Chapter 5 - My Father’s Name
For a second, all I heard was the radiator knocking overhead.
Luca looked at me.
“What does that mean, Paul?”
“Ask her about her father.”
“My father was a bookkeeper,” I said.
My voice came out thin.
Paul went quiet.
Then he said, “Daniel Dawson.”
Luca’s expression shifted.
I had seen anger on his face.
This was recognition.
“You knew him?” I asked.
Paul answered before Luca could.
“He stole from one of Luca’s companies years ago.”
“No.”
The word came out so fast it surprised me.
“My father didn’t steal.”
“Claire,” Luca said.
“No. He lost his job. He was never charged with anything.”
Paul sighed into the speaker.
“That’s because Luca chose to handle it privately.”
I looked at Luca.
He didn’t deny it.
My father had spent the last years of his life doing small accounting jobs at our kitchen table. He had driven a grocery delivery route when those dried up.
I remembered overdue notices.
My mother whispering after midnight.
Dad saying, “It’ll get better.”
It hadn’t.
“You fired him.”
Luca held my gaze.
“I approved it.”
“Did you ask him what happened?”
Paul cut in.
“This is exactly why I called. She has a grievance. Now she’s inserted herself into a family dispute—”
Luca ended the call.
The sudden silence hurt more than Paul’s voice.
I stepped back.
Emily caught my hand.
“Claire didn’t know I was coming.”
“That doesn’t change—” I began.
“It changes everything,” she said. “You helped me when there was nothing in it for you.”
Luca looked down at Anna’s folder.
One of the visible pages was a photocopied ledger.
At the bottom, beside a column of numbers, were my father’s initials.
D.D.
My knees weakened.
“That’s his handwriting.”
The officer asked me not to touch it.
I folded my hands so tightly my nails bit into my palms.
Luca took a breath.
“Your father was accused of moving money between vendor accounts.”
“He told my mother there were duplicate payments.”
Luca looked up.
“He said that?”
“Yes.”
“Paul told me he admitted taking it.”
“My father never admitted anything.”
Emily looked from me to her father.
“Then why did Mom have his records?”
Nobody answered.
Outside, a car door slammed.
An officer came down the stairs.
“The men say the removal was supposed to happen tomorrow. Someone called tonight and moved it up.”
“Who?” Luca asked.
“The call came from Vanessa Bellini’s phone.”
My own phone buzzed.
A message from my mother.
Honey, someone just called asking whether we still have your dad’s old work papers.
Under it came a second message.
They knew you were at work.
May you like
I looked at Luca.
Whatever had started at his dinner table had just reached my mother’s front door.
