Chapter 5 - The Secret Her Father Took to His Grave
Amelia didn't sleep that night.
At six the next morning, she drove to the cemetery where her father was buried. The sky hung low and gray over Chicago, and the damp grass soaked the bottoms of her shoes as she knelt beside his headstone.
Daniel Brooks. Beloved Father. Devoted Friend.
She had chosen those words herself.
Her father had been a quiet man who repaired old furniture in their garage and brought home grocery-store flowers whenever he thought her mother needed cheering up. He had never spoken about dangerous people or secret debts. He had never owned anything more valuable than his battered pickup truck.
Yet someone had connected him to Isabella Moretti.
And that person had wanted Amelia to know.
Her phone rang.
Isabella.
“I need you to tell me the truth,” Amelia answered.
There was a long silence.
“Where are you?” Isabella asked.
“At my father's grave.”
Another silence followed, heavier than the first.
“Please don't make me explain this over the phone.”
“Then meet me.”
They met an hour later at a small diner near the cemetery. Isabella arrived alone, without her driver or security. She looked older than she had the day before.
Amelia placed the envelope between them.
“Who is Vincent?”
Isabella's face tightened. “My husband's nephew.”
“And what did he mean about my father?”
Isabella wrapped both hands around her coffee cup.
“Your father worked as an accountant for a company connected to my late husband. He was honest, meticulous, and much braver than he realized.”
Amelia stared at her.
“My father repaired furniture.”
“On weekends. During the week, he kept financial records.”
“Why didn't he ever tell me?”
“Because he discovered that money was being moved through legitimate businesses to conceal criminal payments. He believed he could expose it without putting anyone in danger.”
“And?”
“He found evidence linking several senior members of the organization to those transactions. Before he could deliver it to federal investigators, someone discovered what he was doing.”
Amelia's fingers went cold.
“Did they kill him?”
Isabella looked down.
“I don't know.”
“You don't know?”
“I was told your father died in an accident. I believed that explanation for years. But after my husband died, I learned that several financial records had disappeared. Vincent was involved in the investigation.”
Amelia pushed back from the table.
“My father died on an icy road. The police said he lost control of his truck.”
“I'm sorry.”
“Don't apologize for something you haven't told me.”
Isabella flinched.
Amelia stood, then forced herself to sit again. She wanted to leave, but she needed answers more than she needed the comfort of anger.
“What happened to the evidence?”
Isabella reached into her purse and removed an old photograph.
It showed Daniel standing outside a brick building beside a younger Isabella and a man Amelia recognized from family photographs.
Her father looked serious, but alive and unmistakably happy.
Amelia touched the image.
“Why would you have this?”
“Your father gave it to me. He asked me to keep it if anything happened to him.”
“Did you know he had a daughter?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever try to contact me?”
Isabella's eyes filled with tears.
“Once. I went to your mother's house, but she wouldn't let me in. She told me Daniel had made mistakes and that she wanted nothing to do with the people connected to his work.”
Amelia remembered her mother's sudden anger whenever anyone mentioned her father's job. She remembered the locked drawer in the bedroom and the way her mother had cried alone after receiving an unmarked envelope.
There had been secrets in her childhood.
She simply hadn't known their shape.
“Where is the evidence?” Amelia asked.
“I don't know. Your father told me he had made a copy and hidden it somewhere safe.”
“Did he tell you where?”
“No.”
Amelia closed her eyes.
For nineteen years, she had believed her father's death was a tragedy without a villain.
Now she had a possible motive, a dangerous family, and a cousin who was threatening her over a building she could barely afford.
“Why did Vincent wait until now?”
Isabella hesitated.
“Because someone recently discovered that your father's records may still exist.”
“Who?”
“I believe Adrian has been searching for them.”
Amelia looked up sharply.
“Your son knew?”
“He knew about the missing records. I don't think he knew your identity until he investigated you.”
“Does he know my father might have been murdered?”
“I don't know.”
Amelia rose again.
“I need to speak to him.”
Isabella reached for her wrist, then stopped herself before touching the bruises left by the boutique guards.
“Please be careful.”
“I'm tired of everyone telling me to be careful while refusing to tell me what I'm standing in the middle of.”
She walked out into the cold morning.
Across the street, a man sitting in a parked car lowered his phone after photographing her.
He sent the image to Vincent Moretti.
The reply came immediately.
She knows about Daniel.
May you like
A second message followed.
Find the evidence before Adrian does. And if the girl gets in the way, stop being polite.
