The Sommelier With Two Ledgers
Chapter 03 - The Sommelier With Two Ledgers
Laurent was gone when they returned.
Back door open.
Office unlocked.
No sign of struggle.
His passport missing.
Cash drawer untouched.
Sophie stood beneath the dark chandelier.
“He ran.”
Alessandro looked around.
“Maybe.”
“You always do that.”
“What?”
“Leave room for a better explanation.”
“I leave room for accurate ones.”
That irritated her because it was sensible.
They searched only after police arrived.
Alessandro’s presence made the officers uncomfortable.
Sophie noticed.
He noticed her noticing.
“I have lawyers,” he said quietly.
“That wasn’t my question.”
“You didn’t ask one.”
Exactly.
Laurent’s office contained decades of wine invoices.
Photographs.
Old corks labeled with dates.
One framed menu from Paris.
No obvious ledger.
Then Sophie found a compartment beneath a cabinet.
Empty.
Dust outline.
Rectangular.
Something had been removed recently.
Alessandro said:
“Copy.”
“Yes.”
The restaurant surveillance system showed Laurent leaving at 12:52.
Alone.
Carrying a leather document tube.
He took a taxi north.
Not airport.
Grand Central.
Train cameras later showed him boarding a Metro-North train to Tarrytown.
Why?
Alessandro knew.
“My father’s old house.”
Sophie stared.
“Your family still owns it?”
“No.”
“Who does?”
“My aunt.”
His father’s sister, Bianca Moretti.
Seventy-one.
Widow.
Retired art historian.
Lives mostly in Florence.
Keeps the Westchester house closed.
“Laurent knew your aunt?”
“I don’t know.”
That phrase appeared too often in powerful families.
They called Bianca.
She answered from Italy.
When Alessandro said Laurent Mercier, silence.
Then:
“Luc is alive?”
Sophie’s skin tightened.
“You know him.”
Bianca switched to French without thinking.
“Who is with you?”
“Sophie Dubois.”
Another silence.
Longer.
“Oh.”
Sophie hated that sound.
“What?”
Bianca said:
“You have Étienne’s eyes.”
That was enough for one night.
Sophie sat.
Alessandro took the phone.
“Aunt Bianca. Why is Laurent going to Tarrytown?”
“To get what Matteo left him.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bianca.”
“I truly don’t.”
She did know something else.
Matteo Moretti had not merely tried to find Étienne for six years.
He found him.
Once.
Montreal.
2016.
Secret meeting.
Bianca arranged it.
“Why tell no one?”
“Because Matteo believed his own organization was compromised.”
“By who?”
“He never proved it.”
Vittorio Russo was one possibility.
Another was someone inside the Moretti family.
“Who?”
Bianca refused over phone.
“I need to see the documents.”
Alessandro nearly lost patience.
Sophie watched him.
His jaw tightened.
Then released.
“Fine.”
He was learning nothing yet, but restraint interested her.
At two in the morning, they drove to Tarrytown with police aware? Better Laurent isn't suspect of crime necessarily; they can go to aunt's house with permission. Alessandro has key? Bianca authorizes. Fine.
The house sat behind old trees.
Not mansion.
Large stone home with dark windows.
Laurent’s taxi receipt ended there.
Front door unlocked.
Inside, one lamp burned in the library.
Laurent sat in a chair.
Waiting.
Sophie stopped.
“You lied to me.”
He looked exhausted.
“Yes.”
“Again.”
“Yes.”
Alessandro remained near the door.
Not taking control.
Good.
Laurent placed two ledgers on the table.
One blue.
One black.
The black one was Sophie’s.
“How did you get that?”
“The man who broke into your apartment brought it to me.”
“What?”
“He works for French financial police.”
Sophie laughed in disbelief.
“Police broke into my apartment?”
“No.”
Laurent shook his head.
“He arrived after the burglar.”
“Then who took it?”
“The burglar left it in the hallway stairwell when interrupted.”
The French investigator recovered it.
No theft by police.
Better.
“Who was the burglar?”
Laurent looked at Alessandro.
“Russo.”
Camilla?
No.
Her father’s security operative.
A man named Louis Perrin, French-American, long tied to Vittorio Russo’s wine interests.
Perrin escaped.
The investigator gave Laurent the notebook because Étienne’s coded notes required Laurent’s knowledge.
“Why not come to us?”
“Because Moretti was with you.”
Sophie slammed one palm on the table.
“My father spent eleven years keeping me away from Alessandro’s family. You spent eleven months pretending not to know me. At some point, you all need to stop calling secrecy protection.”
Laurent flinched.
Alessandro looked at her.
No defense.
Good.
“What’s in the blue ledger?” Sophie asked.
Laurent pushed it toward her.
His copy.
Not of all transactions.
Only wine-auction settlements he personally handled.
Codes.
Dates.
Accounts.
Payments.
Vittorio Russo’s name appeared indirectly dozens of times.
Matteo Moretti’s fewer.
Étienne Dubois’s too.
Sophie stared.
“My father took money.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Enough.”
“Do not protect him.”
Laurent swallowed.
“About two million euros over four years.”
The number hurt.
Her family had lost everything while he moved millions.
“Where did it go?”
“Some to the vineyard.”
“Some?”
“Gambling. Debt. Cash.”
There.
No clean father.
Good.
Then Laurent showed her the crucial pages.
In late 2011, Étienne began routing his commissions into an escrow account controlled by a French anti-corruption attorney.
He was building evidence and returning money.
Not all.
Some.
Matteo Moretti deposited into the same account.
Vittorio did not.
Sophie turned pages.
One code repeated.
C.R.
“Camilla Russo?”
Laurent shook his head.
“Carlo Renaud.”
French customs official.
Different.
No cheap twist.
Then another code.
B.M.
Alessandro frowned.
“Bianca Moretti?”
Laurent looked at him.
“Yes.”
His aunt.
Payments.
But not outgoing.
Incoming to escrow.
Bianca had contributed money.
“She helped them.”
“Yes.”
Then:
“She also kept the original audio recordings.”
Sophie stared.
“Where?”
Laurent looked around Matteo’s old library.
“Here.”
They searched.
Nothing.
Then Sophie noticed a wine rack built into the wall.
One empty slot labeled MARGAUX 1982.
Of course.
Alessandro almost smiled.
“This family needs new hiding places.”
Inside the slot, behind the brass label, was a small magnetic key.
It opened a floor safe beneath the reading chair.
Three cassette tapes.
One flash drive.
And a letter to Alessandro.
Matteo’s handwriting.
Alessandro did not open it immediately.
That surprised Sophie.
“Why not?”
He looked at her.
“Because every dead father in this story has already had too much power over the room.”
She almost smiled.
Then the house alarm sounded.
Motion.
Rear entrance.
Alessandro’s guard called from outside.
Someone had entered through the garden door.
Police were called.
Footsteps upstairs.
Laurent went pale.
Sophie froze.
Alessandro did not draw a gun.
Interesting.
He moved Sophie and Laurent into the library’s interior corner and closed the fire door.
Minutes later, officers found the intruder in the upstairs archive.
Louis Perrin.
The man who had broken into Sophie’s apartment.
He had one item in his coat.
Not a weapon.
A photograph.
Camilla Russo at sixteen.
Standing beside Étienne Dubois.
In front of Domaine Dubois.
Sophie stared.
Camilla had claimed not to know her father.
The photograph proved she had met him years before the restaurant.
May you like
And if Camilla recognized the name Dubois that night, her humiliation of Sophie might not have been random cruelty at all.
It might have been fear.
