The Dead Man Calls
Chapter 10 - The Dead Man Calls
My father had been dead to us for nineteen years, which is different from being dead.
When I was thirteen, he kissed the top of my head, told my mother he would be home by dinner, and vanished with his winter coat still hanging in the hall. Police said adults had the right to disappear. My mother said he would never leave me. Time said both things could be true enough to ruin a family.
Now his name glowed on my phone.
DAD.
The contact had survived every upgrade because grief has a strange loyalty to old numbers.
Nobody moved.
Vincent stood near the front window watching Camilla approach through the snow. Evan stared at my phone as if it might explain his mother. Marisa lowered one hand toward the inside of her coat.
I answered.
For two seconds, there was only static.
Then a man whispered, “Claire?”
My body recognized the voice before my mind permitted it.
“No,” I said.
“Baby.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
Vincent turned from the window.
“Where are you?” I asked.
“Don’t trust the blue file.”
Camilla knocked on the front door.
Three polite taps.
My father continued, “It was copied. Some pages were replaced. Lucia knew. That’s why they killed her.”
“They?”
“I’m sorry.”
The line crackled.
“Dad, where are you?”
“Ask Vincent what he did the night Lucia died.”
Vincent’s eyes locked onto mine.
The call ended.
Camilla knocked again.
Evan whispered, “Your father is alive?”
“I don’t know.”
Vincent’s face had gone pale beneath the controlled mask.
“What did he say?”
I hated that I hesitated.
“He said not to trust the file.”
“And?”
I looked at him.
“He said to ask what you did the night Lucia died.”
Evan turned slowly toward his father.
The old accusation stood up between them like a witness.
Vincent closed his eyes once, not from guilt. From exhaustion.
“I burned a car.”
The words were simple.
Horrifying.
Evan stepped back. “What?”
“Lucia’s car.”
Marisa whispered something in Italian under her breath.
Vincent looked at his son. “After they brought her body to the house, I went to the yard where the car had been taken. I ordered it destroyed.”
“Why?” Evan’s voice broke. “Evidence was in that car.”
“Yes.”
“Evidence of what?”
Vincent looked toward the door. “That she was not alone when she died.”
Camilla’s third knock came harder.
Vincent opened the door himself.
She stood beneath the porch light, snow in her hair, as composed as a woman arriving for tea.
“May I come in?”
“No.”
Her eyes moved to the blue folder in his hand. “Then I’ll speak from here.”
“You arranged the threat against Claire’s mother.”
“I arranged an incentive.”
“You brought Vitelli into my home.”
“I gave him an opportunity.”
“You forged Lucia’s letter.”
Camilla looked past him at Evan. “I preserved the truth your father destroyed.”
Vincent’s hand tightened on the doorframe.
“You were in the car with Lucia,” he said.
The air changed.
Evan made a sound.
Camilla’s composure did not break. That was worse than panic.
“So were you,” she said.
My mind rejected the sentence, then rearranged itself around it.
Vincent did not deny it.
Evan looked at his father as if the floor had moved beneath him. “You said she died alone.”
“I said she was found alone.”
Camilla smiled. “There he is. The lawyer inside the criminal. So precise.”
Vincent’s voice was almost inaudible.
“Tell him why you got out of the car before the bridge.”
Camilla stepped inside without permission.
“Tell him why you let her drive away crying.”
Evan looked between them.
The blue file trembled in my hands.
Then from the kitchen came a small metallic click.
Marisa turned.
May you like
A hidden recorder had activated inside the torn wall.
Lucia Marlowe’s voice filled the house.
