Chapter 8 - The Truth Leo Buried
Leo did not deny the statement.
He sat across from Dominic in a private room while Mateo rested with a child specialist nearby. Norah remained present because Dominic had asked her to stay.
"Start at the beginning," Dominic said.
Leo rubbed his palms together.
"Elena came to me the afternoon before the accident. She was frightened. She said Victoria had been threatening her and that Bennett was helping her."
"Helping her do what?"
"Get Mateo away from the family."
Dominic stared at him.
"Why?"
"Because Elena discovered financial records showing that Victoria's family had been moving money through companies connected to your businesses. She believed they were using your name to cover transactions you knew nothing about."
Norah listened carefully.
Leo explained that Elena had planned to meet a lawyer and turn over the records. She feared Victoria would use Mateo as leverage.
"So you helped her leave?" Norah asked.
"I arranged a car. I thought I was protecting her."
"What happened next?"
"Victoria found out."
Leo said he had been summoned to the estate that evening. By the time he returned to the road, the accident had already occurred.
He found Elena alive in the wreckage.
He called for help.
Then Bennett arrived.
"He told me he would get her to the hospital," Leo said. "He said the police would ask questions about the financial records and that Dominic would be implicated."
"You believed him?" Dominic asked.
"I was afraid of what would happen if the records came out."
"So you let him take her."
Leo lowered his head.
"Yes."
Dominic stood so abruptly that his chair scraped backward.
For a moment, Norah thought he would strike Leo.
Instead, he gripped the table until his knuckles whitened.
"You watched my sister disappear."
"I did."
"And you let me blame myself."
"I did."
"Why?"
Leo's eyes filled.
"Because I was a coward."
The answer left no room for excuses.
Dominic turned toward the window.
He had spent years punishing himself for an accident that might have been arranged, while the people who had manipulated the evidence continued to live comfortably.
But the truth did not erase his guilt.
He had driven too fast that night. He had argued with Elena. He had allowed his anger to control him.
Norah could see him wrestling with the difference between responsibility and blame.
"Did she survive?" he asked.
Leo looked up.
"I don't know."
"Did you see her die?"
"No."
"Did you see a body?"
"No."
Dominic's voice became a whisper.
"Then all these years, nobody actually proved she was dead."
Leo nodded.
Norah felt a chill move through her.
There had been an official death certificate, a closed investigation, and a funeral with a sealed casket. Dominic had never seen his sister's face.
He had trusted the people who told him what happened.
Now he had reason to question all of them.
An investigator entered the room with an update.
The property where Mateo had been found contained records linking it to a medical consulting company owned by Bennett. Several documents appeared to have been altered, and authorities were examining whether the child had been unlawfully concealed.
But the most important discovery was a photograph found in the study.
It showed Victoria standing beside a woman whose face was partially obscured.
The woman wore a scarf over her hair.
On her wrist was a thin silver bracelet.
Dominic recognized it.
Elena had worn that bracelet every day since she was sixteen.
He took the photograph with both hands.
"Where was this taken?"
The investigator pointed to the date stamped on the reverse.
Six months after the supposed accident.
Norah watched Dominic's face collapse.
For three years, he had grieved a sister who might still be alive.
"Find her," he said.
The investigator cautioned him that the photograph needed verification. They couldn't assume the woman was Elena, and they couldn't risk alerting anyone who might move her again.
Dominic agreed, though every muscle in his body seemed to resist waiting.
Later, Norah found him alone in the corridor outside Mateo's room.
He was holding Elena's letter.
"I don't know how to face him," Dominic said.
"Mateo?"
"He asked where his mother was. I didn't know what to tell him."
"You told him the truth as far as you knew it."
"What if she's dead?"
"Then you'll help him grieve. What if she's alive?"
Dominic looked at her.
"Then I have to explain why I stopped looking."
Norah sat beside him.
"You were given a story. You believed it because you were already blaming yourself. That doesn't make you a monster."
He stared at the floor.
"I've hurt people."
"Yes."
He looked up, startled by her bluntness.
Norah continued.
"And you can stop. You can take responsibility for what you've done without using it as an excuse to keep doing it."
For a long time, Dominic said nothing.
Then he reached for her hand.
He didn't grip it.
He simply held it, carefully, as though he had finally understood that another person's presence was not something he could demand.
Norah let him.
The investigator returned an hour later.
They had identified the woman in the photograph.
Her name was listed in a private medical facility's records under an alias.
But the record contained a detail that made Norah's stomach turn.
The woman had been admitted after a serious accident.
Her original patient file had been sealed by Dr. Samuel Bennett.
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And the attending nurse's name was Norah Hayes.
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