Chapter 5 - THE LEDGER INSIDE THE MUSIC BOXThe music box had been cheap.
That was what Claire remembered most clearly.
Blue-painted wood.
A tiny ballerina inside.
A melody that played slightly too fast.
Their father had given it to Lily four days before his death.
Claire remembered teasing him.
“You bought a twenty-year-old girl’s gift for a seventeen-year-old?”
Thomas had smiled.
“Sometimes old-fashioned things matter.”
At the time, Claire thought he meant sentiment.
Now she understood he might have meant evidence.
Lily called thirty minutes after the box disappeared.
“I’m fine.”
Claire nearly shouted.
“Why weren’t you answering?”
“My phone died.”
“Lily.”
“What?”
“Someone took the music box.”
Silence.
“I know.”
Claire stopped.
“How?”
“Because I gave it to them.”
Roman turned.
Claire put the phone on speaker.
“You did what?”
Lily sounded embarrassed.
“The blonde woman came back.”
“Vivian?”
“No.”
Claire frowned.
“A nurse?”
“No. Older. Dark hair.”
Roman looked at Gabriel.
“Name?”
“I don’t know.”
“What did she say?” Roman asked.
“That Dad asked her to keep something safe years ago.”
Claire’s heart sank.
“And you believed her?”
“She knew the song.”
“What song?”
“The one Dad always sang when he wound the box.”
Claire looked confused.
Their father had made up words to the music.
Very few people had heard them.
“Did she give a name?”
Lily hesitated.
“Maria.”
Roman’s face changed.
“Maria what?”
“She said Maria DeLuca.”
Roman sat down.
Claire stared.
“Who is that?”
“My aunt.”
Salvatore’s wife.
Maria DeLuca had supposedly spent Christmas in Palm Beach.
Apparently not.
Roman called her.
Straight to voicemail.
Gabriel checked flight records.
Maria had returned to New York two days earlier.
Secretly.
Roman’s anger sharpened.
“Find her.”
They did not have to.
Maria arrived at the Queens storage facility forty minutes later.
Alone.
She walked in carrying Lily’s music box.
Roman approached her.
“What are you doing?”
“Saving your life.”
His expression darkened.
“You stole from a disabled woman under medical care.”
“I borrowed something before Charles Mercer’s people could.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Because I didn’t know whether Salvatore was monitoring you.”
Roman stared.
“You know.”
“I’ve known pieces for years.”
Maria placed the music box on a table.
Then she looked at Claire.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Your father trusted me.”
Claire went still.
“You knew him?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Maria’s voice softened.
“Thomas Bennett came to me fourteen years ago.”
Roman looked stunned.
Maria explained.
Thomas had tried Vincent DeLuca first.
Vincent protected Charles Mercer.
Thomas then approached Salvatore.
At the time, Salvatore promised to help.
But Thomas eventually realized Salvatore was receiving a percentage of Mercer’s stolen money.
“So he came to you,” Claire said.
Maria nodded.
“He believed nobody would suspect the wife.”
“Why didn’t you expose them?”
“Because I was afraid.”
At least she admitted it.
Maria looked toward Roman.
“Your uncle was not always the man you know.”
Roman’s eyes hardened.
“I’m starting to realize I never knew him.”
Maria opened the music box.
She removed the ballerina.
Beneath it was a false wooden panel.
Inside sat a tiny key and a memory card.
Roman stared.
“Where’s the ledger?”
“Not here.”
Claire’s frustration exploded.
“Then what did my father hide?”
Maria inserted the memory card into Gabriel’s secured laptop.
A video appeared.
Thomas Bennett.
Older than Claire remembered him.
Tired.
Terrified.
Alive.
Claire covered her mouth.
“If you’re seeing this,” Thomas began, “then I failed to fix what I helped create.”
Claire whispered, “Dad.”
Thomas explained everything.
When Lily became ill, he accepted Charles Mercer’s loan.
But money was not the only payment.
Charles forced Thomas to resume falsifying shipping records.
Thomas had to hide transfers through DeLuca businesses.
He agreed because Lily needed treatment.
Then he began secretly copying everything.
“I was weak,” Thomas said on screen.
