Chapter 2 - The Secret Behind Derek's Perfect Life
Lena did not believe Vincent at first.
She couldn't.
Believing him meant accepting that nearly everything she understood about her father's death might have been a lie.
Michael Hart had died on a rainy highway outside Newark twelve years earlier.
Lena remembered the police officer standing in her mother's kitchen.
She remembered her mother dropping a plate.
She remembered the funeral.
She remembered people saying things like God's plan and terrible accident because people often say useless things when they don't know what else to say.
Her mother died three years later after a long illness.
Lena had been twenty-three.
By twenty-seven, she married Derek.
She had thought she was finally building another family.
Now Vincent Moretti was telling her Derek somehow connected to the night she lost the first one.
“That doesn't make sense.”
Lena sat upright in the hospital bed.
Her arm had been stabilized, and medication softened the pain enough for her to think clearly.
Vincent remained by the window.
“Derek was seventeen when my father died.”
“Correct.”
“So how could he be involved?”
“I didn't say he caused your father's death.”
“You said he was connected.”
“He is.”
Vincent removed his phone.
He opened a photograph.
The image showed Derek leaving a Manhattan office building beside an older man Lena had never seen.
“Who is that?”
“Raymond Vale.”
The name meant nothing to her.
“Should I know him?”
“No.”
Vincent slipped the phone into his pocket.
“But I do.”
Raymond Vale had once worked as an accountant for several Moretti-owned companies.
According to Vincent, Vale discovered that one of Vincent's rivals was moving money through construction businesses.
Instead of reporting it, he began helping them.
Vincent found out.
Vale disappeared.
The night Michael Hart found Vincent injured near the road, Vincent had been trying to meet a witness who could expose Vale.
The meeting was an ambush.
Michael drove Vincent away.
Days later, Michael reported receiving threatening telephone calls.
He told nobody except Vincent.
Then came the highway collision.
“Why didn't you go to the police?” Lena asked.
Vincent gave her a tired look.
“At twenty-nine, I wasn't someone police considered a reliable citizen.”
“You're saying that like something changed.”
The corner of his mouth moved.
Almost a smile.
“Fair point.”
Lena looked away.
“What does Derek have to do with Vale?”
“Vale is his uncle.”
Her head snapped back toward him.
“No.”
“Your husband's mother's brother.”
“Derek told me his uncle died before we met.”
“He lied.”
“Why?”
“That's the question.”
Lena felt sick.
Vincent continued.
“Three months ago, one of my investigators saw Derek meeting Vale.”
“Investigators?”
“I've been looking for him for years.”
“And you followed my husband?”
“Yes.”
Anger replaced fear.
“You watched us?”
“Not you.”
“You watched my home?”
“Lena—”
“Did you know what Derek was doing to me?”
Vincent's expression changed.
“No.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I knew he controlled your finances.”
Her mouth fell open.
“You knew?”
“I thought it was related to Vale.”
“What does that mean?”
“Derek has been moving money.”
She stared.
Vincent continued carefully.
“Money leaves accounts under his control. Some of it passes through businesses connected to Vale.”
Lena shook her head.
“Derek works in insurance.”
“He tells you he works in insurance.”
“He does.”
“He works for an insurance company.”
Vincent corrected her.
“But his income isn't what he claims.”
Suddenly, memories surfaced.
Expensive watches.
Weekends Derek said were business trips.
Cash in his desk.
Arguments when Lena asked questions.
A second phone he claimed belonged to work.
She had ignored all of it.
Not because she was stupid.
Because when you live with someone dangerous, curiosity becomes a luxury.
You learn not to open drawers.
Not to question unexplained money.
Not to ask where someone has been.
Vincent pulled a chair closer.
“Last night may not have started because of forty-three dollars.”
Lena frowned.
“How do you know about that?”
“You told the nurse.”
Of course.
“Derek found my emergency money.”
“Yes.”
“So?”
“Where did you hide it?”
“In an old cookbook.”
“Which one?”
Lena almost laughed at the absurdity.
“The Italian cookbook my mother gave me.”
Vincent became still.
“What?”
“What?”
“Where did that book come from originally?”
“My father.”
Something changed in Vincent's face.
“Was anything inside it when he died?”
“No.”
She paused.
“I don't know.”
The cookbook had sat in boxes for years.
After her mother's death, Lena took it.
She rarely used it.
Derek hated cooking.
Vincent stood.
“I need access to the apartment.”
“No.”
“Lena.”
“No one is going back there.”
“Police can.”
She hesitated.
“What are you looking for?”
“I don't know yet.”
That afternoon, Detective Maria Santos arrived.
She had taken over Lena's case after reviewing the medical report.
Unlike the officers who first responded, Santos asked questions slowly.
She never interrupted.
When Lena mentioned the cookbook, the detective exchanged a look with Vincent.
“You two know something I don't?” Lena asked.
Santos answered.
“Mr. Moretti contacted me this morning with information related to a separate investigation.”
Lena stared at Vincent.
“You're working with the police?”
“Occasionally.”
Santos smiled slightly.
“Very occasionally.”
A search warrant was requested.
By evening, officers entered the apartment.
Lena waited at the hospital.
At 9:17 p.m., Detective Santos returned carrying an evidence bag.
Inside was the cookbook.
Lena sat forward.
“What did you find?”
Santos placed photographs on the table.
The back cover had been cut open.
Inside was a thin plastic sleeve.
The sleeve was empty.
Lena stared.
“What was there?”
“We don't know.”
Vincent did.
“Michael's evidence.”
Lena looked at him.
“What evidence?”
“Before your father died, he told me he had written down the license plate of the car used by the men who attacked me.”
“That's it?”
