Chapter 14
And one astonishing discovery.
Lucia Moretti was alive.
She lived in a small coastal town in Maine.
Under the name Lucia Bennett.
She taught piano three afternoons a week.
She volunteered at a library.
And she had not contacted her son in eleven years.
Dante stared at the address for almost an hour.
Then he said:
“I’m going.”
I touched his arm.
“We’re going.”
---
Lucia opened the door herself.
She was sixty-eight.
Her hair was silver now.
But I recognized her immediately.
Dante’s eyes.
She looked at me first.
Then at him.
The color left her face.
Nobody spoke.
Finally Dante said:
“Hello, Mom.”
Lucia grabbed the doorframe.
Her lips trembled.
“My God.”
Dante did not move.
Neither did she.
Then Lucia crossed the distance between them and put both hands against her son’s face.
Dante closed his eyes.
And the most powerful man I had ever known began to cry.
Not loudly.
Not dramatically.
He simply folded around his mother as though eleven missing years had suddenly landed on his shoulders.
I turned away.
Some moments do not need witnesses.
---
We stayed for six hours.
Lucia told us everything.
She had not stolen the money.
Dante’s father had accused her.
The documents were convincing.
The jewelry had appeared in her luggage.
He gave her one night to leave.
Lucia had begged him to believe her.
Dante asked the question I already knew was coming.
“What exactly did you ask him?”
Lucia looked at her son.
“I asked, ‘Do you believe I stole from you?’”
Dante lowered his head.
Under the table, I took his hand.
Lucia continued.
“He said he needed time to understand what happened.”
The exact same answer.
Different words.
Same wound.
Dante squeezed my fingers.
“Who framed you?”
Lucia looked toward the window.
“I never knew.”
I did.
Or at least I had an idea.
“Six million dollars,” I said.
Lucia nodded.
“What account?”
She told me.
Dante looked at me.
He knew that expression.
“What?”
“The Bellucci foundation.”
Lucia frowned.
“What about it?”
I felt the pieces clicking together.
“Carlo didn’t invent the scheme.”
Dante stood.
“He inherited it.”
---
Carlo had been twenty-three when Lucia disappeared.
Too young to have orchestrated everything.
But Carlo’s father had been Dante’s father’s closest financial adviser.
Vittorio Moretti.
Carlo’s father.
Dante’s uncle.
Dead for six years.
The original six million dollars had been moved through art purchases, restoration accounts, and shell companies.