Chapter 5 - The Photograph Hidden for Seventeen Years
The threat changed the house.
More guards.
New cameras.
Restricted access.
Roman personally reviewed every employee file.
Rebecca refused to stop leaving.
That caused arguments.
The first took place beside the breakfast table.
“You are not going grocery shopping alone.”
“I have shopped for groceries alone since I was eighteen.”
“You were not receiving death threats at eighteen.”
“You don’t know that. I worked retail.”
Clara laughed into her coffee.
Roman ignored her.
“Marcus goes with you.”
“No.”
“Rebecca.”
“Roman.”
Clara whispered, “I would pay to hear this all day.”
The compromise was one plainclothes security guard who remained at least twenty feet away.
Rebecca called him Shadow.
His real name was Ben.
He hated Shadow.
Clara found it hilarious.
Life inside the Costa estate began developing an almost normal rhythm.
Almost.
Rebecca ate breakfast with Clara.
Read correspondence.
Accompanied her to therapy.
Argued with Roman.
Pretended not to notice how often Roman appeared in rooms where Rebecca happened to be.
He claimed coincidence.
Rebecca did not believe him.
Clara absolutely did not believe him.
One afternoon Clara whispered, “My son is terrible at courting.”
Rebecca almost dropped the mail.
“He is not courting me.”
“He appears in the conservatory every day at three.”
“He lives here.”
“He has lived here twelve years. He never cared about orchids before.”
Rebecca looked toward the doorway.
Roman stood there with coffee.
He frowned.
“What?”
“Nothing,” both women said.
His suspicion deepened.
Rebecca told herself attraction was inconvenient.
Roman Costa was everything she had spent her life avoiding.
Wealthy.
Controlling.
Dangerous.
Complicated.
She preferred uncomplicated men.
Unfortunately, uncomplicated men had historically preferred women who were not working two jobs and caring for a sick mother.
After Evelyn died, Rebecca stopped dating altogether.
Grief left little room for flirting.
Roman was not easy flirtation anyway.
He was intensity wearing a tailored coat.
Yet she kept noticing details.
He always walked on Clara’s cane side in crowds, creating space without touching her.
He tipped staff without making a performance of generosity.
He knew every guard’s spouse and children by name.
He did not drink when working.
He never sat with his back to a door.
Sometimes he woke at three in the morning and walked the grounds.
Rebecca discovered that accidentally.
She could not sleep one night and found him on the terrace overlooking frozen gardens.
“You haunt your own property?”
He turned.
“You’re awake.”
“Excellent observation.”
He smiled faintly.
“What are you doing?”
“Avoiding dreams.”
The honesty surprised her.
She stepped outside.
Cold hit immediately.
Roman took off his coat.
“Don’t.”
“You’re freezing.”
“So are you.”
“I’m wearing a sweater.”
“I’m wearing stubbornness.”
He put the coat around her shoulders anyway.
It smelled like cedar and something clean.
Not Adrian’s cologne.
She noticed because now every scent felt like evidence.
“What dreams?” she asked.
Roman looked toward the dark trees.
“My father.”
Rebecca waited.
“Car accident?”
“Yes.”
He flexed one hand.
“I was supposed to ride with him.”
“What?”
“I had a meeting across town. We argued.”
“About?”
“He wanted me to go back to college.”
Rebecca almost smiled.
“You dropped out?”
“After one semester.”
“Rebel.”
“I thought I knew everything.”
“Teenagers famously do.”
“He told me I was wasting my life trying to impress men who would never love me.”
“That sounds specific.”
“It was.”
Roman’s voice lowered.
“I told him he was becoming weak.”
Rebecca closed her eyes.
“Oh.”
“He died forty minutes later.”
There it was.
The wound beneath everything.
“You think your last words caused something.”
“No.”
“Yes, you do.”
Roman looked at her.
“I think if I had gone with him, maybe—”
“You would probably have died too.”
“Maybe.”
“Then Clara would have buried her husband and son.”
He said nothing.
Rebecca continued.
“My last real argument with my mother was about hospice.”
