Chapter 3 - The Envelope Marked Insurance
Mom refused to speak until Dominic left the apartment.
He did not argue.
That worried me.
Before he walked out, he placed a business card on the counter.
"Call when Linda tells you about Halcyon."
Mom flinched at the name.
The door shut.
I turned around.
"Start talking."
She looked tired enough to disappear into the kitchen chair.
"Avery, not tonight."
"Someone broke into our apartment. A man threatened your dialysis. Vanessa Whitmore knows your medical schedule, and Dominic Moretti says Dad worked for his family. We are way past not tonight."
Mom rubbed both hands over her face.
"Your father did occasional work for Carlo Moretti."
"Dominic's father."
She nodded.
"Thomas had a talent for finding things people tried to hide. Missing inventory. False invoices. Theft. He hated the Moretti reputation, but Carlo paid well."
"How long?"
"Years."
I walked away from the table.
Dad had driven me to martial arts tournaments in a rusted pickup, eating gas station peanuts while pretending entry fees did not hurt our budget.
Apparently another version of him had existed at the same time.
"Did he die at Halcyon?"
Mom's eyes filled.
"I don't know."
I turned.
"What does that mean?"
"There was a fire. The body they found was badly burned. The company told me identification was certain. Thomas's watch was recovered."
"So you never saw him."
"No."
My legs weakened.
She reached toward me.
I stepped back.
"Eight years, Mom."
"I was trying to keep you alive."
"By lying?"
"By doing what your father told me."
The room went quiet.
"He told you?"
Mom stood slowly and walked to the refrigerator.
Behind the insurance bill, grocery list, and dialysis schedule was the envelope where I had placed Dominic's hundred-dollar tip seven weeks earlier.
INSURANCE.
She pulled it down.
Then she tore open the bottom seam.
A brass key fell onto the table.
I stared.
"That wasn't in there."
"I put it there after you told me you had been delivering to Lake Forest."
"Why?"
"Because I knew this day might come."
The key had a stamped number.
17.
Mom whispered, "Your father gave me that the week before the fire. He said if anyone from the Moretti family ever recognized you, give you the key and tell you one thing."
My heart pounded.
"What?"
She looked straight at me.
"Don't trust the person who tries hardest to make Dominic look guilty."
I thought of Vanessa immediately.
Too immediately.
Which was probably the point.
We found locker 17 at an old boxing gym in Berwyn that had closed years ago. My first martial arts coach, June Park, met us there after midnight.
June had been my father's friend.
She looked older, but the second she saw the key she stopped smiling.
"Thomas finally lost," she said.
"What did he lose?"
"Time."
Inside locker 17 was a duffel bag.
Cash.
A burner phone so old the battery had swollen.
A small video camera.
And a photograph.
Dad stood beside Dominic outside Halcyon Industrial.
The date stamped in the corner was three days after Dad's official death.
My mother sat down on the locker-room bench.
I could barely speak.
"He was alive."
June shook her head.
"For at least three days."
Then she turned the photograph over.
Dad had written six words on the back.
LINDA KNOWS WHY I COULDN'T COME HOME.
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