Chapter 6 - The Man Who Followed My Mother
Malcolm Voss lived in a small beige house outside Reno.
No mansion.
No guards.
No evidence that twenty-five years earlier he had worked for one of Boston’s most feared families.
He was seventy-two.
Gray hair.
Oxygen tank.
A dog asleep beneath his porch chair.
Roman looked disappointed.
“You expected a monster?” I asked.
“I expected someone harder to pity.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Malcolm recognized Roman immediately.
“You have Vincent’s eyes.”
Roman remained standing.
“Not a compliment.”
Malcolm looked at me.
Then everything changed.
His face collapsed.
“Evelyn.”
“My mother.”
“I know.”
“I’m Eleanor.”
He closed his eyes.
“I know.”
My hands started shaking.
Roman noticed but did not reach for me.
I appreciated that.
We sat inside.
Malcolm refused recording at first.
Then Roman placed a copy of the ledger entry on the table.
$250,000.
Malcolm stared.
“Where did you get that?”
“My mother kept records.”
His shoulders sagged.
“Of course she did.”
“What happened the night she died?”
He took a long time answering.
Finally:
“I was told to follow her.”
“By whom?”
“Charles Kensington.”
Not Vincent Moretti.
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“What did my father know?”
Malcolm looked at him.
“Enough to be ashamed.”
“Explain.”
Charles had discovered Evelyn was gathering evidence about smuggling through Northstar.
He wanted the ledger.
Malcolm was ordered to follow her from Gloucester to Boston and retrieve whatever documents she carried.
“Were you supposed to kill her?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
His face crumpled.
“I caused it.”
My throat closed.
He described heavy rain.
Evelyn realized she was being followed.
She accelerated.
Malcolm tried to pull alongside her.
His car clipped hers.
She lost control.
Hit a barrier.
Went over an embankment.
“I got out.”
I could barely breathe.
“She was alive?”
Malcolm nodded.
Roman swore softly.
“You left her?”
“I ran down.”
His voice broke.
“The car was crushed. She was bleeding. I called Charles.”
“What did he say?”
Malcolm stared at the floor.
“He asked if she had the ledger.”
I felt sick.
“She was dying and he asked about a book?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I searched the car.”
Roman stood abruptly.
I grabbed his wrist.
He stopped.
Malcolm watched us.
“I didn’t find it.”
“What about my mother?”
“I called 911 anonymously.”
“She died before paramedics arrived.”
“Yes.”
Tears burned my eyes.
“Did my father—did Vincent Moretti know?”
Malcolm looked at Roman.
“Charles called him afterward.”
Roman’s expression hardened.
“What did he say?”
“Vincent told him he was finished protecting him.”
“Protecting him from what?”
“The shipments.”
Roman went still.
Malcolm continued.
“Vincent wasn’t innocent. But Evelyn’s death scared him. He knew Charles was becoming reckless.”
“Then why didn’t he go to police?”
Malcolm laughed weakly.
“Men like Vincent didn’t go to police.”
Roman looked toward the window.
For the first time, I saw shame in him.
Not personal guilt.
Inherited shame.
I understood that feeling.
My family had its own secrets.
Before leaving, Malcolm gave us something.
A storage receipt.
Charles had paid him to hide a metal case after Evelyn died.
Malcolm never opened it.
“Where?”
“Boston.”
Of course.
A storage company near Chelsea.
Locker 118.
Roman asked, “Why keep the receipt?”
Malcolm looked at me.
“Because guilt makes people save strange things.”
Back in Boston, we opened locker 118 with investigators present.
Inside were old business files.
Cash.
Photographs.
And a videotape.
The footage was grainy.
Security video from Northstar Terminal.
Date: two months before Mom’s death.
Charles Kensington stood beside Vincent Moretti near a shipping container.
They argued.
Then my mother entered the frame.
No audio.
But body language said enough.
She pointed toward the container.
Charles grabbed her arm.
Vincent shoved him away.
Roman stared.
“Dad protected her.”
At least then.
Another file contained correspondence.
One letter from Vincent to Evelyn:
I told Charles the Northstar routes are finished. He won’t accept it. If anything happens, call Roman. He’s better than I was at his age.
Roman read that sentence repeatedly.
I watched him.
“Your father trusted you.”
“He shouldn’t have.”
“Maybe he hoped you’d become someone different.”
Roman looked at me.
“Did your mother become someone different from your grandfather?”
“Yes.”
“Then inheritance isn’t destiny.”
He said nothing.
Later, outside the storage facility, we stood beneath freezing rain.
Roman opened an umbrella.
I stepped under it.
Our shoulders almost touched.
I asked, “Why did you really come to my wedding?”
“I told you.”
“A promise.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t everything.”
He looked ahead.
“No.”
“What else?”
He took a breath.
“I knew you.”
I frowned.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I saw you once.”
“When?”
“You were seventeen.”
I tried to remember.
“A charity gala.”
Mom had brought me.
Roman had been twenty-six.
“You were angry because someone spilled champagne on your dress.”
I stared.
“You remember that?”
“You gave your shoes to a waitress.”
My face warmed.
“She was crying because her feet hurt.”
“I know.”
“You talked to her?”
“No.”
“Then how—”
“I watched.”
The answer should have been unsettling.
Instead it felt strangely intimate.
“My mother introduced us?”
“No.”
“She pointed you out.”
“What did she say?”
Roman’s eyes met mine.
“‘That is the only person in this room who matters more to me than breathing.’”
My throat tightened.
He continued.
“When she gave me the letter years later, I knew exactly who I was promising to protect.”
Rain tapped against the umbrella.
I whispered, “I don’t need a protector.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
That answer surprised me.
“I think you need allies.”
He looked at me.
“Different thing.”
Something shifted between us.
Quiet.
Dangerous.
I looked away first.
My phone rang.
Dad.
I answered.
His voice was panicked.
“Eleanor, Preston called an emergency board meeting.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“He bought shares.”
My stomach dropped.
“How many?”
“Enough to force a vote.”
“On what?”
Dad was silent.
Then:
“Removing me as CEO.”
I understood immediately.
If Preston could not marry into Northstar, he would take DuPont Atlantic another way.
I looked at Roman.
“What?”
I ended the call.
“Preston is trying to steal my company.”
Roman’s expression went cold.
I closed the umbrella.
“No.”
He frowned.
“What are you doing?”
“Going to my office.”
“It’s midnight.”
“I know.”
I looked toward Boston.
“If Preston wants my family’s company, he can come take it from me while I’m sitting in my mother’s chair.”
May you like
And for the first time, I stopped thinking of DuPont Atlantic as my father’s responsibility.
It was mine too.
