Chapter 3 - My Mother Had Worked for Him Before She Died
My mother died when I was fourteen.
Officially, from a highway accident outside Providence.
A truck hydroplaned.
Her car crossed the median.
The report said she died instantly.
For sixteen years, that explanation had been one of the few facts in my life I never questioned.
Then Matteo Rinaldi told me she had worked inside his tower.
Except the tower had not existed when she died.
“What are you talking about?”
He sat opposite me.
“Not this building.”
“Then what?”
“My family's previous headquarters.”
“A warehouse?”
“Private club.”
“Of course.”
He ignored that.
“My father renovated it seventeen years ago. Your mother was on the electrical subcontract.”
I stared.
“She never told me.”
“She may not have been allowed to.”
“You knew her?”
“I was nineteen.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“Yes.”
He took a breath.
“I knew who she was.”
I felt anger rising.
“What happened?”
“She found unauthorized wiring.”
Just like me.
My skin went cold.
“What kind?”
“Recording devices.”
The room disappeared.
My mother had stood where I was standing now, metaphorically.
Hidden circuits.
Hidden microphones.
Power where power should not exist.
“Who installed them?”
“We never proved it.”
“She died afterward.”
“Yes.”
“How long afterward?”
Matteo hesitated.
“Eleven days.”
I stood.
“You knew this and you didn't tell me?”
“I didn't know you were Anna's daughter until Grant checked you after last night.”
“You investigated me.”
“Yes.”
“Without permission.”
“Yes.”
I wanted to slap him.
Instead, I grabbed my bag.
He stood.
“Erin.”
“Move.”
“You need to hear the rest.”
“I needed to hear it before you hired me to crawl inside the same walls.”
“You were already involved.”
“That doesn't give you ownership of information about my mother.”
“No.”
The immediate agreement made me angrier.
I left.
Made it halfway down the hall.
Then stopped.
Because anger wanted distance.
But the investigator in me wanted facts.
I turned around.
“Eleven days.”
“Yes.”
“Did she tell your father?”
“Apparently.”
“Apparently?”
“My father is dead.”
“When?”
“Seven years ago.”
“Convenient.”
Matteo's expression hardened.
“Careful.”
There it was.
The mafia boss beneath the controlled businessman.
I should have backed down.
I didn't.
“If you want help finding who compromised your building, don't threaten me for asking whether your father got my mother killed.”
Silence.
Then Matteo stepped back.
“You're right.”
That surprised me.
“My father was many things,” he continued. “I won't ask you to believe he was innocent.”
“What do you believe?”
“That Anna found something involving people inside our organization.”
“And?”
“My father moved her family.”
I blinked.
“What?”
“You lived in Providence before she died.”
“Yes.”
“Before that?”
I tried to remember.
“Worcester.”
“Before that?”
I looked at him.
My mother had moved us often.
I assumed rent.
Work.
Bad luck.
Matteo continued.
“My father paid for one relocation.”
“Why?”
“Protection.”
A memory surfaced.
New apartment.
My mother crying in the kitchen.
An envelope of cash she said came from overtime.
“Did she know she was in danger?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't she go to police?”
Matteo gave me a look.
Right.
The police probably sat inside half the conversations his family owned.
“Do you have her records?”
“Some.”
“Show me.”
We returned to the tower.
An archive room held boxes from older Rinaldi properties.
One folder contained my mother's invoices.
Photographs.
Inspection notes.
A handwritten page.
My mother's handwriting.
I knew it instantly.
Unauthorized low-voltage feeds remain active during master disconnect. Possible parallel surveillance system. Access appears internal.
My eyes blurred.
Sixteen years later, I had written almost the same sentence.
Matteo stood beside me.
“There's more.”
He gave me a photocopy of a key-card log.
The night my mother reported the devices, three people entered the electrical room.
Matteo’s father.
A security supervisor.
And Vincent Caruso.
The same Vincent who had stood across from me at the gala and suggested an outside contractor might have planted the cameras.
“He's still working for you.”
“Yes.”
“You trust him?”
“I did.”
Past tense.
“Does he know I'm Anna's daughter?”
“Almost certainly.”
That explained his hostility.
Maybe.
Or maybe somebody wanted me to think so.
I opened another envelope.
Empty.
Label:
ORIGINAL CIRCUIT MAP - A. BLAKE
“Where is it?”
Matteo frowned.
“Should be there.”
“It isn't.”
Someone had removed my mother's original evidence.
Recently?
Impossible to know.
Then Grant entered.
“We found something in the ballroom devices.”
“What?”
“A fingerprint.”
My pulse jumped.
“Whose?”
Grant looked at Matteo.
“Yours.”
I stared.
Matteo didn't react.
“How?”
“Partial print on an internal mounting plate.”
Matteo said, “I never touched those devices.”
Grant nodded.
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because the print came from an evidence card stored after the Dock Nine investigation six years ago.”
Someone had copied his fingerprint.
Planted it inside the camera.
This wasn't just surveillance anymore.
Someone was preparing a frame.
“For what?” I asked.
Grant gave me another result.
One hidden storage device contained recordings of businessmen discussing bribes.
Politicians discussing payoffs.
A police commander.
A union boss.
And one murder confession.
None of those people knew they were recorded.
If the archive surfaced publicly, Matteo would appear to have spent years secretly collecting leverage.
“He'll look like the blackmailer,” I said.
“Yes.”
Matteo's expression turned cold.
“Which means whoever built this isn't simply watching me.”
“They're replacing you,” I said.
He looked at me.
The meaning settled between us.
Destroy his alliances.
Frame him as the source.
Release enough secrets to cause panic.
Then remove him.
My phone buzzed.
A photograph arrived.
My mother.
Taken sixteen years ago.
She stood beside a black sedan.
Alive.
The timestamp printed at the bottom was dated three days after her supposed highway death.
I stopped breathing.
Matteo took the phone.
His face changed.
“This is impossible.”
I looked at him.
“No.”
My hands began shaking.
“It means my mother didn't die when I was told she did.”
Another message arrived.
SHE FOUND THE SAME THING YOU DID.
Then:
SHE MADE THE SAME MISTAKE.
A final image loaded.
A storage facility address.
May you like
And one instruction.
COME ALONE IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHERE ANNA BLAKE REALLY DIED.
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