Chapter 5 - THE MAN WHO VANISHED
I read the letter seven times.
Each time, the words became less like a warning and more like a hand closing around my throat.
If you want Brody to survive long enough to meet Lily, stop helping the old man.
Brody had left me. He had taken our savings. He had allowed me to wonder whether he was alive or dead while I worked through nausea, exhaustion, and months of rent notices.
And I still didn't want him hurt.
That was the part that frightened me most.
I took the letter straight to Lorenzo. He was in the security office studying a screen showing the driveway and the service gate.
"Someone left this under my door."
He read it once. The muscles in his jaw moved.
"When?"
"Between eleven and midnight. I found it when I came back from checking on your father."
"Did anyone see you?"
"Not that I know."
Lorenzo called Daniel, his security chief, and Detective Ruiz. He asked them to preserve the envelope and check the corridor cameras. He didn't tell me to calm down or insist everything would be fine.
I appreciated that more than he could have known.
"Do you think they're really going to hurt Brody?" I asked.
"I don't know. The threat may be intended to control you. That doesn't mean we ignore it."
"He has a family that can pay him sixty thousand dollars, and I spent six months wondering whether he could afford food."
Lorenzo looked at the paper.
"You have every reason to be angry."
"I am angry. I just don't want to be responsible if someone hurts him."
"You aren't responsible for the choices these people make."
He pulled a chair out for me.
"Would you like to sit?"
I was tired enough to accept.
***
The camera footage showed Mrs. Gable entering the third-floor corridor at 11:24, carrying a stack of towels. She paused outside my door. Her hand disappeared beneath the bottom edge for an instant before she continued toward the linen closet.
Daniel looked at Lorenzo.
"That establishes who delivered it."
"Not who wrote it," Ruiz said. "We'll examine the paper and ask her about the message."
Lorenzo turned to me.
"You don't have to stay in the staff wing tonight. The guest rooms on the west side are secure, and you can choose whether you'd like one."
I thought of the tiny room where I had slept for three months. It had a narrow bed, a wardrobe that wouldn't close, and a window overlooking the servants' courtyard.
"I don't want people thinking I've taken advantage of you."
"People already say whatever suits them. I want you and Lily to be safe."
"Then let me take a room near your father," I said. "If he wakes frightened, he knows my voice."
Lorenzo considered it, then nodded.
"We can arrange that with Dr. Chen. You are not his only caregiver anymore. You need sleep too."
It was the first time an employer had spoken to me as though rest were a right instead of a favor.
***
The next morning, Detective Ruiz received a call from a bank investigator. The consulting company that had paid Brody was registered to an address used by Victor's legal practice. Its records showed regular transfers to an apartment in Philadelphia and a payment for a train ticket purchased the day after I received the threat.
Brody was not missing.
He was hiding.
Ruiz asked me whether I wanted to be present when he was contacted. I said yes, then spent the next hour regretting it.
We sat in a conference room at the police station while she made the call. The phone rang twice.
A man's voice answered.
"Hello?"
I gripped the arms of my chair.
I knew that voice. I had once fallen asleep listening to it describe the small house we would buy after our debts were paid. I had once believed it would be the first voice Lily heard after mine.
"Mr. Bellini?" Ruiz said. "Detective Sofia Ruiz. I'm calling about an investigation into Moretti family trust transactions. We understand you may have information relevant to the case."
The voice changed.
"I don't know anything."
"We can arrange a protected interview."
"Who told you where I was?"
I couldn't remain silent.
"Brody."
The line went quiet.
"Nora?"
"Yes. It's me."
"What are you doing with the police?"
"Trying to find out why your uncle paid you sixty thousand dollars while I was sleeping in a room above a laundry with your daughter inside me."
He took a sharp breath.
"Listen, I can explain."
"You had months."
"I couldn't call. Victor said he would know."
"Why would he care about me?"
"Because I worked on the transfers. Because I saw something I wasn't supposed to see. And because he knew you were in the house."
Ruiz leaned forward. "What did you see?"
Brody hesitated.
"The original trust documents. Victor wanted Giovanni declared incapable. But the trustee wouldn't approve it while Lorenzo was still receiving reports from his father. So they changed the reports. They told Lorenzo his father didn't recognize him anymore. They made it look like he couldn't communicate."
I closed my eyes.
"And you helped?" I asked.
"I copied documents and moved payments. I thought it was accounting. Then I understood."
"When did you understand?"
"When they started paying the doctor for visits that never happened."
Ruiz asked him to describe the payments and offered to arrange an interview with legal representation.
Brody lowered his voice.
"Victor told me to disappear. He said I'd be safe if I stayed quiet. He said Nora would be hired somewhere no one could reach her. I didn't know it was Moretti's house until recently."
"You never checked on me," I said.
"I'm sorry."
"You took our savings."
He went silent.
"Why?"
"I needed cash to leave."
The answer was brutally ordinary.
He had been frightened. He had chosen himself. Then he had allowed Victor to control the story because doing otherwise meant admitting what he had done.
"Is the baby okay?" he asked.
I looked down at my stomach.
"She's alive and growing. Her name is Lily. You don't get to ask about her as though you've been here."
"Nora—"
"Talk to the detective. Tell her the truth. That's the first useful thing you can do for your daughter."
I rose and left the room.
***
I cried in the station bathroom, seated on the closed toilet lid with one palm pressed against my stomach. I had imagined so many endings to Brody's disappearance. None had been as disappointing as discovering he had been alive, comfortable enough, and simply unwilling to come back.
When I returned to the corridor, Lorenzo was waiting beside a vending machine. He had come with Daniel to coordinate the evidence transfer.
"Did you hear?" I asked.
"Enough."
"I think part of me kept believing something terrible must have happened to him. I couldn't bear the idea that he just left."
Lorenzo looked at me carefully.
"People can be frightened and still responsible for what they do. Those things aren't opposites."
I wiped my cheeks. "I know."
He held out a bottle of water.
"Do you want to go back to the house?"
"Yes. Your father's expecting me."
"He has a rehabilitation session at two. Dr. Chen says he's doing well."
I smiled despite myself.
"He won't admit it, but he likes the therapist."
"He told me she was bossy."
I stared at him. "He told you?"
"On the tablet. It took eleven minutes."
I laughed. The sound felt strange after so much crying.
***
That evening, Giovanni asked to see me alone, with Amelia positioned outside the door in case he needed help with the communication device.
He selected words slowly.
BRODY.
I nodded. "He's alive."
Giovanni watched my face.
LEFT.
"Yes. He left me."
A long pause.
NOT.
YOUR.
SHAME.
I began to cry again, quieter this time.
He reached for my hand. I held it carefully.
"I know," I whispered. "I'm trying to believe it."
He selected another word.
LILY.
"She's doing fine. She's been kicking every time I eat something sweet."
Giovanni's fingers trembled as he chose the next words.
FAMILY.
CHOICE.
I looked at him, unable to speak.
For three months, I had thought I was the one giving him something no one else would.
Now he was giving me words I had needed since the day Brody walked away.
***
Shortly before midnight, Detective Ruiz called Lorenzo.
Brody had agreed to return and provide a formal statement. He also had copies of the payment records. But someone had already entered his Philadelphia apartment and searched it.
The police had arrived too late to catch the intruder.
Lorenzo put down the phone and looked at the darkened garden.
"Victor knows Brody is talking," he said.
Daniel stood beside him. "Then he'll start destroying evidence."
Lorenzo shook his head.
"No. He'll start looking for the one thing my father can still give us."
May you like
I knew what he meant.
Giovanni's testimony.
