The Man Elias Trusted With His Back Turned
Chapter 06 - The Man Elias Trusted With His Back Turned
Elias did not confront Rafe.
That surprised Marin.
She had expected anger, a gun, perhaps one of those quiet commands that made rooms empty.
Instead, Elias stepped into the hallway and told Rafe to take four men downstairs and check the ambulance bay.
Rafe nodded and left.
Only after the elevator doors closed did Elias speak.
“If he’s involved, he’s been involved for years.”
Marin watched the red numbers descend.
“You trust him.”
“I did.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
Elias turned.
“I’ve trusted him with my back since I was twenty-two.”
There was something raw in the admission.
Marin understood then that betrayal, to a man like Elias, was not merely danger.
It was grief.
They drove to Providence after sunset in a plain gray sedan Jonah had supplied.
No convoy.
No armed escort.
Elias hated every mile of it.
Marin could tell by the way he checked mirrors without seeming to.
“Does anyone know where we’re going?”
“No.”
“Jonah?”
“He knows Providence.”
“That’s already too much.”
“You’re very trusting.”
He looked at her.
“I’m learning from you.”
She ignored that.
Adelaide’s old house stood on a narrow street lined with maples and three-story homes divided into apartments. The brass number had gone green with age.
Marin expected dust.
Instead, the place smelled faintly of lemon oil.
Someone had been maintaining it.
They found the pantry and the loose board exactly where Adelaide said.
Beneath it was a metal cash box.
Inside were three ledgers, a flash drive, two cassette tapes, and a stack of letters bound with ribbon.
Elias reached for the ledgers.
Marin reached for the letters.
The top envelope was addressed to THOMAS HOLLIS.
Her father.
She sat on the kitchen floor.
The letter had never been mailed.
Thomas,
I was wrong to ask you to stop. You were right about Carlo. If something happens to me, the records are in the Providence house, beneath the flour cabinet. I have copied what I could.
I am sorry I waited until fear became shame.
A.
Marin read it twice.
Then a third time.
Elias remained silent.
“She was trying to help him.”
“Yes.”
“Too late.”
“Yes.”
Marin hated him for agreeing.
She hated herself more for needing him not to.
“What would you say if it were your father?”
“I’d say too late.”
“You don’t get to understand this.”
“No.”
He knelt across from her.
“But I understand wishing the dead had made one different decision.”
That ended the argument before it began.
They took the box.
On the drive back, Elias listened to one cassette in the car.
Carlo Ferrante’s voice filled the dark interior.
Older.
Colder than Elias remembered.
“If Hollis won’t take the money, make him tired. If he won’t get tired, make him scared.”
A second man responded.
The voice was distorted by age and tape hiss.
Marin gripped the seat.
Elias stopped the recording.
“Play it.”
“You don’t need to hear—”
“Play it.”
He did.
The second voice said, “And if scared doesn’t work?”
Carlo answered, “Then Vincent knows what to do.”
The name seemed to break something open.
Vincent.
Vince Moretti.
The family lawyer.
The man sitting in their library that morning.
Marin looked at Elias.
He had gone completely still.
“Is that enough to prove he killed my father?”
“No.”
“Is it enough for you?”
He stared at the road ahead.
“Yes.”
They did not return to the estate.
Elias called Adelaide from the car.
“Vince.”
A long silence.
“I know,” she said.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“You let him sit beside you for nine years.”
“I wanted to know where he was.”
Elias laughed once.
It was a terrible sound.
“So you kept a murderer close.”
“I kept a frightened old man close.”
“Do not make him small.”
“I’m not.”
Adelaide’s voice weakened.
“I’m telling you frightened men do worse things than brave ones.”
Elias looked at Marin.
“Where is Rafe?”
“With me.”
That stopped him.
Adelaide continued.
“He came back ten minutes ago. He knows about the stairs.”
Marin felt cold spread across her back.
“Put him on.”
Rafe’s voice came through.
“I didn’t take her.”
“Then explain the stairs.”
“I found the service plan six years ago during the renovation.”
“You never told me.”
“I didn’t think it mattered.”
“Everything matters now.”
Rafe exhaled.
“There’s something you need to know about the man who got into her room today.”
“What?”
“He wasn’t one of the original three.”
Elias’s grip tightened on the phone.
“How do you know?”
“Different height. Different shoe pattern. Different entry route.”
Marin leaned closer.
Rafe continued.
“Someone else used the attack as cover.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
A second voice sounded faintly in the hospital room.
Adelaide.
“No.”
Then the line went dead.
Elias called back.
Nothing.
He called Rafe.
Nothing.
Marin was already pulling up the hospital number.
The switchboard answered.
She gave Adelaide’s false name.
There was a pause.
“I’m sorry,” the clerk said. “That patient was discharged twenty minutes ago.”
“Discharged to whom?”
“I’m not permitted to—”
“I’m her nurse.”
Another pause.
“She left with family.”
Elias grabbed the phone.
“What family?”
The clerk hesitated.
“A Mr. Dominic Ferrante.”
Elias ended the call.
Marin’s stomach dropped.
“But she said it wasn’t Dominic.”
“She also said Vince was dangerous.”
“Maybe both are true.”
Elias turned the car around hard enough to throw the box against the floor.
One ledger slid open.
A name had been written repeatedly down the margin of a page dated nineteen years earlier.
Not Vincent.
Not Dominic.
RAFAEL D’ANGELO.
Rafe.
Beside the name was one line in Carlo Ferrante’s handwriting.
KEEP THE BOY CLOSE. HE OWES US EVERYTHING.
May you like
Marin looked at Elias.
The man he trusted with his back had been in the story before either of them realized there was a story at all.
