Chapter 3 - THE FALSE BOTTOM
The room spun. I looked at the broken glass of my father’s watch in my hand. He was a good man. He came home smelling of diesel and peppermint every night. He couldn’t be a criminal.
“I didn’t know,” I said, my voice cracking. I looked at Luca. “I swear to you, Mr. Caruso. I answered an ad from your housekeeper. I’ve never seen that ledger before in my life.”
Vanessa stepped closer to Luca, her hand resting on his shoulder. “She’s lying, darling. The missing pen, the snooping in your study... she’s been looking for Marco’s stash this whole time.”
Answer one: My father was tied to the Caruso family. Open two: Where did the money go, and why did my father take it?
Luca didn’t look at Vanessa. He looked at Ben.
His son was staring at the blue ledger on the table. Ben reached out and touched the page. Then he signed to me.
That is not Uncle Marco’s book.
I blinked, translating aloud for Luca. “Ben says it isn’t Marco’s ledger.”
Vanessa’s face went rigid. “Of course it is! The kid is just trying to protect his favorite maid.”
“Ben,” Luca said aloud, enunciating clearly so his son could read his lips. “Why do you say that?”
Ben grabbed the gold pen that had been pulled from Vanessa’s purse earlier. He pointed the nib at the blue ink in the ledger.
Uncle Marco was left-handed, Ben signed. He always smeared the ink. This ink is perfect. And it is the same color as the pen Vanessa took.
A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the dining room.
Luca picked up the ledger. He tilted it toward the chandelier light. He ran his thumb over the page.
“The ink is fresh,” Luca said softly.
He turned slowly toward Vanessa. “You forged it. You and your brother forged a ledger to frame a dead bus driver and his daughter. Why?”
Vanessa backed away, hitting the edge of the serving buffet. “Luca, you’re listening to a ten-year-old and a maid over your future wife?”
“Search her,” Luca told his head of security, a mountain of a man named Thomas, who had just stepped into the room.
“You can’t touch me!” Vanessa screamed.
Marcus lunged across the table to protect his sister, but Thomas grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the wall.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Gable, didn’t wait for an invitation. She grabbed Vanessa’s designer purse from the table and dumped the rest of the contents onto the floor. Lipstick, compacts, and a ring of keys clattered against the marble.
Mrs. Gable felt the bottom of the leather bag. “There’s a false bottom, Mr. Caruso.”
She ripped the silk lining.
Out fell a small, black USB drive and a folded piece of heavy parchment paper.
Luca picked up the paper and unfolded it. As he read, all the color drained from his face. He looked like a man who had just been shot.
He looked at me, his eyes wide with a grief I couldn’t comprehend.
“My father didn’t take your brother’s money, did he?” I asked, my voice shaking.
Luca slowly handed me the paper.
It was a city transit accident report from three years ago. The night Luca’s wife—Ben’s mother, Sarah—was killed in a hit-and-run.
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At the bottom of the report, listed as the sole eyewitness who had identified the fleeing license plate, was my father. Arthur Hayes.
And the license plate he had identified belonged to Vanessa.
