put him on speakerphone. "My mother was sick. Daniel brought her flowers."
"He was helping her?" I asked.
"He said he was fixing something for her. I thought he meant a broken window."
Cole cleared his throat. "The letter refers to a deposit box opened under Sofia's maiden name. It also says the key should be given to Daniel Bennett if Sofia failed to return from a meeting with Rafael."
"But Sofia died," I said.
"And Daniel eventually received something," Cole replied. "The bank's old records show a box access under his signature eight years later. We're confirming the date."
My father had known the truth long before his death. He had tried to keep it alive through copies, witnesses, and records hidden in places Rafael couldn't easily reach.
"What happened to the ledger in the chapel?" I asked.
"We found fibers and dust suggesting a large bound book was removed recently. We're working on security footage."
Then Cole paused.
"There's one more thing. The letter contains a sentence Sofia underlined twice: 'If Rafael tells you the accident was inevitable, ask him why the maintenance log was signed before the inspection.'"
The words made my skin prickle.
My father's death had been ruled an industrial accident at Pier Forty-Seven. A failed safety mechanism. A fall. A tragedy nobody could have predicted.
"What maintenance log?" I asked.
"We're trying to find it."
I thought of the red truck in the photograph, the cream-colored folder, and Miguel standing beside my father the night he died.
"I know where the inspection records were kept," Miguel said slowly. "The original terminal archives were moved to a warehouse when the company changed names. Rafael told me they were destroyed in a flood."
"Where is the warehouse?" Cole asked.
"In Red Hook. I still own the building."
Cole said he would request a warrant and arrange to secure the site.
I hung up and stared at the rain against Elena's window.
A year ago, I'd signed a marriage contract because I needed stability. I had thought the greatest danger was loving a man who couldn't love me back.
Now the contract had expired, my father was at the center of a decades-old fraud, and a man had nearly died protecting a marble plaque.
My phone buzzed.
An unknown number had sent a photograph of a bound black ledger lying on a steel table. Beneath it was a single sentence.
YOUR HUSBAND KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED ON THE PIER. ASK HIM WHAT HE LEFT OUT.
I forwarded the message to Cole.
Then I called Miguel.
"Cat?"
"I need you to tell me everything you remember about the night my father died. Not the version that protects you. Everything."
There was a long silence.
May you like
Finally he said, "Then I need to tell you about the phone call I made at 2:14 that morning."
And I knew, before he spoke another word, that the worst truth was still waiting for me.
