The Driver Who Remembered Too Much
Chapter 05 - The Driver Who Remembered Too Much
Julia did not remember sitting down.
One second she was standing in the corridor with her father’s voice still echoing from the phone, and the next she was on a carved bench beneath an oil painting of some dead Moretti ancestor, trying to breathe through the knowledge that Vanessa Bellini had found Edward Bennett.
Luca crouched in front of her.
Not kneeling.
Men like him did not kneel.
But he lowered himself enough that his eyes met hers.
“Listen to me.”
“My father—”
“I’ll get him back.”
“You don’t know where he is.”
“I know how Vanessa thinks.”
“No, you don’t.” Her voice cracked. “You were going to marry her.”
The sentence hit harder than she meant it to.
Luca stood.
For a moment, his face gave away nothing.
Then he said, “Exactly.”
Marco appeared at the end of the hall with two men behind him.
“Phone trace?” Luca asked.
“Too short. But the cell tower puts the call near Oak Park.”
Julia pushed herself upright.
“That’s where my father lives.”
“We have cars moving there now.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Luca turned on her.
“You have a concussion.”
“He’s my father.”
“And Vanessa wants you emotional, hurt, and reckless.”
“I am already all three.”
Marco looked away as if studying the wallpaper.
Luca stared at Julia.
She stared back.
Whatever he saw there made him curse softly in Italian.
“Fine. You stay in the car unless I tell you otherwise.”
“I’m not one of your men.”
“No. You’re more stubborn.”
They left through the side entrance, avoiding the remaining staff and the sleeping west wing. The rain had stopped, but the city still shone wet beneath the SUV’s headlights.
Julia sat in the back beside Luca while Marco drove.
No one spoke for the first ten minutes.
Then Luca opened the leather ledger from the chapel safe.
The pages smelled old and expensive. Names were written in his father’s hand, neat columns beside payments, dates, and initials.
Julia tried not to look.
Failed.
Luca noticed.
“This ledger may explain why Vanessa came back.”
“Does it mention my father?”
He turned several pages.
Then stopped.
Julia felt it before he spoke.
“North Shore Executive Transport,” he said.
Her hands went cold.
“There are payments listed for three months before Matteo died.”
“My father was a driver. That doesn’t mean he did anything.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound like you know.”
“I sound like a man reading his father’s crimes while driving toward a hostage situation.”
That quieted her.
The SUV moved through neighborhoods that grew smaller, older, more familiar. Oak Park at night looked like any place people tried to live ordinary lives. Brick houses. Bare trees. Porch lights. Wet sidewalks.
Julia’s father lived in a ground-floor apartment behind a laundromat because stairs had become difficult after his breathing worsened.
There were no lights on inside.
Marco parked half a block away.
Two Moretti men were already positioned across the street.
Luca looked at Julia.
“Stay here.”
She opened the door.
He caught her wrist—not roughly, but firmly.
“Julia.”
“If he hears strange men break in, he’ll panic. He keeps a baseball bat behind the recliner and an oxygen tank beside the bed. He could hurt himself.”
Luca released her wrist.
“Stay behind me.”
The apartment door was unlocked.
That frightened her more than if it had been broken.
Inside, the living room smelled of menthol ointment, old coffee, and dust. Her father’s recliner was empty. The afghan she had crocheted in high school lay on the floor.
“Dad?”
No answer.
Luca moved quietly through the small space, checking corners with the ease of a man accustomed to rooms becoming traps.
In the kitchen, they found Rosa Alvarez sitting in a chair with her hands tied in front of her.
Alive.
Gagged.
Terrified.
Julia rushed to her.
“Where is he?”
Rosa shook her head, tears running down her cheeks.
Luca removed the gag.
“She took him,” Rosa whispered. “Vanessa took him ten minutes ago.”
Julia clutched the back of the chair.
“Where?”
“She said she needed the driver to remember the road.”
Luca’s face went still.
“What road?”
Rosa looked at him.
“The road where Matteo died.”
Julia pressed a hand to her mouth.
Luca turned toward the living room.
On the coffee table, placed neatly beside Edward Bennett’s reading glasses, was a cassette tape.
The same type as the one from the chapel safe.
Luca picked it up.
A label had been written in black marker.
Matteo. Night of the accident.
Julia felt the apartment tilt.
“My father wouldn’t hurt anyone.”
Rosa wept silently.
Luca looked at her.
“What do you know?”
Rosa’s voice shook.
“Your mother suspected Antonio had arranged it. Not because Matteo was careless. Because Matteo had found out about Celia and the Bellini girl. He threatened to tell you and Isabella everything.”
Luca’s hand closed around the tape.
“My father killed my brother.”
“I don’t know. Isabella didn’t know.”
Julia turned on Rosa.
“And my father?”
Rosa lowered her eyes.
“Edward drove that night.”
“No.”
“He was young. He had a baby daughter. Antonio owned half the men in the city.”
“No.”
“Julia—”
“No!”
The shout tore out of her and left silence behind it.
Her father had taught her to check tire pressure. Made pancakes shaped like rabbits. Sat through every terrible school play. Slept in a chair beside her when she had pneumonia at nine.
He could not be part of a murder.
He could not.
Luca’s phone rang.
Private number.
He answered without speaking.
Vanessa’s voice filled the room.
“Have you listened to the tape yet?”
Luca’s eyes stayed on Julia.
“No.”
“Good. Bring it to the old Lakeshore turnout. Alone. Your driver’s daughter can come too, since she seems so devoted.”
Julia grabbed Luca’s arm.
“Let me hear him.”
Vanessa laughed softly.
“Still demanding things from powerful people, Julia? That didn’t work well for you this afternoon.”
Luca’s voice turned lethal.
“If Edward Bennett is harmed—”
“You’ll do what? Start a war on the night before your wedding?”
“There will be no wedding.”
For the first time, Vanessa went quiet.
Then she said, “There will be if you want the truth about Matteo.”
The call ended.
Julia’s hand remained on Luca’s sleeve.
He looked down at it.
She withdrew as if burned.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please don’t let my father pay for your father’s sins.”
Luca’s expression changed.
Not soft.
Never soft.
But human.
“He won’t.”
They drove toward the lake under a sky the color of old metal.
In Luca’s pocket, the tape waited.
May you like
In Julia’s chest, the little girl who believed her father was good stood at the edge of a cliff.
And somewhere near the road where Matteo Moretti died, Vanessa Bellini was preparing to push them all over.
