Chapter 2
Vincent did not order Dominic or Helena killed.
Half the men in the hall expected him to.
That was one reason he refused.
The other was simpler.
Dead people stopped answering questions.
Dominic and Helena were confined to separate guest suites under guard while Vincent began with the one fact that could not lie: movement.
Who knew his route Monday evening?
Marco produced the list.
Seven people.
Vincent.
Marco.
The driver.
Two advance-security men.
Dominic.
And Helena.
Dominic knew because Vincent had planned to stop at a Caradonna-owned warehouse afterward.
Helena knew because she had asked Vincent to visit her before dinner and he told her he would be late.
Vincent looked at Marco.
“Any outside leak?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Phones?”
“Dominic deleted several messages Monday afternoon.”
Vincent’s gaze sharpened.
“Recovered?”
“Some metadata. Not content.”
“Who was he contacting?”
“A prepaid number.”
Helena’s phone was cleaner.
Almost too clean.
No unusual calls.
No unexplained messages.
But the estate’s internal access system showed she had entered Vincent’s private office at 4:12 Monday afternoon.
He had already left.
She remained inside eleven minutes.
Vincent had not authorized it.
“What did she take?”
Marco shook his head.
“Camera outside the office was offline.”
“When?”
“Four-oh-five to four-thirty.”
“Cause?”
“Maintenance request.”
“From?”
Marco hesitated.
“Helena.”
That was the second fact.
Not proof of murder.
But planning.
Vincent went to his office himself.
Nothing obvious was missing.
His desk drawers remained locked.
The wall safe had not been opened.
One cabinet, however, contained a thin layer of dust broken by a clean rectangle.
Something had been removed.
Vincent stared at the empty space until he remembered.
A blue audit binder.
He had received it the previous Friday from Martin Kessler, an outside accountant who had been reviewing one of the Caradonna family’s legitimate charitable funds.
Vincent had barely opened it.
He had planned to read the complete report Tuesday.
Tuesday never came.
Someone had removed it Monday afternoon.
Helena.
That did not fit the theory Vincent had been building.
If Helena and Dominic had wanted control of the family after his death, why steal an accounting report?
He called Kessler.
No answer.
His office answered instead.
The receptionist sounded nervous.
“Mr. Kessler hasn’t been in since yesterday.”
“Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
“When did you last speak to him?”
“Monday afternoon.”
Vincent looked toward the empty space in his cabinet.
“What was he working on?”
A pause.
“The Caradonna Family Relief Trust.”
Vincent went still.
The Relief Trust had been founded thirty years earlier to support widows, injured employees, children of deceased associates, and legitimate workers caught in family-business failures.
Helena had chaired it for twelve years.
Dominic sat on its board.
Vincent had barely involved himself until several beneficiaries complained about delayed payments.
That was why he ordered the audit.
Suddenly the missing blue binder mattered more than the funeral portrait.
Vincent turned toward Marco.
“Find Kessler.”
May you like
Then he looked again at the empty cabinet.
“And nobody touches the Relief Trust accounts.”
