Chapter 4 - Leo's Hands
"Take your hand out."
Roman's voice was quiet.
Daniel froze.
Harper stopped breathing.
Beatrice stood near the library doorway, unable to hear the words but perfectly capable of reading the danger in three faces.
Roman repeated himself.
"Slowly."
Daniel withdrew his hand.
He wasn't holding a weapon.
He was holding a phone.
"I was going to call my attorney."
Roman stared at him.
"That's not reassuring."
Daniel placed the phone on the desk.
"I didn't access Northstar."
"The credentials were yours."
"I know."
Harper stepped forward.
"My brother filed a security complaint connected to your account two days before he died."
Daniel looked at her.
"I never met your brother."
"Convenient."
"It's the truth."
Roman picked up the report.
"Then explain."
Daniel sat.
For fifteen years he had been part of Roman's life.
First as a corporate security consultant.
Then as head of personal security after a series of threats against Beatrice.
Roman trusted very few people.
Daniel had been one of them.
But trust, Harper was beginning to understand, was exactly what made betrayal possible.
Daniel rubbed a hand over his face.
"Six years ago, I was investigating internal theft."
"Why wasn't I told?" Roman asked.
"Your uncle authorized it."
Roman stiffened.
"Uncle Sal?"
Daniel nodded.
Salvatore Moretti was Anthony's younger brother.
After Anthony's death, Salvatore had helped Beatrice raise Roman and had served as temporary chairman of the company until Roman was old enough to assume control.
He was family.
Which made Daniel's next sentence worse.
"Sal gave me access to Northstar."
Harper frowned.
"Using your credentials?"
"Yes."
"Then who used them?"
"I don't know."
Roman leaned forward.
"You expect me to believe somebody stole your login and happened to use it against records connected to my father?"
"No. I expect you to investigate me."
Daniel pushed his phone toward Roman.
"Everything. Accounts. Travel. Emails. Six years ago, twenty years ago. I won't stop you."
Roman studied him.
Beatrice walked into the room.
She signed to Harper.
Ask him about Victor.
Harper did.
Daniel's reaction was immediate.
He looked at Beatrice.
"You know about Victor Dane?"
Roman noticed.
"Why shouldn't she?"
Daniel hesitated.
"Because Victor isn't missing."
The room went silent.
"Where is he?" Roman asked.
"Chicago."
Roman's chair scraped backward.
"You knew?"
"I found him eleven years ago."
"And said nothing?"
"Your mother asked me not to."
Roman turned toward Beatrice.
She didn't deny it.
The betrayal on Roman's face hurt Harper to watch.
"Why?"
Beatrice signed slowly.
Harper translated.
"Because Victor contacted her after your father died."
Roman looked stunned.
"What did he want?"
"To warn her."
"About what?"
Beatrice walked to the wooden box and removed an old letter.
This one was different from the threatening messages.
It was handwritten.
Harper read it aloud.
"Beatrice, Anthony found evidence that someone inside the company had been moving money through shell corporations. He thought he knew who. If anything happens to him, don't trust anyone simply because they share his name."
Roman's eyes moved to the final sentence.
"His name."
Harper understood first.
"Family."
Beatrice nodded.
Roman sat again.
For almost three decades, he'd believed his father's enemies had come from outside.
Now the evidence pointed inward.
Harper thought about Leo.
Her brother had always told her that the most dangerous lies were the ones surrounded by enough truth to look harmless.
She suddenly remembered his old laptop.
It had been sitting in a storage box at her mother's assisted-living apartment for six years.
"I need to see my mom."
Roman stood.
"I'm coming."
"No."
"Harper."
"My mother doesn't need six security guards entering her room."
"Two."
"One."
"Three."
"One, and he stays outside."
Roman stared at her.
"Fine."
"That was suspiciously easy."
"I intend to be the one."
Harper sighed.
An hour later, Roman Moretti—whose name could silence a luxury restaurant—was sitting awkwardly in a floral armchair while Harper's mother, Evelyn Hayes, asked him whether he was married.
"Mom."
"What?"
"You've known him four minutes."
Evelyn shrugged.
"I'm seventy-one. Efficiency matters."
Roman almost choked on his coffee.
Harper found Leo's belongings in a closet.
His laptop was there.
So were notebooks, college photographs, and a faded blue hoodie that still carried a trace of a memory Harper couldn't name.
She sat on the floor.
Roman didn't speak.
He simply sat beside her.
"Everyone stopped saying his name," Harper whispered.
"People think silence helps."
"It doesn't."
"No."
She looked at him.
"You know?"
"My father."
That was all he needed to say.
They opened Leo's laptop.
The battery was dead.
Roman found a charger.
It took nearly twenty minutes before the old computer came alive.
Most files were ordinary.
School assignments.
Photographs.
Music.
Work schedules.
Then Harper found a folder called HANDS.
It was password protected.
She smiled through tears.
"I know the password."
Roman waited.
Harper typed:
SAYITWITHYOURHANDS
The folder opened.
Inside were dozens of scanned documents.
Moretti documents.
Roman leaned closer.
"What the hell?"
Harper opened the first.
Financial transfers.
The second.
Property deeds.
The third.
A letter written by Anthony Moretti.
Roman read silently.
Anthony had discovered money disappearing from company accounts.
He believed someone close to him was responsible.
He planned to confront that person after a board meeting.
The date of that board meeting was the day before his fatal crash.
Roman's hands tightened.
Harper touched his wrist.
He looked at her.
For a second, neither moved.
Then the laptop chimed.
Another file appeared.
A video.
Leo sat in front of the camera.
Harper covered her mouth.
Six years disappeared.
There he was.
Twenty-two.
Messy hair.
Quick smile.
Hands moving as he signed while speaking aloud.
"Harper, if you're watching this, something went wrong."
Her tears came immediately.
Roman reached toward her but stopped.
Harper took his hand herself.
Leo continued.
"I found records somebody has been trying to erase for years. I don't know why they matter yet. But a man came to Northstar asking about the Moretti files."
Leo held up a photograph.
Roman leaned toward the screen.
Harper whispered, "Do you know him?"
Roman didn't answer.
Because he did.
The man in Leo's photograph was Salvatore Moretti.
Roman's uncle.
The man who had helped raise him.
Then Leo signed one final sentence.
"Harper, if anything happens to me, don't trust the man who says he's protecting the family."
The video ended.
Roman's phone rang.
He answered.
His face changed.
"What?"
A pause.
"When?"
Another pause.
Roman looked toward Harper.
Then he said the words that turned every discovery into an emergency.
May you like
"My mother is gone."
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