Chapter 3 - What the Cameras Failed to Show

Salvatore Greco turned out to be the sort of man people explained by lowering their voices.

He owned restaurants, parking garages, two trucking companies, and enough politicians’ attention to make ownership irrelevant. According to Leo, he and Matteo had spent the last four years pretending their businesses did not overlap while quietly fighting over everything that mattered near the harbor.

I listened to this in my mother’s room while she complained about having two extra security guards and demanded somebody find her crossword.

“This is ridiculous,” she said.

“A man tried to sign you out with a fake family story,” I reminded her.

“He failed.”

“That is not comforting.”

“It should be. The system worked.”

Matteo stood by the window, wisely staying out of a mother-daughter argument.

I pointed at him. “Don’t look pleased.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m impressed by Mrs. Bennett.”

“She encourages bad behavior.”

My mother smiled.

We eventually agreed she would stay at Harbor Pines for forty-eight hours with one security person in the lobby and one outside the staff entrance. No armed stranger outside her bedroom. No moving her without her consent.

It was not perfect.

It was a compromise.

That mattered.

By ten that morning, I was sitting across from Detective Erin Walsh in a small interview room at Boston Police headquarters.

She was early forties, sharp-eyed, dark-haired, and completely unimpressed by Matteo Conti.

I liked her immediately.

Matteo waited outside.

That had been my condition.

Walsh put a paper cup of coffee in front of me.

“Start before the first shot,” she said.

So I did.

The double shift. The collision. The whiskey. My spectacular decision to poke one of Boston’s most dangerous men in the chest.

Walsh’s mouth twitched.

“You did that twice?”

“I was tired.”

“That explains everything.”

“I thought so.”

Then I described the gray jacket, the hand under the coat, the gun, the pillar exploding beside my head.

My humor disappeared somewhere around there.

Walsh did not rush me.

When my breathing changed, she waited.

When I lost the order of two details, she let me correct myself without making me feel stupid.

“Anything unusual about him?” she asked. “Jewelry, shoes, tattoo, accent?”

I closed my eyes.

For a few seconds, all I could see was the gun.

Then something else surfaced.

A flash of silver near his collar.

“Pin,” I said.

Walsh leaned forward.

“What kind?”

“Small. Silver. Like a shield maybe.”

“On the jacket?”

“Near the left lapel.”

She slid a legal pad toward herself.

“Anything on it?”

“I couldn’t read it.”

“Good. Don’t guess.”

That sentence helped more than she probably knew.

I had spent twelve hours surrounded by people who seemed to know everything. It was a relief to be told that not knowing was allowed.

After the interview, Walsh walked me into the hall.

Matteo stood by a window with Leo.

Walsh looked at him.

“If you intimidate my witness, I’ll make your afternoon unpleasant.”

Matteo’s expression did not change.

“I’ve had worse afternoons.”

“I know. I’ve read the reports.”

They stared at each other for three seconds.

I stepped between them.

“Please don’t flirt in front of me.”

Walsh laughed first.

Matteo looked offended.

It improved my mood considerably.

Before we left headquarters, Walsh gave me her card and told me to call her directly if anyone contacted me about the shooting. She made me repeat that I understood.

“I mean anyone,” she said.

I glanced through the glass at Matteo.

“He counts?”

“Especially him.”

Matteo, somehow reading our expressions from twenty feet away, looked deeply offended.

For the first time all morning, I felt like one person in the room had remembered I was a witness before I was a problem to be managed.

The Velvet Room was closed when we arrived just after noon.

Without music and bodies and colored lights, it looked smaller. Sadder.

The wooden pillar near the bar had been covered with a temporary black panel, but I could still see splinter marks near the edge.

I stopped.

Matteo stopped too.

He did not touch me.

“Want to leave?”

“No.”

“You can.”

“I know.”

That was becoming another thing I noticed about him.

When I said no, he listened.

Jimmy Morales came out from behind the bar carrying a ring of keys.

His face crumpled when he saw me.

“Mara.”

He hugged me before asking permission, then immediately stepped back.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“You scared ten years off my life.”

“I’m twenty-six. I don’t have ten to spare.”

He crossed himself.

“Do not joke.”

“You literally watched me poke Matteo Conti.”

Jimmy glanced toward Matteo.

“I have been trying to forget.”

Leo brought us to the service corridor.

One camera pointed toward the staff door.

Another covered the hallway near the storage rooms.

