Chapter 9: A Brother’s Explanation
Teresa chose not to come to Eleanor Price’s office.
“I’ve answered enough questions for one day,” she told Luca that morning. “I want to stay home. In my own room.”
Luca didn’t argue. He asked whether she wanted Hannah to stay with her. Teresa said no; she wanted a little time alone, and she promised to call if she needed anything.
That mattered to her, I realized—not being left alone, exactly, but being asked what she wanted and then believed.
Before we left, Luca told her he wouldn’t discuss her memories without her permission. Teresa nodded, then rested her trembling hands in her lap.
At the office, Eleanor had set out the torn ledger page and a copy of the household log. Michael was already there, standing by the tall windows with his hands in his suit pockets. He looked composed. Only the tightness around his mouth gave away that anything was wrong.
I had almost stayed home. My mother’s pharmacy had sent another reminder about an unpaid balance, and missing work—even for a few hours—made my stomach clench. Luca had said I didn’t have to come. Eleanor had said the same.
But Teresa had asked me to stay close to Luca while they talked. So I had come.
Eleanor closed the conference-room door.
“I’m here to witness the conversation and identify the documents,” she said. “I’m not here to decide what happened or to speak for either of you.”
Michael gave a short, humorless laugh.
“Good. I’d hate for this to become more theatrical than it already is.”
Luca didn’t sit.
“Did you request the phones be disconnected the night Father died?”
Michael’s eyes shifted to the copied log.
“That entry doesn’t say I requested anything.”
“No,” Eleanor said. “It records a service interruption. It doesn’t identify who caused it.”
Luca held Michael’s gaze.
“I’m asking you.”
For a moment, Michael said nothing. Then he exhaled through his nose.
“I disconnected the line.”
The words landed without drama. That made them harder to absorb.
“You did it yourself?” Luca asked.
“Yes.”
“Both phones?”
“The main connection. It affected the whole house.”
“Why?”
Michael looked toward me, then back at his brother.
“Because Father and I were arguing. I didn’t want anyone calling in or interrupting us.”
“You could have asked them to leave the room.”
“I was angry.” His jaw flexed. “I wasn’t thinking about the phones as an emergency line.”
“You knew they were the only way Mom could call for help.”
“I knew they were phones,” Michael snapped. “I didn’t know Father was about to collapse.”
Luca’s voice stayed low.
“Did you think about what could happen if he needed help?”
Michael looked away.
“I thought the argument would be over in a few minutes.”
Eleanor made a note. Her pen moved steadily across the page.
Luca leaned both hands on the table.
“You left Mom in a house with no working phones.”
“I left while Father was alive.”
“That doesn’t answer what I asked.”
Michael’s expression hardened. “You’ve already decided I’m guilty of something. Why ask me anything?”
“Because Mom asked who interrupted the line. I’m trying to find out what happened, not invent a version that’s easier to live with.”
For a second, I thought Michael might leave. Instead, he pulled out a chair and sat. He looked suddenly less like Luca’s polished younger brother and more like someone who had spent years practicing how to avoid a question.
Luca turned to the ledger page.
“Did you remove pages from Father’s records after he died?”
Michael glanced down at it.
“I found papers in his desk.”
“Did you take them?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After the funeral.”
Luca’s fingers curled against the edge of the table.
“You went back into his room and took them without telling me?”
“I wasn’t going to leave those records lying around.”
“What records?”
“Business records. Transfers. Names. Things that could have been used against the family.”
“Used by whom?”
Michael’s eyes flicked toward Eleanor. “People who would have been happy to use anything they could find.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only answer you’re getting.”
Luca straightened.
“You took the pages because you were afraid they would expose something.”
“I took them because I was trying to protect everyone.”
“By hiding them from me?”
“By keeping strangers from tearing this family apart.”
Eleanor glanced up from her notes.
“Did you destroy the pages?”
Michael paused.
“No.”
“Where are they?” Luca asked.
“I’m not discussing that here.”
“You brought them up. You admitted taking them. Now tell me where they went.”
Michael pushed his chair back an inch. “I said I wanted to shield the family. That’s all.”
Luca’s face was unreadable, but I saw the small muscle ticking in his cheek.
“Was that the same reason you wanted Mom out of the house?”
“I never wanted her hurt.”
“You wanted her gone before she talked about our father.”
“I wanted her somewhere she could be cared for.”
“Vanessa said you told her Mom’s memory could destroy the family.”
Michael’s mouth tightened.
“I told Vanessa that the past could make things worse. She took it from there.”
“You knew she planned to put Mom in a car that night.”
“I knew she was arranging a residence.”
“You knew Mom hadn’t agreed.”
Michael didn’t answer.
Eleanor set down her pen. “For clarity, Mr. Moretti, are you saying you did not tell Vanessa your mother had agreed to leave?”
“I said she needed care. I didn’t tell Vanessa to threaten the maid.”
The reference to me made my shoulders stiffen.
Luca noticed.
“Hannah is not part of this discussion.”
Michael glanced at me again. “She’s been part of it from the beginning.”
“I came because Teresa asked me to,” I said. My voice sounded steadier than I felt. “Not because I know what happened to your father.”
Michael held my eyes for a brief moment, then turned back to Luca.
“You want a confession to something I didn’t do.”
“I want to know whether Dad was alive when you left.”
“Yes.”
The answer came quickly. Too quickly, maybe, but I couldn’t know that.
“Was he standing?” Luca asked.
“Yes.”
“Was he speaking?”
“Yes.”
“Did he seem sick?”
Michael’s gaze dropped to the table.
“He was angry. So was I.”
“That still doesn’t answer me.”
“He was alive when I left, Luca.”
Luca waited.
Michael gave him nothing else.
“So you’re asking me whether I knew he was safe,” Michael continued. “I didn’t know what would happen after I walked out. I can’t answer for a night I wasn’t there.”
“Did you believe he was safe?”
Michael’s lips pressed together.
“I said I wasn’t there when he collapsed.”
The room grew quiet. I thought of Teresa’s memory of the dead phones, and of Dr. Rosen’s careful explanation that Giovanni’s records supported a natural cardiac death. Nothing Michael had admitted changed that medical evidence. But it changed the shape of the night: a private argument, an interrupted line, a man left without a way to call for help.
Luca looked down at the ledger page.
“Why take these papers after Dad died if you had nothing to hide?”
Michael’s face flushed.
“I didn’t say I had nothing to hide. I said I was trying to protect the family from exposure.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“No,” Michael said. “It isn’t.”
Eleanor reached for the page, then stopped and looked at Luca.
“May I?”
He nodded.
She placed the sheet beneath a small desk lamp. The torn edge was uneven, and age had dulled the ink, but the columns remained legible. I saw the amounts and the initials Luca had shown me before: M.M. Eleanor studied the lower portion, then rotated the page slightly.
“What is it?” Luca asked.
“There’s a mark below the final entry that I hadn’t examined closely before.”
She leaned nearer. The room seemed to contract around the table.
Michael rose from his chair.
“Those initials aren’t a signature.”
Eleanor looked up at him.
“I didn’t say they were.”
She moved the magnifier across the page. Below the entry marked M.M. was a line of writing, partly blurred but still distinct enough to read.
Eleanor’s expression changed.
“Mr. Moretti, I recognize this handwriting from documents in Giovanni’s files. I can’t authenticate it as a forensic expert, but it appears to be your full signature.”
Michael stared at the page.
May you like
Then he shook his head.
“I never signed that.”
