Chapter 5 - The Driver Who Heard Everything
Daniel Crowe had driven Clara almost every day.
Medical appointments.
Charity events.
Lunch with friends.
Visits to our mother’s grave.
My house.
Julian’s office.
He knew her schedule.
Her habits.
Her fears.
He also knew mine.
That realization frightened me more than gunfire.
We moved Clara to a secure location.
Not my estate.
Too predictable.
A penthouse above one of my legitimate hotels downtown.
Only six people knew.
Clara hated it.
“I feel like a prisoner.”
“You're not.”
“There are guards outside.”
“Protection.”
“Locks?”
“You control them.”
That mattered.
She looked at the door.
Then back at me.
“Okay.”
Federal agents interviewed her for six hours.
Afterward she slept.
I sat in the hotel library with Marco reviewing Daniel’s history.
False surname.
Fake references.
Real military service.
Thirty-four years old.
Sebastian’s only child.
Marco pulled financial records.
“He received payments from three shell companies.”
“For spying?”
“Looks like.”
“On Clara?”
“On Julian too.”
Interesting.
Daniel had apparently reported on both sides.
At midnight, Clara entered wearing borrowed pajamas and carrying tea.
“You should sleep.”
“So should you.”
“I tried.”
She sat opposite us.
“Tell me.”
“No.”
Her eyes narrowed.
I sighed.
“Daniel reported to Crowe.”
“Everything?”
“Probably.”
She stared into her cup.
“He used to tell me Julian didn't deserve me.”
Marco and I exchanged looks.
“What else?” I asked.
“He encouraged me to leave.”
That didn't fit.
If Daniel wanted control, keeping Clara in the marriage benefited Crowe.
Unless Daniel had his own agenda.
“Did he ever ask about the properties?”
“No.”
“Trust?”
“No.”
“Me?”
“All the time.”
“What?”
“Whether you were dangerous.”
I almost laughed.
“What did you say?”
“That you alphabetize your spices.”
Marco looked at me.
I pointed at him.
“Not one word.”
Clara smiled for the first time that day.
Then her face changed.
“Daniel once gave me a phone.”
“What?”
“Six months ago. Said it was safer because Julian kept checking mine.”
“Where?”
“In my old gym bag.”
Marco stood.
We retrieved it from the Vale mansion under federal supervision.
The device had no contacts.
Only one application.
A secure messaging system.
There was one unread message.
IF YOU EVER NEED TO RUN, PRESS HERE.
Clara touched the screen.
A map appeared.
It showed a small house in Wisconsin.
Marco frowned.
“Could be a trap.”
“Could be Daniel's exit plan,” I said.
Another file existed inside the phone.
A video.
Clara pressed play.
Daniel appeared on-screen.
No suit.
No professional-driver expression.
He looked exhausted.
“If you're watching this, something went wrong.”
Clara leaned closer.
“My father placed me near Julian two years ago. I was supposed to report anything involving Romano assets.”
He swallowed.
“I did.”
Clara’s face tightened.
“Then I started seeing what Julian was doing to you.”
Daniel looked directly into the camera.
“I should have helped sooner.”
Clara whispered, “Yes.”
The video continued.
“My father believes everyone has a price. Julian does too. I believed them for most of my life.”
A pause.
“I don't anymore.”
He explained that he had secretly copied Crowe’s files.
Not all were on Julian's drive.
Daniel possessed the master archive.
Including documentation of the Romano murder.
Including records connected to our mother.
My hands clenched.
Then Daniel said:
“If Leo Romano sees this, tell him the night his father died wasn't the first time Sebastian Crowe targeted his family.”
Clara looked at me.
The video continued.
“Ask him about Lucia Romano's car accident.”
My mother.
Clara whispered, “Leo?”
I could not answer.
Because our mother had died after leaving our father.
Officially in a highway accident.
A drunk driver crossed the median.
At least that was what I had been told.
Daniel finished with an address.
Not the Wisconsin house.
A storage facility.
Locker 317.
Marco and I went before sunrise.
Federal agents came too.
I did not enjoy that.
Necessary.
Inside locker 317 were hard drives, paper files, and photographs.
