Chapter 10
“They may destroy their records before investigators reach them.”
Patel’s warning seemed to settle over the kitchen like dust. No one moved. Beyond the windows, the street was quiet, but the house no longer felt safe just because its doors were locked.
Emily looked down at the papers spread across the table. The deed. The disputed authorization. Her mother’s carefully preserved records. A home that belonged to her, surrounded by people who had already acted as if it didn’t.
“What can we do tonight?” she asked.
“Preserve what we have and notify the right people,” Patel said. “We can’t seize the company’s files ourselves. We can make sure investigators know there may be an immediate risk of destruction, and we can give them the documents that support your ownership and show why the authorization is disputed.”
“Then do that.”
Patel nodded and picked up his phone. “I’ll call the officer handling the report and send copies through the proper channel. We’ll include the deed, the work order, the call history you’ve saved, and the company’s authorization.”
Emily’s hand tightened around her phone. “The call history may show the calls to Dad, but not who answered them.”
“It can still establish when you tried to reach him,” Patel said. “Claire’s account may help explain what happened to one of those calls.”
I felt Luca look toward me. I hated that the memory had waited so long for a moment like this.
“Tell them what you saw,” Emily said. “Only what you know.”
“I will.”
I described the night Emily had come to the mansion. Vanessa had answered the phone in the hallway and ended the call while Emily was still trying to speak. I had been carrying folded linens past the doorway. I had seen it, but I hadn’t understood what I was seeing. At the time, I’d thought Vanessa was handling a private family matter.
Luca didn’t interrupt. He didn’t ask why I hadn’t told him sooner.
When I finished, he stared at the table.
“I should have checked,” he said.
Emily’s expression softened by a fraction, then steadied again. “Yes. You should have.”
“I know.”
That was all he said. For once, he didn’t try to make the pain smaller with a promise.
Patel stepped into the hall to speak with the officer. Daniel remained near the front window, his phone in hand, coordinating with the security team. They would keep to the property line and preserve the exterior camera footage. No one was to enter the company’s office, contact its employees to pressure them, or touch anything in Emily’s home without her permission.
“Even if they’re destroying evidence?” Luca asked when Daniel relayed the instruction.
“Especially then,” Patel replied from the hall. “If we want the evidence to matter, we have to let the authorities handle it.”
Luca’s jaw flexed. The old instinct to command a room was still there, ready to take over. But he looked to Emily before he spoke.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Nothing that could make them claim you threatened anyone,” she said. “No calls. No favors. No sending people to the company.”
He nodded once.
“I won’t.”
The answer didn’t undo his earlier mistakes. But he didn’t argue with her, and I could tell that mattered.
Patel returned to the kitchen. “The officer is notifying investigators and documenting the company’s stated plan to close out its file. Our copies will be sent tonight. They’ve also asked us not to approach the company directly.”
“Then we won’t,” Emily said.
A little later, Patel called his office to confirm that the preservation notice had been prepared. He wanted copies of the relevant records in a secure folder, each labeled with where it came from and who had handled it. I watched Emily review the list before she approved anything being sent.
When she reached the photographs of the authorization, she stopped.
“This one shows the signature clearly,” she said. “But I don’t want anyone calling it forged until it’s been examined.”
“Agreed,” Patel said. “We’ll say you dispute it and identify the specific differences you noticed. The authorities can determine what further review is appropriate.”
She nodded and gave him permission to send it.
For the first time that night, Emily leaned back in her chair. The effort of keeping control had left her pale. Luca started to rise, then caught himself.
“Would you like water?” I asked.
“Yes, please.”
I brought her a glass. She took it with both hands and drank slowly. Luca stayed where he was.
Patel’s phone rang.
He checked the number, then glanced at Emily. “It’s an employee from Bellini Property Services. The officer gave her my office number after she asked how to report information.”
“Put it on speaker,” Emily said. “If she’s willing.”