Roman turned.
“I wanted her to accept it.”
Evelyn’s cancer had spread.
“She said hospice meant surrender. I told her she was being selfish.”
Rebecca stared at the garden.
“She died the next morning.”
Roman remained silent.
“For two years, I heard that sentence every time I thought about her.”
“What changed?”
“Nothing.”
She shrugged.
“I just eventually understood one bad sentence does not erase twenty-eight years of love.”
Roman looked at her.
“Your father knew you loved him.”
She handed him back the truth he needed.
Roman swallowed.
“So did your mother.”
Something changed between them.
Not dramatic.
No kiss.
Just recognition.
The kind that made leaving suddenly harder.
The next major clue arrived through a photograph.
Rebecca was sorting Evelyn’s returned box with Clara.
Most items were ordinary.
Old Christmas cards.
Receipts.
Medical notes.
Rebecca at twelve wearing braces.
Then Clara touched one photograph and froze.
The paper had a raised corner.
“What is this?”
Rebecca described it.
“Mom standing outside a church with three people.”
“Who?”
“Antonio.”
Clara’s fingers tightened.
“Adrian.”
Rebecca stared.
“And another woman.”
Clara leaned closer instinctively despite not being able to see.
“Describe her.”
“Blonde. Around forty. Red coat.”
Clara’s face changed.
“Marianne Vale.”
“Who?”
“Adrian’s wife.”
Rebecca frowned.
“I thought he was widowed.”
“He is.”
“When did she die?”
“Sixteen years ago.”
One year after Antonio.
“How?”
“House fire.”
The room went quiet.
Rebecca turned over the photograph.
There was writing.
MARIANNE KNOWS WHERE THE SECOND BOOK IS.
“What second book?”
Clara whispered, “Ledger.”
Rebecca called Roman.
He arrived within minutes.
He recognized Marianne.
“She hated my father.”
“Why?” Rebecca asked.
“She thought Antonio looked down on Adrian.”
Clara shook her head.
“Not always.”
Roman read the note.
“Second book.”
Rebecca asked, “First one was financial?”
“Probably.”
“What would a second contain?”
Roman looked grim.
“Names.”
Money only mattered if connected to people.
Politicians.
Police.
Businesses.
Judges.
The photograph was taken outside St. Gabriel’s Church.
The church still existed.
The priest did not.
But parish records showed Marianne had rented a safe inside an old charitable archive six months before her death.
Roman obtained access through attorneys.
Rebecca went with him.
Clara stayed home under protest.
The safe contained no ledger.
Only a cassette.
Rebecca looked at Roman.
“Apparently everyone in your family loved tapes.”
“We were technologically cautious criminals.”
She laughed despite herself.
They played it inside the church office.
Marianne’s voice was shaking.
“Antonio, if you hear this, Adrian knows you’re investigating him.”
Roman stopped the tape.
“He never heard this.”
Rebecca pressed play.
“He has police. He has Lawrence Bell. He has men at the ports.”
Marianne began crying.
“I thought I could change him.”
Rebecca looked at Roman.
“I was wrong.”
The tape described Adrian’s operation.
Drugs moving through warehouses without Antonio’s approval.
Bribes.
Money hidden in medical consulting companies.
Detective Rourke protecting shipments.
Then Marianne said something worse.
“Lawrence told Adrian he could make Clara confused enough that no one would trust her memory.”
Roman went still.
Rebecca felt sick.
“They tested something on her medication after her second surgery.”
Clara’s deterioration had begun seventeen years earlier.
Not merely disease.
Possibly deliberate harm.
Marianne continued.
“I copied the names into another ledger.”
There.
The second book.
“I gave it to someone Adrian will never suspect.”
The tape paused.
“Evelyn.”
Rebecca covered her mouth.
Of course.
Marianne trusted the nurse already being threatened.
“Evelyn said she would hide it somewhere no Costa would look.”
The recording ended.
Roman looked at Rebecca.
“Your mother had the ledger.”
“Not in the box.”
“No.”
“Maybe it’s gone.”
“Maybe.”