Both had gone dark twelve minutes before the shooting.

“System failure?” I asked.

Jimmy snorted.

“Not unless systems fail exactly when murder is convenient.”

Leo held up a plastic access card.

“Someone used Jimmy’s credential to open the camera cabinet.”

Jimmy’s face reddened.

“I told you. My spare card disappeared last week.”

“Who knew where you kept it?”

“Every manager. Half the bartenders. Anyone who has ever watched me unlock the liquor cage.”

Matteo frowned.

“That is not security.”

“It’s a nightclub,” Jimmy said. “We also let twenty-two-year-olds carry open flames near vodka.”

Fair point.

Leo showed me a photograph on his tablet.

A logo.

A narrow silver shield with three diagonal lines.

“Recognize it?”

My stomach tightened.

“That’s close.”

“Argent Protective Services,” Leo said. “Greco uses them at two properties.”

Matteo’s jaw hardened.

Walsh had warned me not to guess, so I forced myself to be careful.

“I’m not saying it was exactly that.”

Leo nodded. “Understood.”

A man’s voice came from behind us.

“What exactly are we doing?”

I turned.

He was younger than Matteo, maybe thirty-two, with similar dark hair and the same gray eyes, but where Matteo looked controlled, this man looked polished. Expensive navy suit. Gold cuff links. Smile built for fundraisers.

“Luca,” Matteo said.

So this was Luca Conti.

Cousin.

Chief financial officer of three legal Conti companies.

And, according to Jimmy, a man who had never met a mirror he did not trust.

Luca looked at me.

“You’re the birthday girl.”

“I’m developing a dislike for that title.”

“I heard you made quite an impression.”

“I heard bullets do that.”

His smile weakened.

Matteo stepped closer.

“Why are you here?”

“You stopped answering calls. The board is asking questions. Police are crawling over the club. Greco’s people are already telling everyone you lost control.”

“Then tell the board I’m busy.”

“With a waitress?”

The room changed.

Not loudly.

Matteo did not move.

Neither did Leo.

But Luca seemed to realize he had crossed a line.

I saved him.

“She has a name.”

His gaze returned to me.

“Of course.”

“Mara.”

“Yes. Mara.”

He said it like he was filing it.

I looked at his cuffs.

Gold rectangles with a dark green stone in the center.

Something tugged at my memory.

Not the shooting.

Earlier.

Before the collision.

I had carried champagne upstairs to the mezzanine around nine thirty.

A man in a navy suit had been speaking sharply to Colin, our night manager, near the service stairs.

Green cuff links had flashed when he pointed toward the security hall.

At the time, I had not cared.

I had been thinking about my mother’s bill.

I looked at Luca.

“What time did you get here last night?”

His brows lifted.

“Excuse me?”

“Last night. What time?”

“After the shooting.”

“You weren’t here before?”

“No.”

The answer came too quickly.

Matteo watched me now.

I kept my voice even.

“I saw somebody who looked like you on the mezzanine before ten.”

Luca laughed.

“Half the men in Boston own navy suits.”

“Do they all own those cuff links?”

His smile disappeared.

He looked down at his wrists.

For the first time, I felt something shift.

Not proof.

Not certainty.

Just a small piece of the night moving into a new position.

Luca recovered.

“These were a gift. There are six pairs.”

“From whom?” Leo asked.

Luca’s eyes flicked toward him.

“Our grandfather’s jeweler.”

Matteo said nothing.

That silence was worse than an accusation.

Luca straightened his jacket.

“If this is an interrogation, call my lawyer.”

Then he walked away.

I watched him disappear through the empty club.

Jimmy came to stand beside me.

“You sure?”

“No.”

I remembered Walsh.

Don’t guess.

“I’m sure about the green stone,” I said. “I’m sure I saw a man in a navy suit near Colin. I’m not sure it was Luca.”

Matteo looked at me.

“Good.”

I frowned. “Good?”

“You didn’t tell me what I wanted to hear.”

“I don’t know what you want to hear.”

“Exactly.”

Leo’s phone buzzed.

He read the message.

“Colin isn’t answering.”

Jimmy swore.

“His apartment?”

“Empty.”

Matteo’s face hardened.

Leo continued. “And somebody withdrew nine thousand dollars from Colin’s account at six this morning.”

I stared down the corridor where the cameras had gone dark.

The story was still missing pieces.

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But one thing was suddenly clear.

The man who fired the gun had not walked into the Velvet Room alone.