Chapter 11 - The Woman at the Grave
Marco had lied about Anna.
Not completely.
That made it worse.
Six years earlier, on the anniversary of Nico’s death, Marco had found a woman standing at the grave.
She had introduced herself as Anna.
She knew details only someone close to Nico could know.
The song he hated.
The cheap diner where he ate after night shifts.
The silver eagle medallion.
Marco had believed her immediately.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Dante asked.
They sat in the mansion library after midnight.
Daniel Pike remained missing.
Elena and Lily were sleeping behind a locked door upstairs.
Marco stared into his untouched whiskey.
“Because she asked me not to.”
Victor shook his head.
“You trusted a stranger?”
“She wasn’t a stranger.”
“You had never met her.”
“She loved my brother.”
Victor looked away.
Marco continued.
“Anna said she had spent years hiding because Salvatore’s people threatened her after the fire. She thought I was part of the Moretti organization by choice.”
“You were.”
Marco’s eyes flashed.
“I joined to find out who killed Nico.”
“And then stayed.”
“Yes.”
The word carried shame.
Dante asked, “Did you tell her about Meridian?”
“No. She told me.”
“CROWN?”
“No.”
“Did you give her access to company systems?”
“Never.”
Victor leaned forward.
“What did you give her?”
Marco did not answer.
Dante knew there was more.
“Marco.”
“My medallion.”
Dante stared.
“You said Nico died wearing it.”
“He did. Anna had the original.”
Victor frowned.
“That’s impossible. I recovered it.”
Marco looked at him.
“No. You recovered Nico’s.”
Dante understood slowly.
Salvatore had given matching eagle medallions to senior security men.
Marco had given his to Nico.
Victor recovered Nico’s after the fire.
But Anna possessed another?
Marco explained.
“Nico had one made for her. Smaller. Same design. She showed me.”
Victor muttered, “A duplicate key.”
The floor plate in Salvatore’s office did not require the original medallion.
Any precise copy could open it.
Anna could have accessed Salvatore’s hidden box years earlier.
Dante said, “Did you take hers?”
“No.”
“Then Anna had the means to enter CROWN compartments.”
“Apparently.”
Dante looked at Victor.
“Why would Pike write that Marco knows her?”
“To isolate him,” Victor said.
“Or because Pike thinks Marco and Anna are working together.”
Marco slammed the glass down.
“I am not working with her.”
Dante studied him.
“I believe you.”
Victor looked irritated.
“You keep believing people whose lies multiply by the hour.”
Dante turned.
“And you keep expecting loyalty without disclosure.”
Victor accepted the rebuke.
A phone rang.
Marco’s.
Unknown number.
He answered.
A woman spoke.
“Marco?”
He stopped breathing.
Dante knew instantly.
Anna.
Marco put the call on speaker.
“Where are you?”
“Not safe.”
“Pike?”
“He found CROWN.”
Victor leaned closer.
“How?”
Anna heard the voice.
“Victor Romano.”
Victor said nothing.
She continued.
“You’re alive longer than I expected.”
Marco said, “Anna, focus.”
“I am focused. Daniel was helping me reconstruct Salvatore’s network. I thought he wanted evidence.”
“What did he want?”
“Leverage.”
Dante spoke.
“Against whom?”
Anna went silent.
“Dante?”
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry about the child.”
Dante’s voice hardened.
“You photographed her.”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
“Then who did?”
“Daniel.”
“Why?”
“To scare me.”
Elena had entered silently behind them.
Dante noticed but did not stop the call.
Anna continued.
“When I told him Lily had seen him at Bellucci’s, he realized she was dangerous.”
Marco glanced at Dante.
“The man in the shop was Pike?”
“Yes.”
“Scar?”
“He used prosthetic makeup. He was framing Marco from the beginning.”
Dante felt rage, but also relief.
One mystery resolved.
Anna said, “He planted the bug because he needed your conversation about the audit. He needed to know whether you were close to CROWN.”
Victor asked, “Where is CROWN?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then what did Pike find?”
“A map.”
“What map?”
“Salvatore split the archive into pieces. Financial leverage in one place, political records in another, internal family files somewhere else. Nico found a routing index.”
Dante asked, “The second ledger?”
“Yes.”
“The one Pike forged.”
“He had the real one before he copied it.”
Marco gripped the phone.
“Where are you?”
Anna’s breathing became uneven.
“Pier Thirty-One.”
Dante stood.
“No.”
Anna said, “Daniel will be there at two.”
“How do you know?”
“He thinks I still have Nico’s copy of the eagle.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Victor said, “It’s a trap.”
Anna laughed softly.
“Everything Salvatore built was a trap.”
Marco asked, “Why call me?”
A long pause.
“Because Nico would have.”
The line disconnected.
Dante checked the time.
12:41 a.m.
Seventy-nine minutes.
Marco stood.
“I’m going.”
“So am I.”
Victor said, “Then Pike gets exactly what he wants.”
Dante turned.
“What?”
“All three of you away from the mansion.”
Elena spoke for the first time.
“He’s right.”
Dante looked at her.
Victor continued.
“Pike has attacked systems, money and history. But he keeps returning here.”
“To Salvatore’s office,” Dante said.
“No,” Elena replied.
Everyone looked at her.
She had been thinking about the hidden router.
The photographs.
The floor box.
The cleaning path.
“He keeps returning to the house.”
Dante understood.
CROWN was not merely connected to the mansion.
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Part of it was still inside.
And Pike’s invitation to the pier might be designed to empty the building long enough for him to retrieve it.
