Chapter 4 - THE SECRET UNDER MY MOTHER’S BED
My apartment looked like someone had searched it with hatred.
Cabinet doors hung open.
Couch cushions had been sliced.
Drawers covered the bedroom floor.
Photographs were scattered beneath broken glass.
I stood in the doorway unable to move.
Not because things were destroyed.
Because this had been my safe place.
My mother’s oxygen tubing had once run along this hallway.
My father had painted the kitchen cabinets badly.
Every Christmas for nine years, Mom and I had put the same artificial tree beside the window because the stand leaned slightly left and made her laugh.
Now strangers had walked through all of it.
Matteo stepped beside me.
“Don’t touch anything.”
“I know.”
Police were on the way.
Vincent’s people had arrived first.
That made me uncomfortable until I saw Matteo quietly instruct them to stay outside.
He was learning.
My bedroom was worse.
The metal lockbox beneath Mom’s bed was gone.
Only a rectangular patch of clean hardwood remained where dust had collected around it.
“What was inside?” Matteo asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did she ever mention it?”
“No.”
I thought harder.
“Once, when I was seventeen, I asked if it contained Dad’s old love letters.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘Something less romantic and more dangerous.’”
Matteo stared.
“That feels relevant.”
“Thank you, detective.”
A faint smile.
Then Vincent entered.
I turned immediately.
“I thought I said—”
“The police let me through.”
“Of course they did.”
He ignored the insult.
“The box is gone?”
“Yes.”
His face hardened.
“Damn.”
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Stop lying to me.”
Matteo glanced over.
“Emily.”
“No. He knows something.”
I pointed at Vincent.
“Someone watched me before I met you. They broke into my apartment hours after seeing you with Mom. You recognized her immediately. So tell me what happened thirty-two years ago.”
Vincent looked toward the shattered bedroom mirror.
Then he exhaled.
“The men who shot me were not street rivals.”
I waited.
“They worked for my brother.”
Matteo went completely still.
“Uncle Sal?”
Vincent nodded.
I had heard the name Salvatore Moretti.
Vincent’s older brother.
Dead for twenty-five years.
Officially from a heart attack.
“Why would your brother shoot you?”
“Control.”
Vincent’s mouth tightened.
“My father was dying. Sal expected to inherit everything. Instead, my father chose me to run the family businesses.”
Matteo folded his arms.
“You told me Uncle Sal supported you.”
“I lied.”
“Clearly.”
Vincent continued.
“Sal arranged the shooting. Grace heard one of the men talking when they came into the ER looking for me.”
My skin prickled.
“She could identify them?”
“One.”
“Who?”
Vincent hesitated.
“Anthony Bell.”
Matteo’s expression changed.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
Matteo looked at me.
“Anthony Bell is still alive.”
Vincent nodded.
“He runs Bell Maritime.”
I knew that company.
One of Chicago’s largest freight operators.
“You do business with him?”
Vincent’s expression was bitter.
“For twenty years.”
I stared.
“You knew he helped shoot you and then did business with him?”
“It was complicated.”
“No. Taxes are complicated. This is insane.”
Matteo almost smiled.
Vincent did not.
“Sal died. Bell convinced me he had only followed orders and later helped stabilize several businesses after my father’s death.”
“You forgave him?”
“I tolerated him.”
“Wonderful distinction.”
Matteo stepped closer.
“What did Grace keep?”
Vincent shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Then why would Bell care now?”
Vincent stared at the empty space beneath the bed.
“Because Sal did not die from a heart attack.”
Silence.
“How did he die?” I asked.
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
“I killed him.”
The room became very quiet.
I had known who Vincent was.
Or at least I thought I did.
Hearing it spoken plainly was different.
Matteo didn’t react.
That told me he already knew.
Vincent continued.
“After I learned he ordered the hit, I confronted him. He drew first.”
“So self-defense?”
“Mostly.”
“Mostly?”