“No.”
Vincent's voice lowered.
“He said one of them dropped something on the bus.”
“What?”
“A flash drive.”
Lena closed her eyes.
Derek had found it.
That had to be why he became furious over the cookbook.
Maybe he believed the emergency money envelope meant Lena had discovered the hidden compartment.
Maybe he thought she had taken whatever was inside.
Suddenly, his words from the argument returned.
Where is it?
She had assumed he meant the money.
Maybe he hadn't.
“I need to talk to Derek.”
“No,” Vincent and Detective Santos said simultaneously.
Lena stared at them.
Santos continued.
“You are not contacting him.”
“But if he thinks I have something—”
“That makes you more vulnerable, not less.”
Lena sank back.
The next day she was discharged.
She did not return home.
Vincent arranged for her to stay in an apartment owned by a women's support organization his foundation quietly funded.
Lena had not known Vincent had a foundation.
“You don't put that in the newspapers?” she asked.
“I prefer not to read newspapers.”
The apartment was small.
One bedroom.
A blue sofa.
A kitchen overlooking Queens.
To Lena, it felt like a palace.
The first night, she slept four hours.
The second, two.
Every sound woke her.
Every footstep in the hallway sounded like Derek.
Every elevator bell tightened her chest.
On the third evening, someone knocked.
Lena froze.
“Who is it?”
“Maria Santos.”
Lena opened the door.
The detective entered carrying two coffees.
“I come bearing terrible hospital coffee.”
“I thought detectives drank good coffee.”
“Television lied.”
They sat at the kitchen table.
Santos placed an envelope down.
“Derek's attorney wants to negotiate.”
“Negotiate what?”
“He claims he can provide information about Raymond Vale in exchange for consideration regarding financial charges.”
Lena stared.
“What about what he did to me?”
“Separate case.”
“Can he make that disappear?”
“No.”
Lena exhaled.
Santos continued.
“But Derek is saying something else.”
“What?”
“He says you stole the flash drive.”
“I didn't even know it existed.”
“I believe you.”
“Does he?”
“He claims your father gave it to you before he died.”
“I was twenty.”
“And?”
“And my father didn't tell me anything about Vincent or Vale.”
Santos nodded.
“That's what I thought.”
She slid a photograph across the table.
It showed the old cookbook on a shelf.
Beside it was another book.
A children's story collection.
Lena recognized it.
“My father used to read that to me.”
“Where is it now?”
“In the apartment.”
“No.”
Santos leaned forward.
“It wasn't there.”
Lena's heart started beating faster.
“Derek took it?”
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
Vincent answered that question later that night.
He came to the apartment carrying a cardboard box.
Inside were copies of photographs recovered from Derek's storage unit.
Photographs of Lena.
Not recent photographs.
Old ones.
Lena at seventeen.
Lena outside college.
Lena attending her mother's funeral.
Lena stared at them in horror.
“He knew who I was before we met.”
Vincent nodded.
Derek had told Lena they met by chance at a friend's birthday party.
Apparently, it had not been chance.
Raymond Vale knew Michael Hart had kept evidence.
After Michael died, Vale spent years trying to locate it.
Then he discovered Michael's daughter.
Derek entered Lena's life deliberately.
The perfect boyfriend.
Patient.
Charming.
Protective.
Marriage gave him access to everything.
Her family's boxes.
Her father's belongings.
Her home.
“He married me for a flash drive?”
Lena's voice cracked.
Vincent looked away.
“Maybe at first.”
Those words somehow hurt worse.
At first.
Meaning Derek may have developed feelings later.
Meaning the man who hurt her might still claim he loved her.
Lena stood and walked to the window.
“What happened to the children's book?”
“We don't know.”
Then Lena remembered.
“My father's voice.”
Vincent frowned.
“What?”
“The book had a recording.”
She turned.
“When I was little, my father bought one of those recordable storybooks. You press a button and hear someone's voice.”
Vincent stood.
“Where was the speaker?”
“In the back cover.”
They stared at each other.
The flash drive might never have been in the cookbook.
Michael had hidden it inside the children's book.
And Derek had taken it.
Police searched known properties.
Nothing.
Derek refused to answer.
Then, five days later, Lena received a package.
No return address.
Inside was the children's book.
Her hands shook.
She called Santos immediately.
Police examined the package.
Inside the back cover, they found the recording device.
No flash drive.
But when a technician opened the battery compartment, he found a tiny memory card.
On it was an audio file recorded twelve years earlier.
Michael Hart's voice.
Lena cried before the first sentence finished.
“My name is Michael Hart. If someone finds this, I want my daughter to know I tried to do the right thing.”
The recording described the night Michael saved Vincent.
It named Raymond Vale.
It described the vehicle used.
And then came the final revelation.
Michael knew he was being followed.
“If something happens to me,” he said, “look at Vale's insurance company.”
Lena felt the room spin.
Derek's employer.
The company that had handled the claim after her father's fatal crash.
Records were subpoenaed.
Within weeks, investigators uncovered altered documents.
A missing witness statement.
A payment made to a repair shop.
The original vehicle inspection suggested Michael's crash may not have been accidental.
Raymond Vale was arrested attempting to leave the country.
Derek was charged with financial crimes connected to Vale's operation, in addition to the case involving Lena.
And then Derek asked to see her.
Lena refused.
He wrote a letter.
She refused to read it.
He sent another.
She returned it unopened.
Finally, his attorney delivered a message through Detective Santos.
Derek knew something about Vincent.
Something Lena needed to hear.
Vincent had not told her everything about the night Michael died.
May you like
And according to Derek, the man Lena believed had come to save her might have been carrying a secret that would make her hate him forever.
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