Patel answered and identified himself. A woman’s cautious voice came through the phone. She said her name was Mara and that she worked in the company’s records office. She sounded as if she were speaking from somewhere quiet, perhaps a parked car.
“I heard there may be an investigation,” Mara said. “I don’t want to get involved in a family dispute.”
“This isn’t a family dispute,” Emily said. Her voice was clear, not loud. “It’s about my house and documents I never signed.”
There was a pause.
“I understand,” Mara said. “I’m sorry. I was told the paperwork was approved.”
“By whom?”
“Vanessa Bellini contacted our office about the inspection. She asked us to schedule it and gave us the basement access code. I entered the information into the work order.”
My stomach knotted. The call was a confirmation, not a verdict. Still, hearing someone outside the family say Vanessa had arranged it made the room feel even smaller.
Patel asked, “Did you see Ms. Bellini give the company an authorization from Emily?”
“No. I can only tell you what I handled. She asked for the inspection, provided the code, and said the homeowner had agreed. I didn’t speak to Emily.”
“I never agreed,” Emily said.
Mara exhaled shakily. “I’m sorry.”
Patel asked whether she had access to any company records related to the request.
“I don’t have access now,” Mara replied. “And I won’t take anything. But I made a note when Vanessa came in to collect an envelope. It was before the inspection.”
“What was in the envelope?” Patel asked.
“I don’t know. It was sealed.”
“Do you know where it came from?”
“From our transaction records. She asked for it by date, and someone at the front desk brought it up. I remember because the office manager told me not to file the request with the inspection paperwork.”
Emily sat forward. “Why are you telling us this?”
“Because I don’t want my note disappearing. I wrote down the date and what I saw in my own work log. I’ve told the officer I can give it to them. I won’t send company records to anyone unofficially.”
Patel’s expression eased slightly. “That’s the right approach. Please don’t alter or remove anything. The officer can tell you how to preserve what you have.”
“I will.”
Before ending the call, Mara gave Patel the date Vanessa had collected the envelope and the name of the office manager who had handled the request. Patel wrote both down, then read them back to be sure he had them right.
When the call ended, Emily looked toward him.
“Does that help?”
“It gives investigators a specific record to ask for and a witness who can describe the request,” he said. “It doesn’t establish what the envelope contained or what Vanessa intended. But it gives us a lead.”
“Then follow it.”
Patel relayed the information to the officer, without embellishment. Daniel sent the exterior camera footage he had already secured. No one went to the company. No one called Vanessa. No one threatened the clerk.
It was a slower way to act than Luca was accustomed to. It was also the only way that kept Emily’s choices at the center of what was happening.
While we waited, Emily turned the tiny outfit from the dinner over in her hands. She had brought it from the mansion, folded carefully into its gift bag. The words GRANDPA LUCA were visible across the front.
Luca watched her hold it.
“You don’t have to decide anything about us tonight,” he said.
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
She looked up at him. “Then let the process happen. Don’t try to make it disappear.”
“I won’t.”
For a while, there was only the scratch of Patel’s pen and the hum of the refrigerator. Then his phone rang again.
He listened without speaking, his eyes fixed on the table.
“Can you confirm that the document is already in the officer’s possession?” he asked.
Another pause.
“Understood. Please don’t handle anything further. I’ll wait for the officer’s instructions.”
He ended the call and looked at Emily.
“Mara reported that the office manager located a second set of transaction records. The officer has secured a copy.”
Emily’s fingers closed around the baby outfit. “What was in it?”
Patel glanced down at the message he had received. For the first time all night, he seemed to choose his words carefully.
“A transfer draft,” he said. “It isn’t proof of a valid transfer, and it doesn’t prove who created or submitted it.”
“But it says someone’s name,” Emily said.
Patel looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Whose?”
May you like
He turned the phone so she could read the line herself.
The proposed beneficiary was Vanessa Bellini.
