Chapter 9: The Dead Man in the Chapel
I drove toward the east gardens with Grace beside me and Raymond following in a second car.
The mansion's emergency lights flashed behind us, illuminating the wet stone paths and bare branches. My hands were tight around the steering wheel.
Mara's final sentence replayed in my head.
She knew he was still alive.
My father had supposedly died in a private clinic in Switzerland seven years earlier. I'd attended his funeral. I'd watched the casket lowered into the ground. I'd inherited his company, his properties, and the debts Vincent had just described.
If he was alive, then everything I believed about my family had been built on a lie.
"Dominic," Grace said quietly, "you need to slow down.""
I realized I was driving too fast.
I eased off the accelerator.
"Do you believe her?""
"I believe she's frightened.""
"That's not the same thing.""
"No," Grace replied.
"But frightened people sometimes tell the truth when they have nothing left to lose.""
We reached the chapel just as the sun disappeared behind the trees.
The small stone building had been part of the estate when I purchased the property. Isabelle loved it because it was simple, with a wooden altar and stained-glass windows depicting flowers.
She used to bring the girls there on Sunday mornings.
After her death, I had locked the doors.
I couldn't bear to enter the place where she had prayed for our family.
Now I climbed the steps and pushed the door open.
The chapel smelled of cold stone and old candles.
Olivia, Sophie, and Nora sat together in the front pew. Elena stood beside them, holding a flashlight. Ethan waited near the altar.
Mara stood in the shadows.
She looked older than the woman in the photographs, her face gaunt and her hair streaked with gray. A silver ring glinted on her right hand.
The same ring I'd seen in the crime-scene photograph.
When she saw me, she lowered her eyes.
"I know you want to kill me," she said.
I stepped toward her.
"I want to know why my wife is dead.""
Mara nodded.
"Then you deserve the truth.""
I stopped a few feet away.
"Start with my father.""
She glanced toward Ethan.
"Twenty-six years ago, your father discovered that his business partners were using his company to move money through illegal accounts. He wanted out, but they wouldn't let him leave.""
"Why?""
"Because he had records that could expose them. He planned to trade those records for his family's safety.""
"And you were involved?""
"My father worked for one of those men. He arranged my relationship with you because he believed your father would eventually need someone inside the Romano family.""
I stared at her.
"So you were using me.""
"At first.""
The honesty was brutal.
"Then I fell in love with you," she continued.
"And when I discovered I was pregnant, I tried to escape. Your father helped me disappear because he was afraid his enemies would use the child against him.""
I looked at Ethan.
He stood perfectly still, his face pale.
"Why did you let me believe you had abandoned me?""
Mara began to cry.
"Because your father told me that if I contacted you, he'd have you killed. I believed him.""
"Then why did you come back?""
"Because Isabelle found me.""
Mara reached into her coat and pulled out a folded letter.
"Your wife tracked me down fourteen months before she died. She told me Vincent had been stealing from you and using your father's old network to control your security.""
I took the letter.
Isabelle's handwriting covered both sides.
I found Mara. She's alive. She's afraid. She knows what happened to our father, and she knows why Vincent has spent eighteen years protecting Dominic.
I looked up.
"Our father?""
Mara nodded.
"Your father wasn't just my enemy. He was Isabelle's too.""
Elena stepped forward.
"Why didn't Isabelle tell us?""
"Because she believed one of us was working with Vincent.""
The chapel fell silent.
I looked at each of them.
Elena. Mara. Grace. Ethan.
"Who?""
Mara shook her head.
"I don't know.""
"You're asking me to believe that my wife uncovered a conspiracy involving my father, Vincent, and your family, and she didn't know who she could trust?""
"She knew one thing," Mara said.
"She knew Vincent wanted the original ledger hidden in this chapel.""
Ethan approached the altar.
"Where is it?""
Mara pointed toward the wooden base.
"Isabelle told me to look beneath the third floorboard.""
I knelt and examined the boards. The third one lifted easily, revealing a small metal box.
Inside lay a thick ledger, a photograph, and a sealed envelope.
I opened the ledger first.
Names filled its pages. Politicians. Police officers. Business executives.
Payments. Dates. Locations.
Then I found a page bearing my father's signature.
Beside it was Vincent's.
And beneath both names, a third signature.
Dominic Romano.
Mine.
I stared at it.
"What is this?""
Mara leaned over my shoulder.
"Your father used your identity to authorize payments after you were born. Vincent continued the practice after he took control of the accounts.""
I flipped through the pages.
Some entries dated back twenty-six years. Others were recent.
One entry was dated three days before Isabelle's murder.
The payment had gone to a company registered under the name of a private medical clinic in Switzerland.
The clinic where my father had supposedly died.
I looked at the photograph.
It showed an elderly man sitting beside a window in a wheelchair. His hair was white, his face thinner than I remembered, but his eyes were unmistakable.
My father.
Alive.
On the back, Isabelle had written a date and a message.
He is not hiding from his enemies. He is hiding from Dominic.
My chest tightened.
"Why would my father hide from me?""
Mara looked toward the chapel doors.
"Because he knew what you would do if you discovered the truth.""
Before I could ask another question, a car engine roared outside.
Headlights swept across the stained glass.
Ethan moved toward the window.
"It's Vincent.""
Raymond drew his weapon.
"Everyone get down.""
A loudspeaker crackled outside.
Vincent's voice echoed across the gardens.
"Dominic, send Mara out and I'll let the children leave.""
I stepped toward the doors.
"You're not taking anyone.""
A gunshot struck the chapel's stone wall.
The girls screamed.
Grace pulled them beneath the pews while Elena shielded Nora with her body.
I raised my pistol toward the window.
Then the chapel's old telephone rang.
Everyone froze.
There was no reason for that phone to work. The line had been disconnected years earlier.
It rang again.
I crossed the room and lifted the receiver.
A man's voice came through, dry and familiar.
"Dominic.""
My father's voice.
I gripped the receiver so tightly my fingers hurt.
"Where are you?""
"Somewhere you can't reach me.""
"You're alive.""
"Unfortunately, yes.""
I looked at the ledger, the photograph, and the signature that bore my name.
"Did you order Isabelle's death?""
A long silence followed.
Then my father answered.
"No. But I gave Vincent the authority to do whatever was necessary to protect our family.""
My stomach turned.
"You knew what he was capable of?""
"I knew exactly what he was capable of.""
"And you let him kill my wife?""
My father's voice hardened.
"Isabelle was never supposed to be part of the equation.""
I closed my eyes.
Outside, Vincent's men moved through the gardens.
Inside, my daughters clung to Grace, and my son stood beside a woman who had once abandoned him to save his life.
I asked the question that had haunted me since I heard my daughters singing.
"Why did Isabelle die?""
My father exhaled.
"Because she discovered the one secret Vincent was never supposed to reveal.""
"What secret?""
His answer came so quietly I almost missed it.
"Dominic, Isabelle wasn't your first wife.""
The receiver slipped in my hand.
"What?""
My father continued.
"And the woman you buried fourteen months ago wasn't Isabelle Romano.""
A deafening crash shook the chapel doors.
Vincent shouted from outside.
"Nobody leaves alive!""
The line went dead.
I stood motionless, staring at the telephone.
Then Olivia emerged from beneath the pew.
She looked at the photograph of the man in the wheelchair.
"That's not Grandpa," she whispered.
I turned toward her.
"How do you know?""
She pointed to the man's left hand.
"Grandpa had six fingers.""
And suddenly, I understood.
The man in the photograph wasn't my father.
May you like
But whoever he was, my wife had known him.
And she had died trying to keep his identity a secret.
