Chapter 2 - The Name Buried in the AshesCarmine did not ask Nell what she meant.
Not immediately.
He had learned long ago that frightened people often lied when pushed too quickly.
Fear made people protect secrets.
Silence made them reveal them.
He walked to the office door and closed it himself.
“Sit.”
Nell remained standing.
“I've already said too much.”
“Then say the rest.”
“I can't.”
“Can't?”
She looked at him.
“I won't.”
Carmine's eyebrow lifted.
There it was.
The woman hidden underneath the timid maid.
Not weakness.
Discipline.
He sat again.
“Who knows you're here?”
Nell shook her head.
“I don't know.”
“Who found you three years ago?”
“No one.”
“You simply walked into my house?”
“I answered a job advertisement.”
“An advertisement that didn't exist.”
Her face went blank.
Carmine placed the original application between them.
“We checked.”
Nell stared at it.
“That isn't possible.”
“It is.”
She sat slowly.
Carmine watched her fingers tremble.
“Who created the job?”
“I don't know.”
“Who told you about it?”
“My father.”
Carmine frowned.
“Your father was in the hospital.”
“He could still speak.”
That changed everything.
“Emmett Fontaine is alive?”
Nell nodded.
“Barely.”
“Where?”
She looked away.
“A private care facility outside the city.”
“Why did you disappear?”
“Because the hospital was watched.”
“By whom?”
“I don't know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it's true.”
Carmine leaned back.
“What did your father tell you?”
Nell closed her eyes.
“After the fire, he couldn't move his left side. He couldn't remember names properly. He forgot dates. Sometimes he forgot me.”
She paused.
“But there were moments.”
“What moments?”
“He would wake up terrified.”
“What did he say?”
At first she said nothing.
Then:
“Orsini.”
Carmine went still.
“What?”
“He kept saying your family's name.”
Benny's hand moved toward his belt.
Carmine stopped him with one glance.
“Why would your father say Orsini?”
“I don't know.”
“Did he accuse my family?”
“No.”
“Did he say someone from my family had anything to do with the fire?”
“No.”
“Then why say the name?”
Nell's face tightened.
“He said, 'Find Orsini.'”
Carmine stared at her.
“You spent three years in my house.”
“I was hiding.”
“You were looking for me.”
“No.”
“Then why stay?”
Nell finally looked at him.
“Because the people who burned the bakery believed you had the ledger.”
Carmine's expression changed.
“What ledger?”
“I don't know.”
“You don't know?”
“My father wouldn't tell me.”
Benny stepped forward.
“What kind of ledger?”
Nell shook her head.
“He only said that if I ever found it, I had to give it to no one.”
“Not even Carmine?”
“Especially not you.”
Silence filled the room.
Carmine almost smiled.
“Interesting.”
Nell stood.
“I'm done.”
She turned.
Carmine spoke softly.
“You're afraid of someone.”
“Yes.”
“More than you're afraid of me?”
Her hand froze on the doorknob.
“Yes.”
That answer bothered him more than anything else.
After she left, Benny closed the door.
“You trust her?”
“No.”
“You believe her?”
Carmine looked at the old photograph.
“I believe she believes every word she said.”
“That's not the same.”
“No.”
Benny placed another folder on the desk.
“We found the investigator's widow.”
“Where?”
“Metairie.”
They drove there before sunset.
Thomas Vale's widow, Margaret, opened the door halfway.
The moment she saw Carmine, she tried to close it.
Benny caught it.
“Mrs. Vale.”
“I have nothing.”
Carmine spoke calmly.
“I know about the eighty thousand dollars.”
Her face went pale.
“Then you know enough.”
“Who paid you?”
“No one.”
“That's a lie.”
She stared at him.
“I never asked for that money.”
“Who gave it to you?”
She whispered:
“I don't know.”
Carmine sighed.
“Mrs. Vale.”
“I don't know his name.”
“What did he look like?”
“Gray suit. Black gloves.”
“Anything else?”
“He carried a cane.”
Benny leaned forward.
“Did he give you a message?”
Margaret hesitated.
Then nodded.
“He said my husband had made a mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“He told me Thomas had started asking the wrong questions.”
“About the Fontaine fire?”
Margaret nodded.
“He said the fire wasn't about the bakery.”
Carmine's eyes narrowed.
“What was it about?”
Margaret looked at him for a long moment.
Then she said:
“Money.”
Before Carmine could ask more, the lights in the house went out.
Margaret screamed.
Benny drew his weapon.
A window shattered.
Someone ran across the backyard.
Benny chased him.
Carmine stayed with Margaret.
When Benny returned minutes later, he was holding something.
A glove.
Black leather.
On the palm was a small silver emblem.
A letter O carved through a line.
Carmine looked at it.
“Orsini?”
Benny shook his head.
“No.”
He turned it over.
“Other side.”
Stamped inside were three words.
RAVEN SHIPPING COMPANY.
Carmine's jaw tightened.
Raven Shipping was not an Orsini company.
It belonged to Lucien Vale.
His family's oldest rival.
Carmine had not spoken to Lucien in seven years.
The next morning, Nell found an envelope under her bedroom door.
There was no name on it.
Inside was a single photograph.
Her father's bakery.
Taken the night before the fire.
Written across the bottom in red ink:
YOUR FATHER LIED TO YOU.
Nell stared at it.
Then she flipped the photograph over.
On the back was another sentence.
ASK CARMINE WHAT HAPPENED THREE YEARS BEFORE THE FIRE.
Her hands went cold.
Because there was one thing she had never told Carmine.
May you like
Three years before the bakery burned, someone had already tried to kill her father.
And her father had blamed the Orsini family.
Related Stories
