Chapter 3 - What Luca Wanted Me to Forget
The statements went back almost two years.
At first, I did not recognize what I was looking at.
Payments.
Transfers.
Company names.
Dates.
My father had circled certain entries in red ink.
North Crest Development.
A company I now knew Luca had ties to.
Other names appeared repeatedly.
Wellington Consulting.
WC Property Services.
Wendy Carter.
Wendy.
My mother-in-law.
I sat inside the small private bank room with papers spread across the table.
“Why would Dad have her bank records?”
Harold shook his head.
“They’re not her bank records.”
He pointed.
“They’re public filings, lien records, business registrations and copies of payments your father made to companies connected to renovation work.”
“Dad hired Wendy?”
“No. Look at the dates.”
I did.
Several transactions occurred after my father had become too sick to manage his finances without help.
My stomach tightened.
“Who had access to his accounts?”
“You did.”
“I never touched them.”
“Luca helped you with bills for a while, didn’t he?”
I froze.
He had.
When Dad became ill, I was overwhelmed.
Hospital appointments.
Insurance calls.
My job.
Then pregnancy.
Luca offered to manage some routine payments.
He said it would take something off my plate.
I gave him access to one of Dad’s household accounts.
Only temporarily.
Or so I thought.
“How much?” I whispered.
Harold placed another sheet in front of me.
My eyes moved to the total.
$62,400.
I stared at it.
“No.”
“That’s what your father identified.”
“Luca stole sixty-two thousand dollars from him?”
“We need to confirm what each payment was for.”
“Dad knew?”
“He discovered irregularities shortly before his cancer worsened.”
“Why didn’t he report it?”
“He wanted proof first.”
Anger burned through me.
Not only at Luca.
At myself.
I had defended him.
When Dad once asked why Luca needed access to his account, I had snapped at him.
“He’s helping us, Dad.”
I remembered Dad looking tired.
“I hope so.”
I had interpreted his caution as stubbornness.
Now those words hurt more than anything Wendy had ever said.
Detective Reed joined us that afternoon.
The USB drive contained scanned invoices and photographs.
Some invoices were apparently for repairs at Dad’s property.
Roof work.
Electrical work.
Drainage.
The problem was simple.
Dad had done none of those projects.
One invoice claimed North Crest replaced the entire rear fence.
I had photographs from the same week showing Dad’s original fence.
Another listed foundation stabilization.
Dad’s foundation had never been touched.
Reed leaned back.
“Fraudulent invoices.”
“From Luca?”
“Possibly.”
“Possibly?”
“I need to follow the money.”
I hated that phrase.
Follow the money.
It sounded clinical.
As though money had wandered off by itself.
But Detective Reed was right.
And the more he followed it, the stranger things became.
North Crest Development had been formed by a man named Brent Holloway, one of Luca’s former coworkers.
Wellington Consulting was registered to Wendy.
Several payments from my father’s account went to North Crest.
Then smaller portions moved to Wellington.
Two months before Dad died, he blocked future electronic transfers.
Three weeks later, Luca began asking whether Dad planned to leave the house to both of us.
I closed my eyes.
“He knew Dad had caught him.”
“That’s one possibility,” Reed said.
“And when Dad died, he decided to take the house instead.”
“We’re investigating.”
I looked at him.
“I know you have to say that.”
“I do.”
“But you think that’s what happened.”
He did not answer.
He did not need to.
The next weeks were a strange mixture of fear and ordinary pregnancy.
I attended doctor appointments.
Bought diapers.
Met with prosecutors.
Completed paperwork for a protection order.
Woke from nightmares.
Learned how to dress around healing burns.
Avoided grocery stores near our neighborhood.
And every night, I talked to my daughter.
I named her Lily.
Luca and I had once chosen the name together.
For a while I considered changing it.
Then I realized he did not get to take that too.
“Your name is Lily,” I whispered to my stomach. “And you’re going to have a better life than this.”
Luca responded to the protection order with outrage.
His attorney filed documents suggesting I was exaggerating an accident to gain leverage in divorce proceedings.
Wendy submitted a statement claiming I had become “emotionally unstable” after my father’s death.
She described herself as a loving grandmother concerned about the unborn baby.
When Harold showed me the statement, I almost threw it across the room.
“She watched me burn.”
“I know.”
“And now she says she’s worried about Lily?”
“I know.”
“I want everyone to know what she did.”
“They will.”
“When?”
Harold looked at me.
“When knowing matters most.”
That became my rule.
Do not react when they wanted me to react.
Document.
Save.
