Chapter 7 - Evidence That Could Speak
Rebecca refused to let Luca touch the cuff link.
“Chain of custody.”
Luca almost laughed.
Twenty years earlier, Rebecca had spent half her career telling the Costello men what evidence meant after they had already ruined it.
Now she photographed the scene, contacted a private forensic examiner, and preserved everything properly.
Luca allowed it.
Elena noticed.
“You’re changing.”
“No.”
“You are.”
“I’m adapting.”
“That’s what people call changing when they don’t want credit for it.”
The laboratory confirmed the vial contained traces of the neuro-suppressive compound.
Even more damaging, Marcus’s fingerprints were on the outside.
Vale’s partial prints remained beneath the cap.
Rebecca looked almost stunned.
“We can prove Vale handled it.”
“Can we prove Dominic ordered it?”
“Not yet.”
That answer became the center of Luca’s frustration.
He had motive.
He had money transfers.
He had the pregnancy investigation.
He had the doctor.
What he did not have was the final bridge.
Maya found it.
Not intentionally.
She was sitting at the kitchen table doing homework when Tommy asked why Luca owned a baseball diamond.
Maya said Luca built it before his legs stopped working.
Tommy looked toward the field.
“Then why is there a camera inside the old scoreboard?”
Everyone stopped.
Marcus turned.
“What?”
Tommy shrugged.
“I saw the lens.”
They opened the scoreboard that afternoon.
Inside was an obsolete surveillance system installed thirteen years earlier.
Most of its recordings had been erased.
One storage drive remained.
The date was six days before Luca collapsed.
The footage showed Dr. Vale entering the maintenance building.
Dominic arrived seven minutes later.
He carried a small medical cooler.
The recording had no audio.
It did not need any.
Vale opened the cooler.
Dominic removed several glass vials.
Luca watched the footage twice.
Elena watched once.
Rebecca whispered, “That’s enough for a warrant.”
Luca did not answer.
Because the video continued.
A third person appeared.
A woman.
She stepped from the darkness near Dominic’s car.
Elena leaned toward the screen.
Luca stopped breathing.
He recognized her immediately.
She had been dead for seven years.
His mother.
May you like
Caterina Costello.
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