Chapter 9 - THE WOMAN IN THE RED COAT|
Martin Vale agreed to cooperate only after Detective Torres arranged for him to speak with federal investigators.
The news should have relieved me.
Instead, it made me uneasy.
If Vincent wasn't the person giving orders, then someone powerful enough to frighten Vincent had been watching Elena for months.
I sat in the hospital cafeteria the following morning, staring at a cup of coffee that had gone cold.
Ava sat across from me.
“You haven't slept.”
“I've slept.”
“How long?”
I didn't answer.
She sighed.
“Nico, you can't help Elena if you collapse.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
I almost smiled.
“It appears to be a family habit.”
Ava studied me.
Then she reached across the table.
“I loved Elena like a sister.”
“I know.”
“I still do.”
I looked at her.
“Why didn't you tell me she was struggling?”
Ava's expression hardened.
“Because she asked me not to.”
I nodded slowly.
“Fair.”
She took a breath.
“But there's something I didn't tell you.”
I waited.
“She came to the foundation six weeks ago.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“She wanted legal advice.”
“About what?”
Ava looked at her hands.
“A custody agreement.”
The words struck me.
“Custody?”
“She wanted to make sure you couldn't take the baby away from her.”
I stared.
Ava's eyes filled.
“She was terrified that once you learned about the pregnancy, you'd use your money and lawyers to control everything.”
I looked away.
Once again, I had become exactly the kind of man Elena feared.
“She asked whether your family could challenge her fitness as a mother.”
Ava's voice broke.
“She asked whether being poor would count against her.”
I closed my eyes.
Elena had lived in a mansion with me.
She'd never worried about money during our marriage.
But after I divorced her, she'd insisted on supporting herself.
She returned to teaching.
She took extra shifts at the literacy center.
And she'd worried that the same wealth I'd once used to spoil her might be used to take away her child.
I pressed my hands against my face.
Ava continued.
“I told her that money alone doesn't determine custody.”
“I told her she had rights.”
I lowered my hands.
“Thank you.”
Ava shook her head.
“Don't thank me.”
“Make sure she never has to ask that question again.”
“I will.”
Later that morning, Elena was cleared to leave the higher-monitoring unit and continue recovery in a private room.
Her headache had improved.
The bruising remained visible, but she was alert and able to walk short distances with assistance.
She insisted on washing her hair.
She also insisted on wearing her own clothes.
The nurse helped her change into a loose blue sweater and soft black pants.
When I entered, she was sitting beside the window.
For one second, she looked like the woman who used to sit on the window seat in our bedroom reading novels.
Then she turned.
“Don't stare.”
I blinked.
“Sorry.”
“You look like you've seen a ghost.”
“Sometimes I think I have.”
Her expression softened.
I placed a paper bag on the table.
“Breakfast.”
She opened it.
Inside were pancakes.
Burned slightly around the edges.
Uneven.
Possibly the ugliest pancakes ever prepared in a luxury kitchen.
Elena stared.
Then she started laughing.
I hadn't heard that laugh in ninety-three days.
I knew because I'd counted.
“Oh my God, Nico.”
“They're better than last time.”
She lifted one.
It bent strangely in the middle.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
She took a bite.
Her eyes widened.
I leaned forward.
“Well?”
She chewed carefully.
Then swallowed.
“They're terrible.”
I laughed.
“I knew it.”
“But you made them.”
“Yes.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
“Thank you.”
Two words.
Nothing more.
Yet they meant more than every expensive gift I'd ever bought her.
At eleven, Detective Torres arrived with an FBI agent named Rebecca Sloan.
Sloan was tall, serious, and carried a folder thick enough to make me nervous.
She introduced herself to Elena first.
Then to me.
“Mr. Marchetti, we believe your family organization may be connected to a long-running federal investigation.”
I leaned back.
“I assumed that was inevitable.”
Sloan didn't smile.
“We're interested in Vincent Moretti, Hawthorne Advisory Group, and several individuals associated with the Crown network.”
Elena looked up.
“The Crown network?”
Sloan nodded.
“An informal name used by a group of financial facilitators who helped conceal illegal transactions through legitimate businesses.”
I remembered the symbol.
A black crown.
“The people who threatened Elena?”
“Some of them.”
“Who runs it?”
Sloan exchanged a glance with Torres.
“We believe the current leader is a woman named Margaret Whitcomb.”
I frowned.
The name sounded familiar.
Then I remembered.
Margaret Whitcomb had served as my father's private legal adviser.
She'd retired from public practice nearly twenty years earlier.
She was seventy years old.
And she had attended my mother's funeral.
I stared at Sloan.
“You're saying Margaret Whitcomb ordered these threats?”
“We're investigating that possibility.”
“Why?”
“Because Martin Vale identified her as the person who approved the surveillance of Elena.”
Elena's face went pale.
I thought of the elderly woman who used to bring Christmas presents to our house.
Who'd praised Elena's wedding dress.
Who'd held her hand during our wedding reception and told her she had finally brought light into the Marchetti family.
I felt sick.
“Where is she?”
Sloan closed the folder.
“That's what we're trying to determine.”
I looked at Ava, who had just entered.
Her expression had changed.
“What?” I asked.
She swallowed.
“Margaret called me yesterday.”
Sloan turned immediately.
“What did she say?”
Ava looked between us.
“She asked whether Elena was awake.”
My stomach tightened.
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing.”
Ava's voice trembled.
“She said she was organizing a charity luncheon and wanted to send flowers.”
Sloan leaned forward.
“Did she mention anything else?”
Ava hesitated.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“She asked whether Elena had remembered the woman in the red coat.”
Elena made a small sound.
We all turned toward her.
She had gone completely still.
“Elena?” I whispered.
Her eyes were fixed on the wall.
“I remember.”
“What?”
“The garage.”
Her breathing quickened.
“Claire was wearing a red coat.”
“Yes,” Torres said gently.
“But she wasn't the only woman there.”
My blood ran cold.
Elena lifted one hand toward her injured temple.
“There was another woman.”
“Older.”
“Silver hair.”
“She came out of the elevator.”
Sloan leaned forward.
“Elena, take your time.”
Elena began trembling.
“She smiled at me.”
I reached for her hand.
“What did she say?”
Elena closed her eyes.
Then she whispered, “She said my mother had been a very inconvenient woman.”
A terrible silence filled the room.
“Did you recognize her?” Sloan asked.
Elena nodded.
“I didn't at first.”
“Then she took off her glasses.”
Tears streamed down Elena's face.
“She was at our wedding.”
I felt the room closing around me.
Margaret Whitcomb.
The woman who'd known my father.
The woman who'd known my mother.
The woman who'd spent decades moving quietly through my family's life.
Elena looked directly at me.
“Nico, she told me your mother wasn't the first woman they silenced.”
May you like
Then she swallowed.
“She said my mother was the second.”
