Chapter 7 - Bay Four

The city inspector’s name was Carla Nguyen, and she possessed the terrifying calm of someone who had spent twenty years arguing with developers.

“You are telling me this wall may contain unregistered historic material?”

“Yes,” Miriam said.

Carla looked at Natasha. “And your father wrote this notation?”

“Yes.”

“Can you prove that?”

“I can provide handwriting samples.”

Carla turned to the Castellano Tower facilities manager. “Then we inspect.”

The manager objected for six straight minutes.

Carla let him finish.

“Are you denying access to a protected structural feature?”

He stopped talking.

Matteo stood across the lobby pretending to study a bronze sculpture. Elena waited near the café. Neither was part of the inspection request.

Natasha liked that.

This time, the plan belonged to her.

Carla removed a narrow decorative panel using tools supplied by the building engineer.

Behind it was older stone.

Bay B4.

Miriam measured seventeen inches from the vertical joint.

“Here.”

Blue paint marked the edge of one limestone block.

Faded.

Almost invisible.

Natasha’s chest tightened.

“My father.”

Carla photographed everything.

The engineer used a borescope through an existing mortar gap.

“There’s a void behind this block.”

The facilities manager reached for his phone.

Elena appeared beside him.

“You may want to be careful who you call.”

He glared. “Who are you?”

“Someone recording this entire inspection.”

Carla said, “So am I.”

The block came loose.

Inside the cavity was a steel document tube.

Natasha did not touch it.

Carla did, wearing gloves.

“This becomes evidence if we believe it relates to a crime.”

“It does.”

The manager said, “You don’t know that.”

Natasha looked at him.

“My father hid it before he died while investigating the company that owns this building.”

The man went pale.

Matteo’s phone buzzed.

He read the message and crossed the lobby quickly.

“Natasha.”

She turned.

“We need to leave.”

“Why?”

“My father is in Miami.”

Matteo had said Salvatore lived in Sicily.

“What?”

“He landed forty minutes ago.”

“How do you know?”

“One of my cousins met him at the airport.”

“Why is he here?”

Matteo looked at the steel tube.

“Probably for that.”

Carla straightened. “No one is taking this anywhere except my office or law enforcement.”

A voice behind them said, “Excellent idea.”

Deputy Chief Paul Castellano walked into the lobby with four uniformed officers.

Richard’s uncle was sixty, silver-haired, broad, and smiling.

“Ms. Voss,” he said. “I’m sorry we’re meeting under unpleasant circumstances.”

Natasha stepped closer to Carla.

“What do you want?”

“To secure potential evidence.”

Elena laughed.

Paul looked at her. “Something funny?”

“You.”

His smile faded.

Carla said, “Deputy Chief, I have already contacted the state attorney’s public corruption unit.”

For the first time, Paul’s confidence flickered.

“Why would you do that?”

“Because the material involves your family.”

Paul’s eyes hardened.

Matteo moved beside Natasha.

Paul looked at him.

“Rossi.”

“Castellano.”

“You should have stayed out of this.”

“That sentence seems popular in your family.”

One uniformed officer shifted uncomfortably.

Carla sealed the tube in an evidence bag.

“No one here touches it.”

Paul said, “Officer Reyes, take custody.”

Reyes hesitated.

Elena held up her phone. “Livestreaming to remote storage.”

Paul’s face went cold.

Natasha realized something.

“He didn’t know about the state attorney.”

Matteo murmured, “No.”

Carla looked at Natasha. “We are going upstairs to my temporary review office. You may come.”

Paul stepped forward.

Matteo stepped between them.

Paul smiled thinly. “Careful.”

“You first.”

For a moment, the lobby became utterly still.

Then another group entered through the revolving doors.

Federal badges.

Three agents.

The woman in front identified herself.

“Special Agent Dana Brooks, FBI public corruption.”

Paul’s face changed.

Natasha looked at Carla.

The inspector shrugged. “I made two calls.”

Brooks approached the sealed tube.

“Ms. Voss?”

“Yes.”

“We have been waiting nine years for someone to find what your father hid.”

Natasha stared at her.

“You knew?”

“We knew he claimed to have an access ledger. We never found it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You were not part of the investigation then.”

“I was his daughter.”

Brooks’s expression softened slightly. “And you were twenty-three, grieving, and living abroad for graduate school. We had no evidence that you had the files.”

Richard had found her two years later.

Natasha felt sick.

Brooks continued. “We need your cooperation now.”

Matteo asked, “And mine?”

Brooks looked at him.

“Especially yours.”

A deep voice echoed from the far end of the lobby.

“My son has always cooperated when it benefited him.”

Matteo went rigid.

An elderly man stood near the entrance, flanked by two younger men.

Salvatore Rossi.

Even at eighty-one, he carried authority like a weapon.

He looked at Matteo first.

Then Natasha.

Then the sealed evidence tube.

Salvatore smiled.

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“So,” he said. “Adrian finally speaks from the grave.”

Natasha met his eyes. “And this time, people are listening.”