They left the church after dark.
Rain had become snow.
Rebecca walked carefully down the stone steps.
Roman was beside her.
“You’re quiet.”
“My mother carried evidence that could destroy your family for seventeen years.”
“Yes.”
“And never told me.”
“Yes.”
“I’m beginning to think secrecy was a citywide hobby.”
Roman almost smiled.
Then Rebecca slipped.
His hand caught her waist.
Everything stopped.
He was close.
Too close.
Snow settled in his hair.
His hand remained against her side.
Rebecca looked up.
Roman’s eyes moved to her mouth.
Her pulse changed.
This was a terrible idea.
She knew it.
He knew it.
Neither moved.
Then Roman’s phone rang.
Rebecca stepped back too quickly.
“Answer it.”
He looked annoyed enough to throw the phone into traffic.
Instead, he answered.
“Marcus.”
His expression changed immediately.
“What happened?”
Rebecca knew.
Something bad.
Roman listened.
Then looked at her.
“Clara is missing.”
The world shifted.
“What?”
“Her security team found Margaret unconscious near the east hall.”
Rebecca’s stomach dropped.
“Was she taken?”
Roman was already moving.
“We don’t know.”
They reached the estate in seventeen minutes.
The place swarmed with men.
Margaret had been struck from behind but was conscious.
The east gate cameras had gone dark for six minutes.
Clara’s coat was missing.
Her cane too.
No ransom call.
No signs of struggle in her bedroom.
Rebecca searched.
Roman shouted orders.
Marcus coordinated teams.
Then Rebecca noticed Clara’s bedside table.
A cup of tea.
Still warm.
Beside it lay a Braille label Rebecca had printed days earlier for Clara’s medication drawer.
But it was upside down.
Clara was meticulous.
She would never leave it that way.
Rebecca picked it up.
Dots.
Not the original label.
Different.
She ran her fingers across them uselessly.
“I need a Braille chart.”
Roman stopped.
“What?”
“This isn’t her medication label.”
Margaret brought a reference sheet.
Rebecca decoded slowly.
S-A-I-N-T G-A-B-R-I-E-L.
Roman stared.
“The church.”
Clara had left a message.
Which meant she had gone willingly.
Or wanted them to think she had.
They returned to St. Gabriel’s.
The sanctuary was dark.
Rebecca called.
“Clara?”
A cane tapped.
Once.
Then twice.
From behind the altar.
They found her sitting inside a small side chapel.
Alone.
Roman nearly lost control.
“What the hell were you thinking?”
Clara lifted her chin.
“I remembered.”
“You knocked Margaret unconscious?”
“Of course not.”
“Then who did?”
“I don’t know. I heard something downstairs. I left through the library corridor.”
“You walked out during a security breach?”
“I followed Evelyn’s clue.”
Rebecca crouched.
“What clue?”
Clara held out a small object.
A key.
“Your mother once told me if Marianne’s tape was ever found, I should remember where saints keep secrets.”
Roman closed his eyes.
“You could have told us.”
“I forgot.”
The honesty deflated his anger.
Clara continued.
“Then tonight I remembered.”
The side chapel contained a statue of St. Gabriel.
Behind a loose stone in its base they found a waterproof metal case.
Roman opened it.
Inside lay a black ledger.
Seventeen years old.
Every page handwritten.
Names.
Dates.
Amounts.
Rebecca saw Adrian Costa repeatedly.
Lawrence Bell.
Rourke.
Judges.
Politicians.
And one name that made Roman stop breathing.
MARCUS REED.
Rebecca looked toward the church entrance.
Marcus had not arrived yet.
Roman stared at the entry.
A payment dated two weeks earlier.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Rebecca whispered, “Roman.”
His face changed.
His oldest security chief.
The man currently controlling every search team around Clara.
Roman closed the ledger.
“Turn your phone off.”
Rebecca’s skin went cold.
“Why?”
“Because Marcus knows exactly where we are.”
From outside came the sound of tires stopping.
May you like
Roman looked toward the dark church doors.
Then the first gunshot shattered a stained-glass window.
