Chapter 7 - THE LAST LIE RAYMOND TOLDRaymond claimed he knew nothing about the money.
Nobody believed him.
Forty million dollars did not accidentally land inside an offshore structure created in his name.
Amelia watched his interrogation through glass.
Raymond looked exhausted.
“You're telling us Vale gave you forty million dollars and never mentioned it?” Alvarez asked.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect us to accept that?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Raymond rubbed his face.
“My father created accounts when I was a kid.”
“What accounts?”
“Insurance.”
“For what?”
“In case Vale turned against us.”
Alvarez leaned forward.
“So your father stole from Vale?”
“I think he siphoned money gradually.”
“Forty million?”
“Over twenty years, maybe.”
“Why was it moved yesterday?”
Raymond looked confused.
“I don’t know.”
Then Amelia saw it.
He genuinely did not know.
Dominic disagreed.
“He’s acting.”
“You’re assuming the worst.”
“He spent years abusing you.”
“I know exactly what he is.”
“Do you?”
Amelia turned.
The question angered her.
Dominic immediately regretted it.
“I'm sorry.”
“Raymond can be guilty of what he did to me and innocent of moving that money.”
Dominic nodded.
“You’re right.”
The investigators traced the transfer authorization.
It came from an old security protocol.
Thomas Fletcher had created a dead-man switch.
If Edward Vale disappeared, was arrested, or attempted unauthorized access to certain accounts, funds would automatically transfer to accounts controlled by Raymond.
Thomas had expected betrayal.
He had prepared for it.
Inside those accounts investigators found more than money.
Files.
Hundreds of them.
Thomas Fletcher had secretly copied Vale’s records for years.
Photographs.
Payments.
Contracts.
Audio recordings.
One file shocked everyone.
A video recorded eight years earlier.
Thomas Fletcher sat in a dim room.
He looked directly into the camera.
“My name is Thomas Fletcher. If my son is watching this, then I am probably dead.”
Raymond broke down.
The video continued.
Thomas confessed to helping Vale arrange Vincent Moretti's killing.
He admitted threatening Claire.
He admitted remaining silent while innocent people suffered.
Then he explained why.
Vale had evidence that Thomas had embezzled money years earlier and threatened Raymond’s mother.
“I told myself I was protecting my family,” Thomas said. “Truth is, I was protecting my cowardice.”
Raymond covered his face.
Thomas continued.
He described creating the hidden accounts.
Gathering evidence.
Planning eventually to expose Vale.
Then he said something unexpected.
“Raymond, if Vale ever tells you to go near Claire Hayes’s daughter, don't.”
Raymond stared at the screen.
“I did,” he whispered.
Thomas's recorded voice continued.
“That girl has already lost enough because of men like me.”
Amelia felt nothing like forgiveness.
But she felt sadness.
Generations of frightened people had repeated the same mistakes.
The video ended.
Raymond sat silently.
Then asked to speak with Amelia.
Dominic opposed it.
Amelia agreed anyway.
They met through reinforced glass.
Raymond picked up the phone.
Amelia did the same.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Finally Raymond said, “I loved you.”
“No.”
His eyes filled.
“You think everything was fake.”
“I think love without respect isn't love.”
He looked down.
“Fair.”
“You monitored me.”
“Yes.”
“Isolated me.”
“Yes.”
“Hit me.”
His eyes closed.
“Yes.”
“And every time afterward, you said it happened because you cared too much.”
“I know.”
“That wasn't love.”
“No.”
Amelia surprised herself.
There was no anger left in her voice.
Only certainty.
Raymond wiped his eyes.
“My father told me not to approach you.”
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
“Vale told you to control me.”
“Yes.”
“And eventually you became worse than the assignment required.”
Raymond nodded.
“I need to live with that.”
“You do.”
He looked at her.
“Can you forgive me?”
“No.”
He absorbed the word.
Amelia continued.
“Maybe someday I’ll stop hating what happened. Maybe someday I’ll remember parts of my life without you being attached to them. But forgiveness isn't something you get to request like paperwork.”
Raymond nodded.
“I understand.”
“You asked me to depend on you so completely I forgot I could survive alone.”
“I know.”
“But I did survive.”
“Yes.”
“And now you're going to face what you did.”
“Yes.”
Amelia placed her hand on the receiver.
“Goodbye, Raymond.”
“Amelia?”
She paused.
“I really am sorry.”
“I believe you.”
For a moment, hope entered his expression.
Then she finished.
“Being sorry doesn't erase consequences.”
She hung up.
Outside the interview room, Dominic waited.
He said nothing.
He simply walked beside her.
It was exactly what she needed.
Meanwhile, Thomas Fletcher’s files gave investigators their first clue to Vale’s escape route.
Properties.
Three remote residences.
A yacht registered through a Panamanian corporation.
And a cabin in northern Wisconsin purchased under a shell company twenty years earlier.
Amelia recognized the location.
Her mother had taken her there once.
She had been seven.
They stayed in a motel nearby.
Claire spent an entire afternoon staring across a lake.
Amelia remembered asking why.
Claire answered, “Because sometimes you need to know where monsters sleep.”
At the time, Amelia thought her mother was telling a fairy tale.
She wasn’t.
Federal agents mobilized.
Dominic wanted to go.
They refused.
Amelia wanted to go.
Everyone refused.
For once, she accepted.
At 3:12 a.m., agents surrounded the Wisconsin property.
Empty.
The fireplace was warm.
Food remained on the table.
Vale had been there minutes earlier.
Tracks led through snow to a dock.
A boat was missing.
Authorities searched the lake.
At sunrise, they found it drifting near the northern shore.
No Vale.
A bloodstain marked the deck.
For twenty-four hours, news outlets speculated that Edward Vale had died.
Dominic remained unconvinced.
“So do I,” Amelia said.
“Why?”
“Because men like Vale don't disappear without making sure somebody else takes the blame.”
They were right.
That afternoon, police received an anonymous tip.
A burned vehicle was discovered outside Milwaukee.
Inside was a body carrying Edward Vale’s passport.
Dental records initially appeared to confirm the identity.
Then Alvarez noticed something.
The dentist who supplied the records had received a two-million-dollar transfer from Vale Capital three days earlier.
The corpse was not Vale.
It belonged to his private pilot.
Vale had murdered another man to stage his death.
Again.
But this time, he made a mistake.
The pilot wore a fitness tracker.
Its location history showed where he had been before dying.
An industrial airfield outside Chicago.
Federal agents raided it.
Vale was gone.
But surveillance footage revealed another person entering a hangar with him.
Dominic watched the video.
Then stood.
“No.”
Amelia looked at the screen.
The man beside Vale was older.
Gray-haired.
Walking with a cane.
Dominic knew him.
Everyone in the Moretti family had believed he was dead for nineteen years.
Amelia looked at Dominic.
“Who is that?”
Dominic's face seemed to age instantly.
“My father.”
May you like
Salvatore Moretti was alive.
And apparently working with Edward Vale.
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