Chapter 4 - Eighty Thousand Dollars for Silence
For the first time since beginning the investigation, Carmine considered stopping.
Not because he feared Victor Sloane.
Not because someone had threatened Benny.
Because Nell had been right.
He had asked her to trust him while withholding information that directly concerned his family.
His father might have been involved.
That possibility sat heavier than any threat.
Palmira found him in the study at three in the morning.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
She poured herself water.
Carmine pushed the transfer record across the desk.
Palmira read it.
Her expression changed.
“You knew my father dealt with Sloane.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know about this?”
“No.”
“Emmett Fontaine says an Orsini was at the bakery.”
Palmira sat down slowly.
“That doesn't necessarily mean your father.”
“Who else?”
She didn't answer.
Carmine leaned forward.
“Grandmother.”
Palmira looked at him.
“Your uncle.”
Carmine froze.
“Dominic?”
She nodded.
Dominic Orsini had been his father's younger brother.
He died five years earlier.
“What was he doing there?”
“I don't know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I expect you to understand that your father spent half his life cleaning up Dominic's mistakes.”
Carmine knew that much.
Dominic had been reckless where Carmine's father was methodical.
“He worked with Sloane?”
“Sometimes.”
“On Magazine Street?”
Palmira looked toward the window.
“Your father wanted those properties. So did Sloane. Dominic believed he could make money playing both sides.”
“Did Dad pay Sloane $250,000?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“I don't know.”
Carmine stood.
“You know more.”
Palmira's voice hardened.
“Don't mistake age for dishonesty.”
“Then tell me.”
“I know your father came home furious the morning after the fire. I know he and Dominic argued. I heard your father say, ‘You were supposed to negotiate, not destroy people.’”
Carmine went still.
Palmira continued.
“Dominic left the house that afternoon.”
“Why didn't you ever tell anyone?”
“Because two days later your father told me Dominic had sworn he wasn't responsible.”
“And you believed him?”
“I believed your father wasn't sure.”
Carmine looked at the old newspaper clipping.
“Where does the $250,000 fit?”
“I don't know.”
But Benny found out.
By sunrise, he had located an old accounting memo.
The payment to Sloane wasn't investment capital.
It was a settlement.
A handwritten notation from Carmine's father read:
Return Dominic's advance. End all Magazine Street negotiations immediately.
Carmine read it three times.
His father had paid Sloane back before the fire.
That didn't prove innocence.
But it changed the timeline.
Benny found something else.
The missing fire investigator, Harold Vance, had a wife named Marjorie.
The eighty-thousand-dollar deposit came from a consulting company.
That company had received exactly eighty thousand dollars two days earlier from a Sloane subsidiary.
There it was.
Not proof of what the payment purchased.
But a trail.
Carmine called Nell.
She didn't answer.
He didn't call again.
Instead, he sent photographs of every document.
No argument.
No explanation.
Just evidence.
An hour later, his phone rang.
“What am I looking at?” Nell asked.
“The truth as far as I currently know.”
“Your father ended the deal before the fire?”
“Apparently.”
“And the eighty thousand?”
“Came through a company funded by Sloane.”
Nell was silent.
“Where are you?”
Carmine asked.
“With Dad.”
“Stay there.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody visited the house last night.”
“What house?”
“The property where you were staying.”
Her breathing stopped for a beat.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. Nobody was there. But a rear window was forced.”
Nell whispered, “They know.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don't know yet.”
“You said nobody knew about that property.”
“Almost nobody.”
The phrase hung between them.
Nell understood immediately.
“Someone inside your household.”
“Possibly.”
“Odette?”
“No.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
“How?”
“Because she gave you a job when you needed to disappear. If she wanted to expose you, she had three years.”
Nell said nothing.
Carmine continued.
“Don't leave the facility alone.”
“I don't take orders from you.”
“I know.”
“Then stop giving them.”
“All right. Please don't leave alone.”
Another silence.
“That was better,” she said.
Despite everything, Carmine almost smiled.
Benny's investigation shifted toward the Orsini staff.
Only six people knew about the safe house.
Carmine.
Benny.
Palmira.
Odette.
Two security employees.
One of those employees, Daniel Keene, had worked for the family seven years.
His record was spotless.
Too spotless, Benny said.
By afternoon they discovered why.
Keene had received monthly payments from a private security consulting company for nearly two years.
The company belonged to Victor Sloane.
Benny wanted him detained and questioned.
Carmine chose something quieter.
He invited Keene into his office.
The man arrived at five.
“Sit.”
Keene sat.
Carmine placed one photograph on the desk.
The broken safe-house window.
Keene's expression barely changed.
Then Carmine placed the bank records beside it.
That did.
“I can explain.”
Carmine leaned back.
People filled silence.
Keene did exactly that.
“It wasn't supposed to hurt anyone.”
Carmine said nothing.
“Sloane wanted information. Schedules. Meetings. Property negotiations.”
Silence.
“I never gave him anything dangerous.”
Silence.
“Last night was different.”
Carmine finally spoke.
“How?”
Keene swallowed.
“He asked where the woman was staying.”
“What woman?”
“The maid.”
Carmine's eyes hardened.
“And you told him.”
“I didn't know why he wanted it.”
“Did you know her name?”
“No.”
“Did he?”
Keene hesitated.
“Yes.”
“What name?”
“Fontaine.”
The room became very quiet.
“How long has Sloane known Eleanor Fontaine works here?”
“I don't know.”
“Guess.”
Keene looked terrified.
“At least two years.”
Carmine felt cold.
Nell hadn't hidden successfully.
She had only been left alone.
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“Why leave her alone for two years?”
Keene shook his head.
“Sloane said she didn't remember enough to matter.”
“And now?”
“He said you were making her dangerous.”
Carmine stood.
Keene immediately leaned backward.
Carmine didn't touch him.
He simply said, “Get out.”
Keene blinked.
“What?”
“Benny is waiting outside. You'll give him every password, every number, every message, every account. Then you will leave this property.”
“Carmine—”
“You should hope the authorities find your cooperation useful.”
Keene's face fell.
Benny entered.
Before he escorted Keene away, Carmine asked one final question.
“What is Sloane afraid Nell remembers?”
Keene stopped.
“I don't know.”
“Think.”
“There was one thing.”
“What?”
“He asked whether she'd ever mentioned a ledger.”
Carmine stared.
“What ledger?”
“He never said.”
That evening Carmine went to the assisted-living facility.
Nell met him outside.
“I said stay away.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because Sloane has known where you were for at least two years.”
Her anger disappeared.
Carmine told her everything.
When he mentioned the ledger, Nell's expression changed.
“What?”
She looked toward her father's window.
“My mother kept a ledger.”
“Business accounts?”
“No.”
Nell's voice became quiet.
“Her recipes.”
Carmine frowned.
“She wrote everything down. Recipes, suppliers, customer orders, notes. After she died, Dad kept using it.”
“Where is it?”
“I thought it burned.”
“Thought?”
Nell looked at him.
“The morning after the fire, Dad kept saying the same sentence.”
“What sentence?”
Nell swallowed.
“Blue book. Ellie, find the blue book.”
Carmine felt the pieces shifting.
“Did you?”
“No. The building was sealed.”
“Was anything recovered later?”
“Some boxes.”
“Where are they?”
Nell stared at him.
“In a storage unit.”
“Who has the key?”
“I do.”
Twenty minutes later, they were driving toward an old storage facility outside New Orleans.
Neither knew whether the blue ledger had survived.
But Victor Sloane had apparently spent years wondering the same thing.
May you like
And if he was afraid of a dead woman's recipe book, Carmine suspected it contained far more than recipes.
---
