For a long moment, the only sound in the study was the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner and Lily’s quiet giggles from the hallway rug. I took the wax packet from Olivia’s trembling fingers and laid its contents onto the green leather blotter beside the rusted metal tin.
There were two items inside.
The first was the missing upper-right corner of the 2004 family photograph. When I slid the jagged white edges together, the picture became whole: standing half a step behind my father in the conservatory shadow was Richard Bellini, his right hand resting on my father’s shoulder, the silver serpent ring catching the camera flash. Flipping both joined pieces over revealed a line written in my mother’s ink across the seam: LaSalle Street Private Depository — Box 409 — Key K.
The second item was the bottom half of the fifth letter. I aligned the razor-cut edge with the top sheet I had pulled from the wall:
Never trust the man who wears the silver ring with the serpent.
Richard has been using Moretti Medical Relief containers to bring uncut synthetic narcotics through the Port of Chicago behind Lorenzo’s back. Tonight I confronted him with the shipping ledgers. If anything happens to me at Cedar Lane, look to Dr. Thomas Reed—I gave him the duplicate key instructions and half of this page so Richard could never steal the whole truth at once.
A cold, suffocating rage settled into my chest, heavier than lead. For twenty-two years I had bowed my head to Richard Bellini at Christmas dinners, asked his blessing on business expansions, and let him lay a wreath of white lilies on my mother’s marble crypt every May. All while the bastard had murdered her to protect a drug route.
I looked up at Olivia, who was bracing one hand against the edge of the bookcase as if her knees might give out. “Sit down, Olivia,” I said quietly, pulling out the leather armchair across from my desk and pouring a glass of water from the carafe. “Tell me everything from the beginning. Why did you keep the torn half in your pocket instead of leaving it in the wall?”
She sank into the chair, wrapping both hands around the glass to steady their shaking. “Twenty-two years ago, on the night of October fourteenth, your mother came into Cedar Lane Medical with mild chest tightness after dining with your father and Mr. Bellini,” Olivia said, her voice tight with grief she had carried since childhood. “My uncle Thomas ran her initial EKG. Her heart was completely fine—she had been slipped a mild dose of digitalis in her espresso to force a hospital admission where Mr. Bellini controlled the night staff. While my uncle was preparing to transfer her to Northwestern Memorial for her safety, your mother pressed that wax packet into his coat pocket and told him about the metal box hidden behind her portrait in the east hallway.”