Chapter 7 - WHAT HAPPENED TO MY FATHERSamuel Price sat behind thick glass when I saw him again.
No expensive overcoat.
No polished office.
No assistant bringing coffee.
Just a gray detention uniform and a lawyer sitting two chairs away.
Agent Sloan sat beside me.
Dante waited in another room because I asked him to.
This was mine.
Samuel smiled when he saw me.
"Elena."
"Don't."
His smile faded.
"You wanted me here. Talk."
His attorney cleared his throat.
"My client is prepared to provide information under a proffer agreement—"
"I don't care about your agreement."
Sloan touched my arm lightly.
I leaned back.
Samuel studied me.
"You have your grandmother's temperament."
"She hated you."
"Eventually."
"Tell me about my father."
He sighed.
"Your father was idealistic."
"Was?"
"He believed truth was inherently valuable."
"It usually is."
"Truth destroys people too."
"Did you kill him?"
His attorney immediately interrupted.
"My client will not answer a question framed—"
Samuel raised one hand.
Then looked at me.
"No."
I felt disappointed.
Not relieved.
"Did you cause his accident?"
A longer pause.
"I didn't intend for him to die."
Agent Sloan became very still.
Samuel's attorney whispered, "Don't answer."
Samuel ignored him.
"I followed Jonathan from the diner."
"Thomas saw you."
"I know."
"What happened?"
"Jonathan had documents."
"What documents?"
"Proof my father had forged collateral records. Proof I had continued manipulating accounts."
"So you chased him."
"I wanted the documents."
"How?"
"I called him repeatedly. He refused to stop."
Samuel looked down.
"At an intersection, I pulled alongside him."
My heartbeat pounded in my ears.
"I tried to force him toward the shoulder."
My eyes filled with tears.
"It was raining. He lost control."
My mother had always told us Dad's car hydroplaned.
Technically, perhaps it had.
But because Samuel forced him off the road.
"You left him there."
Samuel didn't answer.
"You watched my father's car crash and left."
"I panicked."
"You were thirty-eight years old."
"I had children."
"So did he."
He looked away.
"You threatened my family."
"I said things."
"You tried to burn my home."
"No."
I stared at him.
"What?"
Samuel's expression changed.
"I did not order Bellavista burned."
Sloan spoke.
"Craig Danner received money through a Price-linked company."
"I paid Danner for other work. I didn't order the fire."
"Then who did?"
Samuel leaned toward the glass.
"That's why I demanded Elena come."
A chill ran down my spine.
"There is someone else."
"Who?"
Samuel smiled sadly.
"Your husband has probably already figured it out."
I stood.
"Who?"
"My partner."
"What partner?"
"The person who gave me access to the Moretti guarantees."
My blood went cold.
Someone connected to Dante.
Samuel continued.
"I controlled the Bennett side. My partner controlled Dante."
"Name."
Samuel hesitated.
Then:
"Victor Kane."
Dante's attorney.
The man who had carried the divorce paperwork.
The man standing at my baby shower when I first noticed the forged deed.
I remembered him stepping forward.
Dante telling him to leave.
My stomach twisted.
"Victor forged Dante's guarantee?"
Samuel nodded.
"And provided internal company records."
"Why burn Bellavista?"
"The ledger implicated both of us. Victor panicked after I was arrested."
Sloan stood.
She was already reaching for her phone.
"Where is Victor now?"
Samuel smiled.
"That's the problem."
Within sixty seconds, agents were moving.
Victor's apartment was empty.
His office had been cleared.
His primary phone sat inside a trash can three blocks from Grand Central.
Dante's company discovered a missing encrypted laptop.
One containing financial records.
Victor had been planning an escape.
But he needed money.
A lot of it.
At 4:17 p.m., investigators learned he'd transferred eleven million dollars from an offshore account connected to Samuel's network.
At 5:02, they traced a charter-flight reservation.
Teterboro to Lisbon.
Departure: 7:40 p.m.
Federal agents raced to the airport.
The aircraft was there.
Victor wasn't.
His luggage was.
Decoy.
At 6:11, my mother called me.
"Elena?"
Her voice sounded strange.
"Mom?"
"I'm sorry."
My skin prickled.
"What's wrong?"
A man's voice replaced hers.
"Hello, Elena."
Victor.
Every muscle in my body froze.
"Where is my mother?"
"Safe."
I gestured frantically toward Sloan.
She motioned for the technical team.
"Let me talk to her."
Mom's voice returned.
"I'm okay, sweetheart."
Then Victor again.
"I need the blue ledger."
"The FBI has it."
"I know."
"Then why call me?"
"Because you're going to convince them to exchange it."
"For my mother?"
"Correct."
"You know they won't."
"They will if you explain the alternative."
My hand shook.
Dante entered the room.
I mouthed Victor.
His face changed.
Victor continued.
"You have ninety minutes."
"Where?"
"You'll receive instructions."
He disconnected.
Sloan immediately started giving orders.
I looked at Dante.
"This is because of you."
Pain hit his face.
I regretted the words instantly.
Not because they were entirely false.
Victor had access through him.
But Victor had chosen this.
Samuel had chosen this.
Dante had not chosen their crimes.
"I'm sorry," I whispered.
He shook his head.
"Don't."
Sloan interrupted.
"We traced the call for seven seconds. Northern Westchester."
Bellavista was in northern Westchester.
I looked at her.
"No."
Sloan frowned.
"What?"
"Victor burned the east wing. He searched the estate before. He knows the layout."
Dante understood.
"He's at Bellavista."
Twenty minutes later, surveillance drones confirmed a vehicle hidden near the carriage house.
Victor had taken my mother back to the place he'd tried to destroy.
Why?
Then I remembered the conservatory.
The hidden compartment.
"The ledger isn't the only thing he wants."
Sloan looked at me.
"What else?"
I thought about Grandmother's note.
Bellavista proves what his family did.
Not Samuel's family.
His family.
Maybe she had meant more than one.
"Victor Kane's father."
I turned to Thomas, who had been brought back for questioning earlier.
"Did my grandmother know the Kane family?"
Thomas stared at me.
"Victor's father was Harold Price's accountant."
Everything clicked.
The scheme wasn't inherited by one son.
May you like
It had been inherited by two.
And Bellavista contained evidence capable of destroying both their families.
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