Wait.
Luca violated the protection order indirectly.
Friends contacted me.
His cousin called.
A former coworker messaged.
Even our old pastor emailed suggesting reconciliation counseling.
The language was always similar.
Luca is devastated.
He says it was an accident.
Think about the baby.
Families survive difficult moments.
I stopped responding.
Then one evening, Mrs. Patel called.
I had not spoken with her since the ambulance.
“I hope this is okay,” she said.
“Of course.”
“I’ve been thinking about that day.”
My pulse increased.
“What about it?”
“The window.”
“What window?”
“Your kitchen window was open.”
“Yes.”
“I heard more than screaming.”
I sat down.
“What did you hear?”
“A man shouting before it happened.”
“What did he say?”
She hesitated.
“Something about signing.”
I closed my eyes.
“And after?”
“Your mother-in-law.”
“What did she say?”
Mrs. Patel’s voice became quieter.
“I heard her say, ‘Get the papers.’”
My breath caught.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Would you tell Detective Reed?”
“I already did.”
I began crying.
Not because her statement was new.
The camera had captured the same words.
But because for the first time since the attack, someone outside that kitchen had heard reality.
My reality.
Mrs. Patel continued.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“About twenty minutes before the ambulance arrived, I saw Wendy leave through the side door.”
“That can’t be right. She was there when paramedics came.”
“She returned.”
“Where did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
Detective Reed knew by the next morning.
Three days later, he called me.
“We found the property documents.”
“Where?”
“Wendy’s vehicle.”
My mouth went dry.
“She took them?”
“It appears she removed them from the kitchen after the incident, then later returned.”
“Why?”
“She may have been attempting to preserve or conceal them.”
“Which?”
“We’re determining that.”
But there was more.
The documents had my name on them.
And a signature.
My signature.
Except I had never signed.
A handwriting specialist examined it.
The signature was a forgery.
That changed the investigation dramatically.
The attack was no longer being viewed only as domestic violence.
There was potential fraud.
Forgery.
Conspiracy.
Evidence tampering.
Financial crimes.
And whatever else Detective Reed was finding inside North Crest.
One evening, Reed asked me to come to the station.
He placed a photograph in front of me.
It showed Luca leaving a bank.
The timestamp was from seven weeks before the attack.
“What am I looking at?”
“He met with a loan officer that day.”
“So?”
“He presented preliminary ownership documents for your father’s house.”
My heart pounded.
“But I hadn’t agreed.”
“No.”
“What did he show them?”
“A draft deed.”
“Signed?”
Reed hesitated.
“Yes.”
I stared.
Another forged signature.
Meaning the papers in my kitchen had not been the beginning.
They had been cleanup.
Perhaps Luca wanted a real signature because someone had questioned the fake.
“Detective.”
“Yes?”
“How long had he planned this?”
“We’re still building the timeline.”
I looked down at my scarred arm.
The question became unbearable.
If I had signed that morning, would Luca have smiled?
Would Wendy have poured more coffee?
Would we have eaten soup together?
Would I have gone on believing my husband loved me?
Reed slid another photograph across the table.
This one showed Wendy and Brent Holloway outside a title company.
“What is this?”
“The reason I asked you to come.”
He placed a financial spreadsheet beside it.
North Crest was collapsing.
Bad investments.
Unpaid contractors.
Private debt.
Personal guarantees.
Luca needed collateral urgently.
“How much debt?”
Reed answered.
“Just over nine hundred thousand dollars.”
My father’s house was worth approximately $680,000.
With other assets and refinancing, Luca believed it might be enough to keep the company alive.
“So he almost killed us because his investment failed.”
Reed’s expression hardened.
“Your refusal threatened something he had hidden for a long time.”
I stood.
I needed air.
At the doorway, Reed stopped me.
“Jessi.”
I turned.
“We recovered something else.”
“What?”
“A deleted audio file from Luca’s phone.”
My chest tightened.
“When?”
“Recorded four days before the incident.”
“Who’s speaking?”
“Luca and Wendy.”
I stared at him.
“What do they say?”
Reed’s voice remained careful.
“We’re still authenticating it.”
“What do they say?”
This time he answered.
Wendy’s voice had been recorded saying:
If she won’t sign willingly, you’ll have to make her afraid of what happens when she refuses.
I gripped the doorway.
But Luca’s answer was worse.
According to Reed, my husband had said:
After Sunday, she’ll sign whatever I put in front of her.
May you like
And suddenly the hand against my back no longer felt like an explosion of anger.
It felt like a plan.
