Chapter 5: The Price of Silence
Clara gripped the phone.
“Let me hear Julia.”
“Clara, don’t come,” Julia cried.
“He can’t—”
The line went silent.
Nico reached for his keys.
“We go together.”
“He said alone.”
“Vincent lies even when the truth would serve him.”
Salvatore picked up his cane.
“My board is meeting at headquarters.
He will use them as witnesses and make Clara look unstable.”
“Then we give them something worth witnessing,” Gabriel said.
An hour later, Clara entered Falcone Hospitality carrying the tape recorder.
Nico and Salvatore waited one floor below while Gabriel remained with a state investigator Salvatore had finally called.
Vincent stood at the head of the boardroom table.
Julia sat near the window beside two company attorneys.
Clara rushed toward her.
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.
He threatened my job and locked the elevator.”
Vincent smiled.
“No one locked anything.
Julia came to discuss a settlement.”
Julia pushed a document away.
“He offered me two hundred thousand dollars to say Margaret invented the letter.”
A gray-haired board member removed his glasses.
“Vincent, is that true?”
“She misunderstood a compassionate offer.”
Clara set the recorder on the table.
“Did your mother misunderstand you too?”
Vincent’s smile tightened.
“That machine proves nothing.
Old tape can be edited.”
“You said you had never spoken to Margaret.”
“I said no such thing.”
Clara pulled out her phone.
“You said she promised to destroy my pendant.”
“You were upset.”
“So were the restaurant cameras.”
Vincent looked toward his attorneys.
One rose.
“This meeting is over.”
The elevator opened.
Two officers entered with a man in a dark suit.
Vincent spread his hands.
“Perfect timing.
This woman broke into company property and stole confidential records.”
The officer approached Clara.
“Miss Bennett, we need you to surrender the recorder.”
Nico stepped from the elevator.
“On what authority?”
“A court order.”
Vincent leaned toward Clara.
“Your mother learned too late that evidence belongs to whoever controls the room.”
The officer sealed the recorder in a bag.
Clara looked at Salvatore.
“Do something.”
Salvatore spoke to the board.
“Vincent started the Lucia’s fjre.”
Vincent laughed.
“My father is confused.
His physician documented cognitive decline.”
A doctor entered behind the attorneys and placed a file on the table.
“I advised Mr.
Falcone to resign six months ago,” he said.
Salvatore’s fingers tightened around his cane.
Board members began whispering.
Vincent slid a folder toward them.
“I have also discovered payments from Margaret Bennett to Gabriel Ruiz.
They were working together.”
Clara opened the folder.
Copies of checks carried Margaret’s signature.
“They’re forged.”
“Your mother was convicted,” Vincent said.
“Gabriel has been hiding under a false identity.
And now you have entered a condemned building to manufacture evidence.”
One by one, board members closed their folders.
Vincent looked at Nico.
“Security will escort you both out.”
Mr.
Bellucci stepped from the elevator holding a tablet.
“No,” he said.
“Security will remain where it is.”
Vincent’s face changed.
“This is not your restaurant.”
“But the cameras are mine.” Bellucci placed the tablet on the table.
“You accessed our security system tonight, photographed Clara, and ordered an employee to erase the footage.”
The employee appeared behind him.
Vincent pointed toward the door.
“You’re fired.”
“I resigned ten minutes ago,” the young man said.
“After I copied every message you sent.”
The board member put his glasses back on.
Vincent seized the tape recorder’s evidence bag from the officer and threw it to the floor.
His heel came down once, then again.
Plastic cracked beneath his shoe.
Clara did not move.
Vincent looked at her.
“Now you have nothing.”
She lifted her pendant.
“No,” she said.
“Now I know what you’re afraid of.”
A narrow strip of paper had slipped from its opened brass casing.
May you like
Printed across it were four words:
FIRST NATIONAL—BOX 117.