One box was labeled ROMANO.
I opened it.
My childhood.
Surveillance photographs of our house.
Dad's restaurants.
Me leaving school.
Clara riding her bicycle.
Mom grocery shopping.
Then a photograph dated three weeks before her death.
My mother meeting Sebastian Crowe.
Clara stood beside me.
“She knew him.”
“Yes.”
The next item was a letter.
Lucia Romano’s handwriting.
LEONARDO — IF YOUR FATHER EVER TELLS YOU I LEFT BECAUSE I STOPPED LOVING YOU, DON'T BELIEVE HIM.
I sat down.
Clara took my hand.
We read together.
Our mother had discovered that Crowe and several Romano associates were moving narcotics through businesses without our father's approval.
She threatened to expose them.
Our father reacted badly.
Not violently toward her, according to the letter.
But controlling.
He confined her movements.
Took her car keys.
Assigned guards.
He claimed it was protection.
She called it prison.
So she left.
Crowe found her.
He offered help.
She did not know he was the threat.
The last paragraph ended:
If anything happens to me, Sebastian knows why.
I could barely breathe.
Clara squeezed my hand.
“You never knew.”
“No.”
“You thought Dad—”
“I thought she left because of him.”
“She did.”
I looked at her.
Clara said quietly:
“Both things can be true.”
She was right again.
The next file contained a payment.
Fifty thousand dollars to the drunk driver involved in Mom's fatal crash.
Paid through a Crowe shell company.
Clara covered her mouth.
I stood so quickly the chair overturned.
Marco blocked me.
“Boss.”
“Move.”
“Where?”
“Crowe.”
“We don't know where he is.”
“I'll find him.”
Clara stepped between us.
“No.”
I looked down at her.
“He killed Mom.”
“I know.”
“He killed Dad.”
“I know.”
“I spent twelve years—”
“I know.”
My voice rose.
“He watched us grow up!”
Clara did not flinch.
“That’s why he wants you angry.”
I froze.
She continued.
“He wants Leo Romano the mafia boss. He wants you to make one stupid move so every prosecutor stops seeing him and starts seeing you.”
My breathing slowed.
Damn her.
Damn her for being right.
Marco picked up the overturned chair.
Clara touched my arm.
“We do this my way.”
“What way?”
“Evidence.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Mom tried evidence.”
“And she did it alone.”
Clara looked around at the federal agents.
“At us.”
“She isn't alone now.”
Neither were we.
At 11:20 a.m., an agent came into the storage unit.
“We traced Daniel.”
Clara straightened.
“Where?”
“County hospital.”
“What happened?”
“He was shot last night.”
“Is he alive?”
“Yes.”
“Can he talk?”
The agent nodded.
“For now.”
We reached the hospital under guard.
Daniel looked nothing like the polished driver Clara remembered.
Pale.
Bandaged.
Connected to monitors.
He looked at her.
“I’m sorry.”
Clara stood near the door.
“For which part?”
“All of it.”
“You watched Julian hurt me.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
“You reported my life to your father.”
“Yes.”
“You could have warned me.”
“Yes.”
No excuses.
That mattered.
Clara stepped closer.
“Why help now?”
Daniel opened his eyes.
“Because my father ordered me to arrange your death.”
Silence.
“When?”
“Three weeks ago.”
Clara stopped.
“He said Julian would eventually fail to obtain the signature.”
I felt cold.
Daniel continued.
“I told him I would handle it.”
“You lied?” Clara asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Daniel looked at her.
“Because after two years watching everybody decide what you were worth, I couldn't become another man doing the same.”
Clara's eyes filled.
Daniel reached weakly beneath his pillow.
An envelope.
“For you.”
She took it.
Inside was a key.
“What does it open?”
Daniel whispered:
“The place where my father goes when he thinks everyone has betrayed him.”
I stepped closer.
“Where?”
Daniel looked at me.
“Your father's old church.”
My blood ran cold.
The abandoned church where both my parents had married.
Where we had buried my father.
Crowe had chosen his hiding place inside our family’s memories.
Daniel swallowed.
“He's there now.”
May you like
Then he added:
“And he has Julian’s original confession with him.”
