What Helena Knew About Patrick Quinn
Chapter 06 - What Helena Knew About Patrick Quinn
Helena Price entered the Navarro estate without luggage.
No overnight bag.
No purse.
Only a dark coat and exhaustion.
She was fifty-two, elegant in the severe way of women who had spent decades making frightened people listen.
Stella remembered being fired by her.
The office.
The sealed incident report.
Helena saying:
You did the right thing by reporting it.
Then signing the termination anyway.
Stella had hated her for seven months.
Now she did not know where to begin.
Jonah did.
“Why did you use Stella’s initials in my hospital record?”
Helena stopped.
“I didn’t.”
“Then who did?”
“Matteo.”
Silence.
Stella felt Jonah become completely still.
“Alive?”
Helena looked at him.
“Yes.”
The word altered the room.
Frankie stepped forward.
Jonah’s hand closed around his chair control.
“No.”
Helena’s expression softened.
“Jonah.”
“No.”
“I saw him three weeks ago.”
Jonah turned away.
Not from disbelief.
From hope.
Stella recognized it because hope frightened him more than bad news.
“Where?”
“Montreal.”
“Why?”
“He contacted me.”
“Six months after letting me think he betrayed me.”
“He thought you were safer believing it.”
Stella closed her eyes.
There was the sentence again.
Jonah laughed bitterly.
“Everybody is very generous with my ignorance.”
Helena accepted that.
“He was wrong.”
“Continue.”
Matteo had discovered someone inside the Navarro organization was selling protected harbor routes to Victor.
He rebuilt the old ledgers Patrick Quinn once helped audit.
Not to preserve criminal payments.
To trace who was reviving them.
“Who?” Stella asked.
Helena looked at Jonah.
“Your cousin.”
Jonah’s face hardened.
“Matteo.”
“No.”
Helena shook her head.
“Your cousin Matteo is your brother. I mean Luca Navarro.”
Stella glanced at Frankie.
Another relative.
Of course.
Luca Navarro managed the family’s inland warehouses and sat on the legitimate shipping board.
Stella had never met him.
Jonah had mentioned him twice without warmth.
“Luca arranged the sniper?” Frankie asked.
Helena nodded.
“With Victor.”
Jonah’s voice became low.
“Proof.”
Helena looked at the flash drive in Stella’s hand.
“Some is on that.”
Stella tightened her grip.
“My father.”
Helena’s face changed.
“Yes.”
“Who killed him?”
“Not Jonah’s family.”
Stella stared.
“That sounds carefully phrased.”
“It is.”
“Who?”
Helena sat.
“Patrick was investigating union pension theft.”
“Yes.”
“He found payments routed through Navarro Freight.”
“Yes.”
“He assumed the Navarros were stealing.”
“Were they?”
“Some.”
Stella looked at Jonah.
He did not defend it.
Helena continued.
“But Patrick discovered someone outside the family was using Navarro accounts.”
“Victor?”
“No.”
“Luca?”
“He was nineteen.”
“Then?”
Helena looked down.
“My father.”
Stella stopped.
“Dr. Edward Price.”
“Yes.”
“He was an auditor.”
“Yes.”
“He stole pension money.”
Helena’s voice became smaller.
“Yes.”
The twist felt almost mundane.
No sniper.
No mob war.
An auditor stealing from workers.
“Patrick found out.”
“Yes.”
“What did your father do?”
“Paid someone to force Patrick off the road.”
Stella’s hands went cold.
“Who?”
“Victor.”
The room became silent.
Jonah looked toward Frankie.
Frankie’s face hardened.
Stella stared at Helena.
“You knew.”
“Not then.”
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
“Six years.”
Helena closed her eyes.
“I found his records after he died.”
“And you never told me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I was a coward.”
Clean.
No excuse.
Stella had expected protection.
Family.
Fear.
Helena gave her the real noun.
Coward.
“What did you do instead?”
“Started helping Matteo.”
“To expose Victor.”
“And the remaining accounts.”
“Why fire me?”
Helena looked at her.
“Because you were working ICU at the hospital where Jonah would later be sent.”
Stella frowned.
“That does not explain firing me before he was shot.”
“We knew Luca was watching hospital staff connected to old harbor families.”
“You knew I was Patrick’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“You thought someone might use me.”
“Yes.”
“So you removed me from the hospital.”
“Yes.”
Stella laughed without humor.
“By destroying my job.”
“I know.”
“No.”
She leaned forward.
“You made a decision about my life and called it safety.”
Helena nodded.
“You’re right.”
“Did you create the medication error?”
“No.”
That answer came fast.
Stella watched her.
“The patient names were switched on the electronic board.”
Stella went still.
“What?”
“I discovered it later.”
“So my error was set up.”
“Yes.”
“By who?”
“Luca’s security contractor.”
Jonah swore quietly.
Helena continued.
“I could have defended you.”
“But?”
“If I challenged the termination, it would signal we knew the error had been engineered.”
“So you let me take the fall.”
“Yes.”
Stella felt old anger rearrange itself.
Not disappear.
Become accurate.
“Then you requested me as Jonah’s caregiver.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Matteo needed someone Luca would underestimate.”
Stella laughed.
“There it is.”
Helena flinched.
“You used me too.”
“Yes.”
The honesty helped nothing.
But it clarified everything.
“Did Jonah know?”
“No.”
Jonah’s expression hardened.
“Do not look relieved.”
Stella looked at him.
“I’m not.”
He almost smiled despite the room.
Helena pointed at the flash drive.
“Patrick left more than evidence about my father.”
“What?”
“He found the original harbor ledger.”
Jonah leaned forward.
“The one Victor wants.”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
Helena looked at Stella.
“Encrypted on that drive.”
Stella stared.
“Password?”
Helena shook her head.
“Matteo says Patrick hid it in something Stella would remember.”
Stella almost laughed.
“My father thought I remembered nothing except bad music and his truck.”
“What did he call you?” Helena asked.
Stella frowned.
“Stell.”
“No. When you were little.”
A memory came.
Patrick sitting on the dock.
Her in a yellow raincoat.
His voice:
North Star.
Because you always tell me where home is.
Stella looked at the flash drive.
“North Star.”
Helena nodded.
Stella inserted the drive into an isolated laptop Frankie brought.
Password prompt.
She typed:
NORTHSTAR.
Accepted.
Folders opened.
Payments.
Names.
Routes.
Photographs.
Then one video.
Patrick Quinn.
Alive.
Recorded seventeen years earlier.
Stella covered her mouth.
Her father looked tired.
“If Stella ever sees this, I failed.”
Her eyes filled.
Patrick continued.
“The ledgers prove Edward Price stole from the pension fund. They also prove something worse.”
Jonah’s face tightened.
Patrick looked directly into the camera.
“Victor Kane is not the man running the waterfront operation.”
Stella froze.
“The real person is inside the Navarro family.”
Jonah’s hand tightened.
Patrick named him.
Not Luca.
Not Jonah’s father.
“Frankie Santos.”
May you like
The room went silent.
And the man Stella had trusted to stand beside Jonah for years was suddenly standing three feet behind her.
