Chapter 12 - THE OLD RECORDING
The murder was not related to the smuggling operation.
It was personal.
According to Malcolm, Lorenzo’s father had secretly met Gabriel eight years earlier.
Gabriel wanted money.
He threatened the family.
During the meeting, Gabriel admitted responsibility for a death everyone believed had been accidental.
The victim was Elena Moretti.
Lorenzo’s first wife.
Isabella’s mother.
Lorenzo stared through the interrogation glass.
For several seconds, he could not speak.
Elena had died when her car went off a mountain road during a family trip to Italy.
The police called it an accident.
Lorenzo had carried that grief for four years.
Now Malcolm claimed Gabriel had arranged it.
“Why?”
Malcolm looked down.
“Elena discovered the shipping operation.”
Sophia immediately understood.
Just like her.
A woman had seen too much.
Gabriel had removed her.
Lorenzo walked out of the interrogation room.
Sophia followed him into the hallway.
He leaned both hands against the wall.
“I told Isabella her mother died because of rain.”
Sophia stayed beside him.
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
“No.”
Lorenzo looked at her.
“You cannot blame yourself for someone else’s crime.”
He closed his eyes.
For a moment, Sophia saw not the billionaire employer everyone feared.
She saw a father who had just learned his daughter’s mother had been murdered.
Then Lorenzo straightened.
“We open the vault.”
They needed three keys.
Police possessed Sophia’s key.
Valentina’s recovered belongings contained another.
Gabriel had the third.
But Lorenzo remembered the old photograph.
Three men once possessed keys.
His grandfather.
His father.
Gabriel.
If his father had left a recording inside the vault, perhaps he had also left another way inside.
They searched Lorenzo’s father’s study.
After several hours, Isabella entered carrying an old wooden box.
“Daddy.”
Lorenzo turned.
“Where did you get that?”
“Grandpa gave it to me before he died.”
Lorenzo opened the box.
Inside was a silver rosary.
A handwritten letter.
And a bronze key.
Sophia stared.
The third key.
Lorenzo unfolded the letter.
His father had written only one paragraph.
If Gabriel ever returns, trust the woman who finds the chapel before you trust the men who sit at your table.
Lorenzo slowly looked at Sophia.
Then he continued reading.
May you like
The truth is beneath the cross.
And Elena deserves justice.
