Chapter 4 - The Lie His Father Left Behind
Dante met Elias Voss inside Saint Catherine’s Church.
Harper hated the idea.
“You don’t meet a potential traitor alone.”
“I’m not alone.”
“Nico sitting in a car outside is alone.”
“He has six men.”
“That is still you inside a church with a man who might have arranged my assault.”
Dante fastened his watch.
Harper was sitting upright now, neck brace removed but ribs wrapped beneath her hospital gown.
She looked furious.
The bruising around her eye was turning from purple to yellow.
Dante preferred the anger.
It looked more like her.
“Elias requested no weapons.”
Harper stared.
“You believe him?”
“No.”
“So you’re taking one.”
“Obviously.”
She closed her eyes.
“Why do I bother?”
“Because apparently you enjoy suffering.”
Her eye opened.
“That may explain my employment history.”
Dante almost laughed.
Then became serious.
“If Elias was involved, I need to hear why.”
Harper studied him.
“He mattered to you.”
“He still does.”
“That makes him more dangerous.”
Dante knew.
Saint Catherine’s was nearly empty at noon.
Elias sat in the third pew.
Seventy years old.
Silver hair.
Gray overcoat.
A man who had attended Dante’s first communion, graduation, and father’s funeral.
“You came.”
Dante sat one pew behind him.
“You mentioned my father.”
Elias stared toward the altar.
“Anthony wasn’t the man you think.”
“I stopped believing in saints a long time ago.”
“Good.”
Elias handed him an envelope.
Inside was the photograph Lauren had described.
Anthony Moretti.
Elias.
A concrete tunnel.
Date stamped thirteen years earlier.
Dante looked at him.
“What were you doing?”
“Trying to close it.”
“The trafficking route?”
Elias turned.
“You know.”
“Enough.”
“Then you know Alden was involved.”
“He’s dead.”
Elias shut his eyes.
“I warned him.”
“You warned him?”
“To run.”
Dante’s hand moved slightly toward his coat.
Elias saw.
“I did not kill him.”
“Did you attack Harper?”
“No.”
“Did you know somebody would?”
“No.”
“Did you create Redwood Municipal Strategies?”
“Yes.”
Finally.
Truth.
Dante’s voice hardened.
“Why?”
“Your father asked me.”
“For what?”
“To hide money.”
“Forty-six million?”
“No. That came later.”
Elias leaned forward.
“Anthony discovered the tunnels were being used for trafficking fourteen years ago.”
Dante stared.
“By whom?”
“Gabriel March’s father.”
Gabriel.
Construction chief.
Another watch owner.
“Anthony shut it down.”
“Then why hide it?”
“Because people inside law enforcement were involved.”
Dante remembered the shell entities.
The fake permits.
“Redwood?”
“Paid witnesses. Relocated families. Bought properties around tunnel entrances.”
“So the money was protective.”
“Originally.”
Dante understood the word.
Originally.
“Someone revived the company.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is becoming tiresome.”
Elias turned toward him.
“Your father died before he could finish dismantling the network.”
“Heart attack.”
Elias said nothing.
Dante slowly stood.
“No.”
“I begged him to go to the hospital that night.”
“No.”
“He collapsed in his study.”
“You told me he had heart disease.”
“He did.”
“But?”
Elias looked old suddenly.
“The autopsy showed something else.”
Dante’s voice almost disappeared.
“What?”
“Digoxin.”
Poison.
The church became silent.
“Who knew?”
“Me.”
Dante grabbed Elias by the coat.
“You let me bury him without telling me?”
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
“You lied for twelve years.”
“I watched them kill your father.”
Dante froze.
Elias’s eyes were wet.
“And I watched a twenty-nine-year-old man inherit a war he didn’t understand.”
Dante released him.
“Who are they?”
“I never knew all of them.”
“Names.”
“Gabriel March.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“Dominic Shaw.”
Political liaison.