Claire shook her head.
“No.”
Roman looked at her but said nothing.
Thomas continued.
“There is an original handwritten ledger. Charles keeps records because he trusts paper more than computers. That ledger contains every payment, every name, every bribe.”
Roman leaned closer.
“Where?”
Thomas answered.
“I stole it.”
Claire’s eyes widened.
“I hid it where Charles would never search.”
He looked directly into the camera.
“At DeLuca House.”
Roman stared.
The room seemed to shift.
Thomas Bennett had hidden the evidence inside Roman’s own family estate.
“Where?” Claire whispered.
Thomas smiled sadly.
“Vincent DeLuca loved expensive wine but never learned how to taste it. The answer is behind the bottle he bragged about most.”
Roman stood.
“The Bellamy Reserve.”
Claire understood.
Vivian had not randomly chosen the wine.
The 1990 Bellamy Reserve mattered.
The carriage house was a distraction because somebody believed the bottle—or ledger—had been moved there.
Thomas continued.
“If Charles learns the ledger still exists, he will hurt anyone he thinks can lead him to it.”
The video ended.
Roman stared at Maria.
“Did Salvatore know?”
“I don’t know.”
“You said he was taking Mercer money.”
“He was.”
“Then why would he allow the ledger to remain here?”
“Maybe he didn’t know where Thomas hid it.”
Claire remembered Vivian’s obsession with the bottle.
“She was looking.”
Roman nodded.
The entire Christmas errand became clearer.
Inventory staff had recently moved several rare wine crates while renovating the cellar.
Vivian believed the Bellamy bottle had been transferred to the carriage house.
She sent Claire because she believed Claire knew something about her father’s records.
But Vivian’s message said Claire would not return.
Why?
Was the plan to search her belongings after she died?
Roman’s phone rang.
Gabriel answered first.
Then handed it over.
“It’s Vivian.”
Roman stared.
Vivian had been held under private guard inside the guest wing.
“How did she get a phone?”
“Apparently she had two.”
Roman answered.
“What?”
Vivian was crying.
Not elegantly.
Not theatrically.
Terrified.
“You need to listen.”
“I’ve been trying that all night.”
“My father is coming.”
“Where?”
“To your house.”
“Why?”
“He thinks you found the ledger.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
“Did you send Claire outside to die?”
Vivian began sobbing.
“I sent her for the bottle.”
“Answer the question.”
“I thought they were going to scare her.”
“Who?”
“My father.”
“Who else?”
Silence.
“Vivian.”
“My father said Claire had something that belonged to him. He told me to send her somewhere isolated. He said Howard would handle the rest.”
Roman’s voice became ice.
“You knew there was a storm.”
“I didn’t know they would leave her outside.”
“You wrote, ‘She won’t return.’”
“Because that’s what my father told me to write!”
Claire stared at the phone.
Roman asked, “Who told Howard to disable security?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who was inside the carriage house?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who told your father where Thomas hid the ledger?”
Vivian stopped crying.
A different silence followed.
Then:
“Your uncle.”
Roman closed his eyes.
Salvatore.
The man who taught him to shoot.
The man who stood beside him at his father’s funeral.
The man who called him son when Roman’s own father was too busy building an empire.
Vivian whispered:
“Salvatore has been protecting my father since before we were born.”
Roman hung up.
They raced back toward Long Island.
Halfway there, Gabriel received an alarm from DeLuca House.
Wine cellar.
Motion sensor.
Someone had entered using Roman’s master code.
Then the camera activated.
Roman opened the feed.
A figure moved beneath the cellar lights.
Silver hair.
Black coat.
Salvatore DeLuca.
Roman watched his uncle approach the rack containing the family’s oldest bottles.
Salvatore removed a dusty 1990 Bellamy Reserve.
Then another man entered the frame.
Charles Mercer.
Claire whispered, “Oh my God.”
Salvatore handed Charles a hammer.
Charles raised it.
The camera went black.
Roman stared at the dead screen.
May you like
They were thirty-five minutes away.
And the ledger that could expose fifteen years of corruption was now in the hands of the two men who had spent Christmas Eve trying to kill Claire Bennett.
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