Chapter 2 - the friend who knew too much)
I called Jessica ten minutes after Victor left.
That decision would haunt me.
She answered on the first ring.
"What's wrong?"
"Victor was here."
Silence.
Not long.
Perhaps half a second.
But I noticed it.
"Victor? At your house?"
"He brought something that belonged to my mother."
"What?"
"Architectural plans."
Another pause.
"That's strange."
"He said they knew each other."
Jessica's voice softened immediately.
"Elena, maybe Dominic knows something."
"He just came home. He's pretending he doesn't."
"Don't confront him yet."
That should have sounded strange.
Instead, it sounded practical.
"Why?"
"Because if there's some ugly family history involved, you want information before everyone starts rewriting the story."
I looked toward the study where Dominic had disappeared.
"You think Victor was hiding something?"
"I think billionaires don't become billionaires by telling everyone everything."
She was right about that.
She was wrong about almost everything else.
Over the next two weeks, Victor refused my calls.
His assistant claimed he was traveling.
Dominic became unusually attentive.
Flowers appeared in the kitchen.
He suggested dinner.
He asked about my sleep.
He even brought up the idea of spending Christmas in Switzerland, something I had suggested for years.
It felt less like affection than surveillance.
One night, I asked him directly.
"Did my mother work for your father?"
Dominic continued cutting his steak.
"She did engineering consulting for dozens of companies."
"That's not an answer."
He sighed.
"She worked on two DeLuca projects. Maybe three."
"Why didn't anyone tell me?"
"Because it was twenty years ago."
"Your father acted as if it mattered."
"My father is dying. He's becoming sentimental."
The cruelty of the sentence shocked me.
"He's still your father."
"And he's spent seventy-eight years making everyone else's life difficult. Cancer doesn't turn him into a saint."
I stood.
Dominic looked irritated.
"Sit down, Elena."
"No."
"We're having dinner."
"You are."
I went upstairs.
Later that night, I received a message from Jessica.
Drinks tomorrow?
I almost declined.
Then she added another message.
I found something about your mom.
The following afternoon, we met at a hotel lounge in Back Bay.
Jessica arrived wearing a cream coat and enormous sunglasses.
She kissed my cheek.
"I probably shouldn't show you this."
She slid her phone across the table.
On the screen was an old newspaper archive.
Twenty-one years earlier, a waterfront structural failure had nearly destroyed one of Victor's earliest redevelopment projects.
My mother's name appeared in the article.
Rebecca Marlowe, consulting engineer.
Another name appeared beneath hers.
Victor DeLuca.
I scrolled.
The article said an anonymous whistleblower had warned regulators that inferior materials were being substituted during construction.
The project was halted.
Millions were lost.
Eventually the contractor was charged with fraud.
I looked up.
"My mother was the whistleblower?"
"I don't know."
"She must have been."
Jessica lowered her voice.
"There's more."
She opened another article.
The contractor was a company called Mercer Industrial.
I looked at her.
"Mercer?"
Jessica gave a small, uncomfortable smile.
"My father's company."
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
"My father went to prison because of that investigation."
I stared at her.
"You knew?"
"I knew my father's company had worked for Victor. I didn't know your mother was involved until yesterday."
That was the first lie she told me that I later proved beyond any doubt.
Jessica had known for years.
At the time, I believed her.
"What happened to your father?"
"He served four years. Lost everything. My parents divorced. He drank himself to death before I finished college."
"I'm sorry."
"So am I."
Her smile was bitter.
"But from everything I've read, he was guilty."
I reached across the table and touched her hand.
Jessica looked down at my fingers.
For one strange second, I thought she was going to cry.
Instead she squeezed my hand.
"Whatever happened between our parents has nothing to do with us."
I believed that too.
The next morning Victor called me.
His voice was weak.
"Come to the hospital."
I drove there alone.
Victor occupied a private suite on the top floor.
He looked smaller than he had at my house.
Machines surrounded him.
The man who had once terrified bankers and politicians now needed help lifting a glass of water.
He dismissed the nurse.
Then he asked me to lock the door.
"What did Dominic tell you about your mother?"
"Very little."
"And Jessica?"
My throat tightened.
"How do you know I spoke to Jessica?"
Victor closed his eyes.
"Because Jessica knows more about Rebecca than you do."
"What does that mean?"
He opened his eyes again.
"Your mother discovered fraud on my project. She refused my money when I offered to retain her as an advisor afterward."
"That sounds like her."
Victor smiled faintly.
"She told me I had surrounded myself with men who agreed with me because I paid them too much to disagree."
I laughed despite myself.
"That definitely sounds like her."
"She saved my company."
Then his expression changed.
"Years later, I failed to return the favor."
I stopped smiling.
"What are you talking about?"
Victor looked toward the locked door.
"Dominic knows you're here?"
"No."
"Good."
He reached beneath the blanket and removed a small brass key.
He placed it in my palm.
"Do you remember the blue room at the old estate?"
"Your wife's sitting room?"
"It hasn't been used since she died."
"What does this open?"
"You'll understand later."
"Victor, stop speaking in riddles."
"I don't have enough time left for comfort."
He gripped my wrist with surprising strength.
"Do not tell Dominic about this key."
My heart started pounding.
"What did he do?"
Victor did not answer directly.
May you like
Instead he whispered something that made every hair rise on my arms.
"He has been preparing for my death longer than I have."
