Chapter 4 - THE SILENT WITNESS
I stared at the accident report.
My father hadn’t been a thief. He had been a witness. He was the one who saw Vanessa run Sarah’s car off the bridge.
“He saw you,” I whispered, looking up at the woman in the designer dress. “My dad saw you kill her.”
Vanessa’s face twisted into a mask of pure venom. “It was an accident! She swerved into my lane! But I knew Luca would never believe me. I knew he’d kill me!”
“So you paid my father to keep quiet?” I asked, disgust rising in my throat.
“No,” Luca said, his voice dangerously hollow. He was staring at Vanessa as if she were a stranger. “Arthur Hayes never took a dime. The police report says the witness retracted his statement two days later due to 'poor visibility.' He changed his story.”
He stepped toward Vanessa. “What did you do to him to make him retract it?”
Marcus laughed from the wall, where Thomas still had him pinned. “We didn’t pay him. We threatened his deaf wife and his pretty little daughter. The bus driver caved like a cheap suit.”
A wave of nausea washed over me. For three years, my father had carried the guilt of letting a murderer go free to protect my mother and me. That’s why he had aged so terribly. That’s why his thumb had worn the leather of his watch down to nothing—he was constantly rubbing it, drowning in anxiety.
Ben tugged at my hand. He looked at his father, then at the accident report.
Mom? he signed, his eyes filling with tears.
I knelt down in front of him, pulling him into a tight hug. He buried his face in my shoulder, his small body shaking.
“Get them out of my house,” Luca told Thomas, his voice vibrating with a terrifying rage. “Take them to the warehouse. I’ll deal with them tonight.”
“Luca, please!” Vanessa sobbed as Thomas dragged her toward the door. “I loved you! I did it because I loved you!”
The heavy dining room doors slammed shut behind them, leaving the guests in stunned, terrified silence.
Luca turned to the guests. “Dinner is over.”
Within five minutes, the house was completely empty save for the staff.
I sat on the edge of the sofa in the living room, holding Ben. Luca poured a glass of whiskey at the bar, his hands trembling.
“Emily,” Luca said, not turning around. “I am so deeply sorry. Your father carried a terrible burden because of my family.”
“He did it for us,” I said, wiping my eyes. “But Vanessa still tried to frame me tonight. Why?”
Luca turned. “Because she realized who you were. When Mrs. Gable hired you, Vanessa must have run a background check. She panicked. She thought Arthur sent you here to finally expose her, so she forged the ledger to make your father look like a corrupt thief, ruining your credibility.”
Answer one: My father changed his story to protect us. Open two: What was on the black USB drive hidden in Vanessa's purse?
Luca picked up the black USB drive from the coffee table. He plugged it into his laptop.
A single audio file popped up. He clicked play.
It was a recording of a phone call. Two men were speaking. One was Marcus.
The other voice sent a chill down my spine. I had heard it only a few times, but it was unmistakable.
It was Marco Caruso. Luca’s supposedly dead brother.
“Did you get the watch from the old man’s house?” Marco’s voice crackled through the speakers.
“No,” Marcus replied. “The daughter took it before we could toss the place. Why do you need a cheap watch anyway?”
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“Because, you idiot,” Marco hissed. “The key to the lockbox is inside the back casing. Get that watch.”
I gasped, looking down at the broken pieces of my father’s watch in my apron pocket.
