The Paper He Signed
Chapter 04 - The Paper He Signed
Vincent Rinaldi had taught Dominic to tie a Windsor knot, drive a stick shift, and keep his temper at funerals. When Dominic's father died, Vincent had been the man standing at the kitchen door with a casserole and a list of things that needed doing. It was difficult to put such memories beside the note Matteo had left.
Nevertheless, by nine that morning Dominic had asked Vincent to bring the Harbor House files to the mansion.
Vincent arrived with a neat leather portfolio and the calm expression of someone called in to explain a minor clerical error. He was sixty-four, silver-haired, and handsome in the unremarkable way of men who employed other people to worry for them. He kissed Rosa's forehead, complimented the flowers, and looked mildly surprised to see Emma beside the library fireplace.
“Your household staff attend financial meetings now?”
“Emma knew Matteo,” Dominic said.
Vincent's smile thinned. “Many people did.”
“She was engaged to him.”
The portfolio came to rest on the desk. That was all. But Emma saw his left hand tighten around its handle, and she moved half a step closer to Rosa.
Dominic laid Matteo's note in front of him. “Tell me what I signed on September eighteenth, 2020.”
“Several things, if I remember. It was a dreadful night.”
“Start with Harbor House.”
Vincent opened the portfolio. He took out a board resolution approving the transfer of Harbor House's title from the Russo Family Charitable Trust to a corporation called Lakepoint Holdings. The document bore Dominic's signature on the bottom of the second page, beside a notary stamp.
Dominic recognized the signature. He did not recognize the document.
“I signed a temporary management authorization,” he said. “You told me an audit required someone to keep the buildings insured while Matteo was missing.”
“It was part of the same transaction.”
“No. It was not.”
Vincent glanced at Rosa. “You were in no condition to examine paperwork that night.”
“I was in good enough condition to remember what I was told.”
“Dominic, your brother had placed several charitable assets in jeopardy. A protective transfer kept the lenders away.”
“Where is the money from the sale?”
“In an escrow account.”
“Which bank?”
“I'll have the accountants prepare a summary.”
Emma spoke before she could stop herself. “The women who lived there weren't told it had been sold.”
Vincent regarded her as though she'd interrupted grace before a meal. “Miss Carter, you must understand that property law is more complicated than gossip.”
“I kept the rent records for four years,” Emma said. “I know the difference between a lease and a deed.”
Rosa looked at her with something close to pride. Dominic, who had been holding himself rigidly in the space between two loyalties, pushed the resolution away.
“Leave the documents. All of them.”
Vincent's eyes changed. “That's unwise.”
“Then I'll be unwise.”
There was a long silence. From the hallway came Sophie's voice asking a guard whether boys could wear purple nail polish. Ordinarily the interruption would have been absurd. Here it reminded all four adults who would suffer if the wrong person won.
Vincent gathered the documents into a tidy stack and left them beside his open portfolio. “I have always done what was necessary for this family,” he said quietly.
Dominic remembered the first mortgage on his father's grocery. Vincent had guaranteed it when no bank would. He'd helped bury their father and paid for cousins' scholarships. None of those favors erased the harm done to other people.
“I hope you remember that before you make a public accusation,” Vincent added.
When he was gone, Dominic called a lawyer who had never done business with the Russo family. Her name was Judith Vale, she was fifty-nine, and she did not sound impressed when he introduced himself.
“If the signature is yours, the question is whether the document was altered afterward,” she said. “I'll need the originals, the notary's journal, and records from the county clerk. Don't touch anything else.”
It was sensible advice. Dominic disliked how little comfort it offered.
Emma stood by the door. “He knew my name before you introduced me.”
Dominic replayed the meeting. Vincent had addressed her as Miss Carter, her current surname, without asking. It could have come from the payroll. It could have come from anywhere.
“I noticed,” he said.
“He also knew about the box. The man at our old apartment asked for the same thing Vincent asked Matteo about in the last week of his life.”
“What did Matteo say he was looking for?”
“Not money. Names.”
“Names of whom?”
“Women who paid into the Harbor House ownership fund. Some were widowed, some had worked two jobs. Their payments were supposed to give them the right to stay after retirement.”
Dominic looked again at the legal paperwork. The sale price was enormous. On the first page the transaction looked almost elegant: dates, initials, seals, a list of obligations neatly reduced to numbers. Yet the documents contained no photographs of the people who would be displaced and no explanation of what the building had meant to them. He had spent much of his life reading the numbers first. From now on, he decided, he would ask who stood behind them. He had approved contracts larger than that without much thought. But a deed did not show Mrs. Kowalski's husband dying in the middle of winter, or Mrs. Ortiz carrying groceries up three flights of stairs. Those details had been kept in a different set of books, one his brother apparently valued more.
Marco came in without knocking.
“The floral van was rented with a stolen identity. The security blind spot wasn't a broken camera. Someone disconnected it from inside the house.”
“Who has access?” Dominic asked.
“Senior staff and my team. Vincent's office still has an administrative credential.”
Emma pressed her hand to her mouth. Upstairs Sophie was laughing at something; it sounded terribly near and terribly far away.
Marco placed a second photograph on the desk. It showed the west gate two days earlier. The man in the charcoal coat was closer to the lens this time, his face obscured by the brim of a cap. He wore a broad silver ring shaped like a bird.
Emma made a small sound. “That's him.”
Rosa reached for the back of a chair. Dominic caught her elbow.
“Mother?”
May you like
She pointed at the ring. “I gave that to Vincent's son before he went to prison.”
And in the sudden silence, Dominic realized the man outside his window might know his family better than he did.
