Chapter 9 - THE NAME CARMINE WOULDN’T SAY
Carmine read the name.
Then he sat down.
Nell had seen men fear him.
She had never seen him fear a piece of paper.
“Who was Daniel Price?”
Carmine looked at Mara.
She had returned as the police officers responding to the assault arrived at the gate.
“Answer her,” Mara said.
“He was an accountant,” Carmine replied.
“For you?”
“Yes.”
“Did you kill him?”
“No.”
The answer came quickly.
Too quickly.
Nell waited.
Carmine rubbed his hands together.
“I thought he was stealing from me. I told Vittorio to bring him in.”
“What does that mean?”
Carmine didn’t answer.
“What does that mean?”
“To frighten him.”
“Did it?”
His voice dropped.
“He died.”
Nell stepped away.
Carmine stood, then stopped himself.
“I did not order his death.”
“But you ordered the part before it.”
“Yes.”
No lie.
No polished excuse.
Just something terrible sitting in the middle of the kitchen.
Mara folded her arms.
“Was there an investigation?”
“An unsolved shooting.”
“And you said nothing.”
“Yes.”
Nell thought of every night her mother had checked the locks.
Every time she had crossed the street because a dark car slowed beside them.
“You keep saying you wouldn’t hurt us.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“But you taught the people around you that hurting someone was how you solved a problem.”
Carmine’s face tightened.
He looked as if he wanted to fight that sentence.
Then he lowered his eyes.
“Yes.”
Nell took off his jacket.
She put it on the chair between them.
Mara escorted her to a hotel with controlled access while investigators began taking statements.
Nell refused Carmine’s guards.
Mara arranged independent security.
That evening, they reviewed the storage receipt.
The unit had been rented under Rose’s maiden name.
Prepaid for years.
Located across the river in a plain concrete building Nell had passed a hundred times.
“I want to go,” Nell said.
“We contact the investigator first.”
“What if Vittorio gets there?”
“He doesn’t have this receipt.”
“We don’t know what he has.”
Mara’s phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression hardened.
When she hung up, Nell already knew something had gone wrong.
“The facility manager checked the unit.”
“And?”
“Someone opened it yesterday.”
Nell felt her hope collapse.
Then Mara continued.
“They didn’t empty it.”
“What did they take?”
“Nothing, according to the manager.”
“Then why were they there?”
Mara turned her laptop around.
The manager had sent a security image.
May you like
Odette stood outside the storage unit.
Beside her was a teenage boy.
