Chapter 10 - What Dr. Vale Left Behind
Dr. Peter Vale was found alive in a motel outside Milwaukee.
He had registered under another name.
Before police reached him, he called Luca.
Rebecca insisted the call be recorded.
Vale sounded exhausted.
“I didn’t know about the girl when it started.”
Luca gripped the phone.
“What started?”
“The treatment.”
“Poisoning.”
Vale breathed heavily.
“Dominic called it temporary.”
Luca said nothing.
“He said you only needed to be weakened for a few months.”
“Why?”
“Because you were going to remove him from the company.”
That part was true.
Thirteen years earlier, Luca had discovered Dominic was diverting company money.
He had planned to dismiss him.
Then Vale said something Luca did not expect.
“Your mother found out.”
Luca stared at the old surveillance image.
“She was involved.”
“No.”
Vale’s answer came instantly.
“She tried to stop us.”
Luca closed his eyes.
The argument.
The pointed finger.
The cash withdrawal.
“She paid Dominic.”
“She paid him to leave Chicago.”
Vale’s voice broke.
“She thought money would make him disappear.”
“And it didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because Dominic threatened Elena.”
Luca opened his eyes.
Elena turned toward him.
Vale continued.
“He knew she was pregnant.”
The room became completely silent.
“He told Caterina that if she exposed him, the woman on the South Side would disappear.”
Elena’s face went white.
Luca’s hand tightened around the phone.
“My mother knew about Maya?”
“She knew about the pregnancy.”
Vale began crying quietly.
“She thought she could solve everything herself.”
“So she let me believe I had suffered a stroke.”
“She planned to tell you.”
“When?”
“After she had evidence.”
“She had twelve years.”
Vale went silent.
Then he said the sentence that changed the entire investigation.
“She didn’t have twelve years.”
Luca frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“Your poisoning never stopped.”
Luca looked down at his useless legs.
Vale whispered.
“The original doses damaged your nerve function temporarily.”
“But after that, Dominic kept you on maintenance doses.”
Luca’s blood turned cold.
“For how long?”
Vale’s answer was almost inaudible.
“Every week.”
Twelve years of paralysis had not been the result of one attack.
May you like
Someone had been keeping him in that wheelchair the entire time.
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