Another watch.
“And Peter Alden.”
“Dead.”
“Yes.”
“Anyone else?”
Elias looked at him.
“One person above them.”
“Who?”
“I never learned.”
Dante laughed without humor.
“You expect me to believe three executives built a trafficking network inside my property and you, my father’s closest adviser, somehow missed the leader?”
“I spent years trying to find him.”
“Her.”
Elias paused.
Dante noticed.
“You assumed a man.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe that was the mistake.”
Elias stared.
Then slowly nodded.
Back at the hospital, Harper was reading Southside contracts when Dante returned.
She immediately saw his face.
“What happened?”
“My father was poisoned.”
Harper closed the folder.
“I’m sorry.”
“Elias knew.”
“That doesn’t mean he did it.”
“No.”
Dante sat beside the window.
“He says March, Shaw, and Alden were part of the network.”
“And the leader?”
“Unknown.”
Harper thought.
“Then we look at who benefited.”
“They all did.”
“No. Bigger.”
She reached for her laptop substitute.
“Who inherited anything after your father died?”
“Me.”
“Who gained control?”
“Me.”
“Who became vulnerable?”
Dante frowned.
“The organization.”
“Yes.”
Harper pulled corporate filings.
“After Anthony died, Moretti Holdings refinanced.”
“Yes.”
“Who arranged it?”
Dante stared.
“My bank.”
“Which bank?”
“Sterling Atlantic.”
Harper searched.
Then became still.
Chairman of Sterling Atlantic at the time:
Margaret Shaw.
Dominic Shaw’s mother.
Now seventy-three.
Philanthropist.
Former federal economic adviser.
One of the most respected women in New York finance.
Dante knew her well.
She had held fundraisers in his father’s ballroom.
She had kissed him on the cheek at his mother’s funeral.
Harper whispered:
“What if Dominic isn’t above Gabriel?”
Dante understood.
“What if Margaret is above all of them?”
Nico entered before either could continue.
“Problem.”
Dante almost laughed.
“Of course.”
Nico held up a tablet.
Security footage.
Harper’s apartment.
A woman entered using a key.
Not forcing the lock.
Using a key.
Harper stared.
“That’s impossible.”
The woman stepped into view.
Blonde hair.
Camel coat.
Harper whispered:
“Mom?”
Dante looked at her.
“You said your mother lives in Vermont.”
“She does.”
“Then why is she searching your apartment?”
On screen, Susan Reed opened Harper’s desk.
Removed a small metal box.
And looked directly toward the hidden camera.
Then she spoke.
No audio.
But Harper read her lips.
I’m sorry.
Twenty minutes later, Harper’s phone rang.
Her mother.
Harper answered.
“Mom?”
Susan Reed was crying.
“Honey, you need to listen carefully.”
“What did you take?”
“The thing your father told me never to give you.”
Harper’s face lost color.
“My father?”
Dante watched.
Harper rarely spoke about her father.
He had supposedly died in a construction accident fifteen years earlier.
Susan continued.
“You found Southside, didn’t you?”
Harper stopped breathing.
“How do you know?”
“Because that’s what killed your father.”
The room went completely still.
Harper whispered:
“My father died falling from scaffolding.”
“No.”
Susan sobbed.
“He died because Anthony Moretti asked him to inspect a tunnel nobody was supposed to know existed.”
Harper looked at Dante.
Susan continued:
“And before he died, he gave me proof.”
“What proof?”
“A ledger.”
Dante stood.
“Mrs. Reed,” he said.
Silence.
“You’re with Dante?”
“Yes.”
Susan’s breathing changed.
“Then both of you need to leave the hospital.”
“Why?”
“Because the woman who killed your fathers knows Harper survived.”
Harper gripped the phone.
“Who?”
Her mother whispered the name.
“Margaret Shaw.”
May you like
Then a gunshot sounded through the phone.
The line went dead.