“You don’t want the complete version.”
He was probably right.
“What does this have to do with my mother?”
“Grace knew enough to destroy several men if she ever talked.”
“Why didn’t she?”
“Because I promised her the violence ended with Sal.”
I laughed once.
“Apparently that worked.”
His eyes darkened.
“There’s more.”
Of course there was.
“After Sal died, Anthony Bell came to me. He claimed there were records proving Sal had been stealing from the family for years.”
Matteo’s expression sharpened.
“What records?”
“Ledgers.”
“Money laundering?”
“Payoffs. judges. police. politicians. businessmen.”
Vincent looked at me.
“And names of people who arranged Gabriel’s murder.”
Matteo stopped moving.
Everything changed.
“Dad.”
Vincent’s face had gone gray.
“Gabriel wasn’t killed in a robbery.”
Matteo’s voice was flat.
“You told me—”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“You lied to me for eighteen years.”
“I know.”
“Who killed him?”
Vincent looked toward the window.
“I never knew for certain.”
“Bell?”
“I suspected.”
Matteo moved toward him.
“You did business with the man you suspected helped kill my brother?”
“I needed him close.”
“You needed him close for eighteen years?”
Vincent said nothing.
Matteo laughed bitterly.
“Unbelievable.”
He walked out.
I looked at Vincent.
“You should go after him.”
“He needs space.”
“No. That’s what cowards say when they don’t know how to apologize.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You enjoy this.”
“No. I recognize it.”
I thought about my own father.
Every argument he had avoided until Mom forced him back into the room.
“Go.”
To my surprise, Vincent went.
Police arrived minutes later.
They dusted.
Photographed.
Asked questions.
Then one officer found something in the hallway.
A small brass key.
It had been pushed beneath the baseboard.
I recognized it instantly.
Mom’s lockbox key.
But if the thieves had taken the box, why leave the key?
Unless Mom had expected someone to take it.
I turned it over.
Tape covered the back.
Underneath was a tiny folded strip of paper.
My hands began shaking.
I opened it.
Three words.
NOT THE BOX.
And beneath that:
CHURCH. ST. ANNE. 214.
Matteo had returned.
He read over my shoulder.
“What does 214 mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent did.
“A locker.”
I looked at him.
“At a church?”
“St. Anne’s parish used to rent storage lockers in the basement.”
“Used to?”
“I haven’t been there in years.”
Matteo’s expression was still cold toward his father.
But he took out his phone.
“We go now.”
Vincent shook his head.
“Too dangerous.”
Matteo laughed without humor.
“You lied to me for eighteen years. You don’t get to start controlling me again tonight.”
Vincent flinched.
Good.
I grabbed my coat.
Both men looked at me.
“No.”
I stared at them.
“Try it.”
Neither argued.
St. Anne’s sat beneath the shadow of an old elevated train line on the South Side.
The priest recognized Vincent.
That raised questions I did not have time to ask.
Locker 214 was in a basement hallway beneath the sanctuary.
The brass key turned.
Inside was not money.
Not a weapon.
Not even a ledger.
It was a cassette tape.
A photograph.
And one sealed envelope.
Matteo picked up the photograph.
His face changed.
It showed a much younger Vincent lying in a hospital bed.
My mother stood beside him in nurse’s scrubs.
Another man stood behind her.
Anthony Bell.
And beside Bell was a teenager.
Maybe seventeen.
Dark-haired.
Thin.
I looked at Matteo.
The resemblance was obvious.
“Who is that?”
Vincent answered.
“Carlo Bell.”
Anthony’s son.
Matteo stared at the photo.
“My brother’s best friend.”
My stomach dropped.
The envelope was addressed in my mother’s handwriting.
VINCENT — IF GABRIEL EVER DIES, LISTEN TO THE TAPE.
May you like
Vincent’s hands began shaking.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Chicago’s most feared man looked afraid to discover the truth.
