Chapter 3
Rocco returned to the arena the next morning with attorneys and an outside investigator.
The equipment office remained locked.
Ralph objected immediately.
“You don't need strangers digging through family property.”
“It isn't family property.”
Rocco looked around.
“The arena belongs to the Caruso Youth Sports Foundation.”
Ralph scoffed.
“The foundation belongs to us.”
Rocco’s attorney, Daniel Reeves, answered:
“No, Mr. Caruso. That's precisely what it doesn't mean.”
Ralph glared at him.
For decades, Ralph had treated the arena like an extension of his own house.
Before retirement, he had controlled everything from sponsorship agreements to vendor contracts.
Rocco had left much of that structure untouched.
That now seemed careless.
The equipment office contained invoices, training supplies, scholarship applications, cash-donation envelopes, and old event records.
Nothing initially looked dramatic.
Then Caroline pointed toward a metal cabinet.
“That’s where Mrs. Caruso was working Wednesday night.”
Bernice.
Not Laine.
Not Ralph.
Rocco opened the cabinet.
Several youth-scholarship donation envelopes remained inside.
Three were empty.
The amounts written across their fronts totaled almost $18,000.
Rocco frowned.
“Were these deposited?”
The arena manager checked the ledger.
No.
Ralph immediately dismissed it.
“Cash gets moved before deposit all the time.”
“By who?”
“Finance.”
The finance director shook his head.
“Not without a receipt.”
Rocco turned toward Caroline.
“What did Mia see?”
Caroline looked uncomfortable.
“I don't know exactly.”
“But?”
“Wednesday afternoon she came running out of this office holding a blue envelope.”
Rocco remembered the foundation’s donor envelopes.
Blue meant restricted scholarship funds.
“What happened?”
“Mrs. Caruso took it from her.”
“Then?”
“Mrs. Caruso brought Mia into the staff room.”
Bernice had emerged twenty minutes later.
Mia was crying.
That evening, the cleaning punishment began.
Rocco looked at his father.
Ralph would not meet his eyes.
Then he looked at Laine.
Her arms were folded tightly across her chest.
Finally, Bernice spoke.
“Mia took something she shouldn't have touched.”
Rocco turned toward her.
“That still doesn't explain starving her.”
Bernice's expression barely changed.
“She needed to learn that lying has consequences.”
Rocco stepped closer.
“What did she say?”
Bernice finally answered.
May you like
“She said Grandma was stealing.”
Nobody moved.
