Chapter 3 - The Name in Elena's Letter

Leo did not open Elena’s letter in Lily’s room.

He carried the blue ledger, the flash drive, and the envelope to his study as though they were explosives.

Beatrice stayed with Lily until the child fell asleep again.

At midnight, Mateo returned.

“Anton landed in Montreal.”

“Do we have him?”

“Not yet.”

“Why?”

“He walked out of customs using another passport.”

Leo stood behind his desk.

“Whose?”

“A dead man’s.”

Beatrice entered with coffee.

Both men stopped talking.

She set the tray down.

“Please continue.”

Mateo blinked.

“You’re serving coffee.”

“Yes.”

“And ordering us to continue.”

“I contain multitudes.”

Leo looked almost amused.

Then his gaze dropped to her bandaged fingers.

“You should be resting.”

“So should you.”

“I’m not injured.”

“You are holding a letter from your dead wife and pretending that is not an injury.”

Mateo looked at the ceiling.

“I’m going to check the perimeter.”

“Coward,” Leo said.

“Absolutely.”

When Mateo left, silence settled between Leo and Beatrice.

The envelope lay unopened.

“You don’t have to read it in front of me,” she said.

“I know.”

“You also don’t have to prove you can.”

His eyes lifted.

“Do you always speak to employers like this?”

“No. That is probably why I still have jobs.”

He sat.

“Sit down.”

“I’m working.”

“Not tonight.”

Beatrice lowered herself into the chair across from him.

Leo turned the envelope over.

The seal had a faint thumbprint in blue ink.

Elena’s handwriting on the front was steady.

Leo.

Just his name.

He opened it.

The letter was four pages.

He read the first in silence.

By the second, his face had changed.

By the third, his hand shook.

By the fourth, Beatrice wished Mateo had stayed.

Leo put the pages down.

“What does it say?”

He stared at nothing.

“That Elena thought Richard Kensington was stealing from me.”

“Victoria’s father.”

“He used shell companies to route weapons through my freight subsidiaries.”

Beatrice’s stomach tightened.

“Did you know your companies moved weapons?”

“Some.”

The answer was too honest to be comfortable.

“Legally?”

Leo gave her a look.

“Right.”

She folded her hands.

“What else?”

“Elena found shipments I did not authorize. Military inventory. Stolen serials. Ports I had forbidden.”

“And Mr. Kensington?”

“He was using my name as cover.”

“Why?”

“Because if federal investigators found the routes, they would come to me first.”

Beatrice felt cold.

“She was gathering proof.”

“Yes.”

“Did she tell you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Leo’s eyes returned to the letter.

“She was afraid I would confront him before the evidence was secure.”

“That sounds reasonable.”

He looked at her.

“You are very comfortable insulting me.”

“You are very easy to insult tonight.”

A tired breath escaped him.

He read another line.

“She says Mateo helped her access old manifests.”

Beatrice thought of the security override using Mateo’s credentials.

“That is why he knew about the ledger.”

“Yes.”

“Do you trust him?”

“I have trusted him since we were fifteen.”

“That was not my question.”

Leo rubbed a hand over his face.

“I don’t know what trust means tonight.”

The study door opened.

Mateo had returned.

“I heard that.”

Leo did not apologize.

Mateo came closer.

“What did Elena say?”

Leo slid the letter across.

Mateo read.

When he reached the final page, he stopped.

“What?”

Mateo looked at Beatrice.

Then at Leo.

“Elena wrote a name.”

Leo took the page back.

At the bottom, beneath the signature, was one sentence.

If anything happens to me, find Daniel Miller.

Beatrice stopped breathing.

Leo read it again.

“Daniel Miller.”

Mateo looked at her.

“Your brother?”

Beatrice stood so quickly the chair scraped.

“How do you know my brother’s name?”

“Background checks.”

“You investigated my family?”

“You work in this house.”

“My brother died before I started here.”

Leo stared at the sentence.

“Tell me about him.”

“No.”

“Beatrice.”

“No.”

Her voice cracked.

She hated that.

Leo softened his tone.

“Elena named him.”

“I heard you.”

“Then help me understand.”

Beatrice pressed her palms to the desk, wincing as pain shot through her fingers.

“Daniel was an EMT.”

Mateo’s face sharpened.

“In Chicago?”

“Yes.”

“When did he die?”

“Eighteen months ago.”

Leo’s eyes lifted.

“Six months after Elena.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Hit-and-run.”

Mateo and Leo exchanged a look.

Beatrice saw it.

“Do not do that.”

“Do what?” Leo asked.

“Turn my brother into evidence before I have finished saying his name.”

Leo leaned back.

“You’re right.”

Beatrice swallowed.

“Daniel worked the bombing.”

The room went still.

“He was one of the first paramedics at the scene.”

Leo’s face emptied.

“He treated Elena?”

