Chapter 3 - The Accident Wasn't an Accident
Adelaide did not sleep that night.
She returned to the Jones mansion shortly after midnight, walked past Evelyn without speaking, ignored Chloe's questions, and locked herself inside her bedroom.
Then she opened the box.
The medal lay beneath her mother's pearls.
Half of Saint Christopher.
Broken diagonally through the center.
Adelaide had spent years believing it belonged to her mother.
Now she remembered.
A boy.
Hospital lights.
A trembling hand.
“You can keep half. Then neither of us has to be scared alone.”
She sat on the floor.
Mateo Moretti had been that boy.
But another memory had surfaced too.
Blood on his shirt.
Why had Mateo been in the trauma ward?
The answer arrived the following morning.
Mateo came personally.
The entire Jones household seemed to freeze when his black sedan stopped outside.
Chloe descended the staircase wearing cream silk.
Apparently she had decided Mateo needed to see what he had missed.
“Mr. Moretti.”
She offered a radiant smile.
Mateo walked past her.
“Adelaide.”
Chloe's smile disappeared.
Adelaide entered carrying the broken medal.
Mateo saw it immediately.
For one suspended moment, the intimidating man everyone feared looked twenty years younger.
“You kept it.”
“So did you.”
Rockford appeared behind Chloe.
His face drained of color.
Not when he saw Mateo.
When he saw the medal.
Adelaide noticed.
So did Mateo.
“Dad?”
Rockford recovered quickly.
“What is that?”
“You know what it is.”
“No.”
His answer was too fast.
Mateo's expression hardened.
“Interesting.”
Evelyn entered.
“What is going on?”
Adelaide turned to her father.
“The night Mom died, Mateo was at the same hospital.”
Rockford said nothing.
“Why?”
Mateo answered.
“Because my father was in your mother's car.”
Silence swallowed the foyer.
Adelaide stared at him.
“What?”
“Not inside it. Following it.”
Mateo explained slowly.
His father, Antonio Moretti, had been meeting secretly with Adelaide's mother, Margaret Jones.
Not romantically.
Professionally.
Margaret had discovered irregularities inside Jones Financial.
Money laundering.
Political payoffs.
Fraud.
She had approached Antonio because some of the accounts were using Moretti-owned businesses without authorization.
They arranged to meet.
Margaret never arrived.
Her brakes failed on Storrow Drive.
Antonio's vehicle, following several hundred yards behind, crashed while trying to avoid the wreckage.
Mateo had been riding with his father.
Antonio survived.
Mateo suffered a fractured arm and deep cuts.
Nine-year-old Adelaide nearly died.
Her mother did.
Adelaide turned toward Rockford.
Her father looked suddenly old.
“You told me Mom fell asleep driving.”
“I told you what the police concluded.”
“No.”
Adelaide's voice shook.
“You told me what you needed me to believe.”
Evelyn stepped forward.
“This is absurd.”
Mateo looked at her.
“Is it?”
Something in his tone silenced her.
Rockford poured himself a drink at ten in the morning.
Adelaide watched his hand shake.
“Did you kill her?”
The glass stopped halfway to his mouth.
“No.”
“Did you know someone wanted her dead?”
“No.”
“Are you lying?”
Rockford slammed the glass down.
“I loved your mother!”
Adelaide flinched.
Mateo did not.
“Love doesn't answer the question.”
Rockford glared at him.
“You have no right to come into my house—”
Mateo moved so quickly Rockford stopped.
He didn't touch him.
He didn't need to.
“Your house currently exists because I haven't collected the debt against it.”
Rockford went silent.
Mateo turned back to Adelaide.
“There's something else.”
He handed her a photograph.
It showed Margaret Jones leaving a restaurant.
Beside her stood Antonio Moretti.
Behind them, partly obscured by a parked car, was another man.
Adelaide recognized him.
Senator Harrison Whitmore.
Preston's father.
Her stomach dropped.
“Why was he there?”
“We don't know.”
Chloe suddenly spoke.
“That's ridiculous. Senator Whitmore barely knew our family then.”
Mateo looked at her.
“Are you sure?”
“Preston told me.”
“That's not an answer.”
Chloe's cheeks reddened.
Adelaide studied the photograph.
On the back was a date.
The night before the crash.
She looked at her father.
“Mom discovered something involving the Whitmores.”
Rockford stared into his drink.
Mateo's voice became colder.
“That's what I believe.”
Evelyn crossed her arms.
“And what exactly does this ancient tragedy have to do with fifteen million dollars?”
“Everything.”
Mateo produced another document.
“The missing funds were transferred through the same offshore network Margaret Jones identified seventeen years ago.”
Adelaide felt the room tilt.
The past wasn't returning accidentally.
Someone had reopened it.
Or perhaps it had never closed.
Mateo faced Rockford.
“Someone is using your company to move money through accounts tied to Harrison Whitmore.”
“I didn't authorize those transfers.”
“Your signature says otherwise.”
“My signature was forged.”
Mateo studied him.
For the first time, Adelaide thought her father might be telling the truth.
Then Chloe's phone buzzed.
She glanced down.
A message preview appeared.
Adelaide happened to be standing close enough to see the sender.
PRESTON.
And the first words.
Did Moretti find the ledger?
Chloe immediately locked the screen.
Too late.
Adelaide had seen it.
So had Mateo.
His eyes met hers.
Neither spoke.
Chloe began backing toward the staircase.
Mateo quietly said her name.
“Chloe.”
She stopped.
He held out his hand.
“Give Adelaide your phone.”
Chloe laughed nervously.
“Absolutely not.”
Mateo did not move.
Adelaide looked at the sister who had laughed about her death three nights earlier.
“What ledger?”
Chloe's face changed.
And Adelaide understood something terrifying.
Chloe hadn't merely known about the missing money.
She was afraid of what Mateo might discover.
May you like
“Chloe,” Adelaide whispered.
“What did you and Preston do?”