“I don’t know.”

“You never told me.”

“I did not know she had written his name in a letter.”

“But you knew he was there.”

“Yes.”

“Why take a job in my house?”

Beatrice met his gaze.

“Because Daniel left me an address.”

Mateo’s hand moved toward his jacket instinctively.

Leo saw it.

“So did Beatrice.

“Do not,” she said.

Mateo slowly lowered his hand.

Leo’s voice hardened.

“What address?”

“This one.”

A pulse beat in Leo’s jaw.

“You came here because of your brother.”

“I came here because six weeks after Daniel died, I found a notebook in the lining of his winter coat. Your address was inside.”

“And you applied for a maid position.”

“Yes.”

“Under your real name.”

“I had nothing to hide.”

“You hid this.”

“I hid grief.”

Leo stood.

“You entered my home under false pretenses.”

“I entered your home to wash sheets.”

“You came looking for answers.”

“Yes.”

“What answers?”

“Why my brother spent the last months of his life afraid.”

The words hung between them.

Mateo spoke first.

“Afraid of whom?”

“He never said.”

“Did he mention Elena?”

“Not by name.”

“Did he mention Kensington?”

Beatrice looked at him.

Leo saw the answer.

“He did.”

She closed her eyes.

“Once.”

“What did he say?”

“He said, ‘If a man named Kensington asks whether I kept anything from the wreck, tell him I burned it.’”

Mateo swore.

Leo’s face became dangerous.

“What did Daniel keep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think.”

“I have thought every day for eighteen months.”

“Think again.”

Beatrice slammed her palm against the desk.

Pain exploded through her bandaged hand.

“I said I do not know.”

Leo stopped.

She fought tears.

“Daniel changed after that bombing. He checked windows. He stopped taking the train. He would not let me walk home alone. He kept saying he had seen something he wished he hadn’t.”

“What?”

“He would not tell me.”

Mateo stepped closer.

“Did police investigate the hit-and-run?”

“Yes.”

“Result?”

“Unsolved.”

Leo looked at Elena’s letter.

“Not anymore.”

Beatrice’s anger rose.

“You cannot decide that because my brother’s name is useful to you.”

“I’m deciding it because someone killed my wife, may have killed your brother, and nearly killed my daughter tonight.”

His voice broke on daughter.

Beatrice’s anger faltered.

Leo continued.

“We are standing in the same fire.”

She looked at him.

“No. We are standing in different fires that may have the same match.”

For a moment, neither spoke.

Then Mateo opened the blue ledger.

“Argue later.”

Pages of dates, port codes, shell-company initials, and handwritten notes filled the book.

A blue ribbon marked a page near the middle.

Mateo read.

“K-9. North Harbor. December seventeenth.”

Leo frowned.

“The bombing was December eighteenth.”

Beatrice leaned closer.

“What is K-9?”

“Kensington Route Nine,” Mateo said. “Maybe.”

Leo traced the line.

Beside it, Elena had written: D.M. saw transfer.

Daniel Miller.

Beatrice’s knees weakened.

Mateo pulled out a chair for her.

She sat.

Leo turned to the flash drive.

“Can we open it?”

Mateo plugged it into an isolated laptop.

A password prompt appeared.

“One attempt before it wipes,” Mateo said.

“Of course Elena did that.”

“Any idea?”

Leo shook his head.

Beatrice stared at the screen.

Password hint: The place where thunder behaves.

Her heart stopped.

“No.”

Leo looked at her.

“What?”

Beatrice whispered, “Kitchen table.”

Mateo typed it.

Rejected.

A warning flashed.

One attempt remaining.

Leo looked at Beatrice.

“You were sure?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe not the place. The phrase.”

Beatrice remembered a rainy afternoon.

Heaven moving furniture.

No.

She remembered Lily’s first smile.

Heaven should have better manners.

“Try ‘better manners.’”

Mateo typed.

The drive unlocked.

Folders appeared.

Shipping manifests.

Bank transfers.

Photographs.

Audio recordings.

And one file named DANIEL_MILLER.

Beatrice covered her mouth.

Mateo clicked it.

A video opened.

Daniel appeared on screen, alive.

Beatrice made a sound she had not made at his funeral.

Her brother looked tired, unshaven, terrified.

“If you are watching this,” he said, “I probably failed to keep the wrong people from finding me.”

Beatrice began to cry.

Daniel looked directly into the camera.

“Leo Rossi did not order the bombing.”

Leo went rigid.

Daniel continued.

“But someone inside his house helped the man who did.”

The video cut to black.

Mateo replayed Daniel’s final sentence once more before closing the laptop.

Beatrice whispered, “He was trying to leave us a map.”

Leo answered, “Then we follow every line.”

She looked at Elena’s letter, then at her brother’s frozen image.

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“For both of them.”

“For both of them,” Leo said.