Chapter 6 - Six Years Ago
Grace did not scream.
She wanted to.
Instead she became frighteningly calm.
“When?”
Helen looked confused.
“I told you. Six—”
“Date.”
“Grace—”
“What date did you see him?”
Helen closed her eyes.
“October seventeenth.”
“Where?”
“A motel outside Tulsa.”
“Why?”
“He contacted me.”
“How?”
“A postcard.”
“Do you still have it?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He told me to destroy it.”
Grace laughed bitterly.
“Of course he did.”
Luca stood nearby but did not interfere.
Grace appreciated his silence.
Helen continued.
Samuel had been thinner.
His hair gray.
He used another name.
He remained in the motel room only forty minutes.
“He asked about you,” Helen said.
Grace’s jaw tightened.
“What did you tell him?”
“That you were working at the Lakeshore Hotel.”
Grace remembered that job.
Six years ago.
Sixty-hour weeks.
A kitchen manager who threw utensils.
A studio apartment where the heating failed every February.
Samuel had been alive.
Somewhere.
Asking about her.
“He could have called.”
“He believed somebody was still looking for him.”
“For six years?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“What did he want from you?”
Helen looked at the ledger.
“To confirm the evidence was still hidden.”
Grace’s attention sharpened.
“He knew about the kennel box.”
“Yes.”
“Did he know about the pantry?”
“Yes.”
“What was there?”
Helen hesitated.
“A recording.”
Luca stepped closer.
“Of whom?”
“Antonio.”
His face changed.
“My father?”
Helen nodded.
“Samuel recorded Antonio naming the person he suspected.”
“Vincent?”
“I never heard it.”
Grace folded her arms.
“But someone removed it.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Luca looked toward the cassette recorder in the metal box.
“Maybe not all recordings were removed.”
Victor inspected the device.
Old microcassette.
Battery compartment corroded.
“We’ll need proper equipment.”
Grace reached toward the leather ledger.
“What does H.W. mean?”
Helen sighed.
“Antonio paid me.”
“You knew Antonio?”
“Barely.”
“Why would he pay you?”
“To create Samuel’s escape.”
Helen explained.
Samuel realized he was being followed.
Antonio believed a leak existed inside the estate.
They decided Samuel would disappear publicly.
The burned truck was staged.
The blood belonged to a volunteer sample taken from a medical storage unit connected to one of Antonio’s clinics.
The dental fragments came from an old extraction collection.
Grace stared.
“That sounds insane.”
“It was.”
“And illegal.”
“Yes.”
“Dad agreed?”
Helen nodded.
“He believed it was the only way to keep you safe while he finished tracing the money.”
Grace turned toward Luca.
“Your father knew Samuel survived.”
Luca’s face had gone hard.
“Apparently.”
“You told me you spent twelve years proving Dad didn’t steal.”
“I did.”
“But Antonio could have told you.”
“He died eleven months after Samuel disappeared.”
“Eleven months is enough time.”
Luca’s voice lowered.
“My father and I were not speaking during most of that year.”
Grace stopped.
“Why?”
“Because I accused him of protecting Vincent.”
The revelation hung between them.
Luca continued.
Antonio had refused to explain Samuel’s disappearance.
He instructed Luca to stop investigating.
Luca believed his father had chosen family loyalty over truth.
Their relationship deteriorated.
Then Antonio suffered a fatal heart attack.
“I thought his silence meant guilt,” Luca said.
“Maybe it meant protection.”
“Maybe.”
Grace looked at Samuel’s letter.
“My father and yours were hiding the same thing from both of us.”
“Yes.”
“That worked beautifully.”
Luca gave a humorless laugh.
Victor approached.
“We should return to the house. This location is exposed.”
Grace looked around.
“Someone accessed the cameras before we came.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning they knew we might search here.”
“Yes.”
“Then they may know what we found.”
Luca’s expression became colder.
“Let them.”
Victor did not seem to share his confidence.
They returned to the mansion under heavier security.
Grace hated it.
She hated the black SUVs.
The radios.
The men checking doors.
The feeling that her life had been transformed into somebody else’s thriller overnight.
She wanted her kitchen.
Her old apartment.
Her ordinary worries.
But ordinary had become impossible.
In Luca’s study, Victor arranged the recovered materials.
The leather ledger appeared authentic.
Dates extended across four years.
Companies Grace did not recognize.
Initials.
Amounts.
Codes.
Luca understood more.
“These were businesses Vincent controlled indirectly.”
“How can you tell?”
“Addresses.”
Grace looked.
“Warehouses?”
“Yes.”
“Still operating?”
“Some.”
“And the money?”
“Mostly gone.”
Victor found an old microcassette player in estate storage.
It took an hour.
Nobody left.
Grace sat beside Titan on the floor.
When Victor finally inserted the tape, static filled the room.
Then Samuel’s voice.
Grace stopped breathing.
Twelve years disappeared.
Her father sounded exactly the same.
Rough.
Warm.
Impatient.
“You sure this thing is working?”
Grace covered her mouth.
Luca looked away, giving her privacy she did not have.
Another voice answered.
Antonio Moretti.
“It is working.”
Samuel laughed.
“Then say something useful.”
Antonio replied, “You are an insufferable man.”
For one impossible moment, Grace smiled through tears.
The tape continued.
Antonio spoke about account numbers.
Shipments.
A property in Nevada.
Samuel interrupted repeatedly.
The two men sounded more like stubborn friends than employer and employee.
Then Antonio’s tone changed.
“There are only two people who could authorize these transfers.”
“Vincent,” Samuel said.
“And me.”
“You didn’t do it.”
“You sound very certain.”
“I know what guilty looks like.”
Antonio laughed quietly.
“Working with dogs has made you arrogant.”
“Dogs are easier.”
The tape crackled.
Then Samuel asked, “What about Luca?”
Grace glanced at him.
Antonio went silent.
Finally he said, “Luca knows nothing.”
“Keep it that way.”
“I intend to.”
“Vincent will use him.”
“He already does.”
The recording cut briefly.
When it returned, Samuel sounded farther away.
“I found another account.”
Antonio asked, “Whose name?”
Samuel hesitated.
Then said a name.
Static swallowed it.
Luca leaned toward the machine.
“What?”
Victor rewound.
Again.
The name disappeared beneath distortion.
Samuel continued.
“If I’m right, Vincent isn’t working alone.”
Antonio’s chair scraped.
“With whom?”
“I need another day.”
“You don’t have another day.”
“You worried?”
“Yes.”
“About me?”
“About all of us.”
Then came the sentence that changed Luca’s expression.
Antonio said, “If anything happens to Samuel, trust the dogs.”
Luca stared at the recorder.
Samuel chuckled.
“You’ve been listening to me too long.”
Antonio replied, “They know who comes here when humans are asleep.”
Grace looked at Titan.
Dogs.
Visitors.
Nighttime.
Samuel asked, “You think they saw something?”
“I think Titan did.”
The tape ended.
Nobody moved.
Victor spoke first.
“Security records from twelve years ago are incomplete.”
Luca nodded.
“But kennel logs?”
Victor looked toward him.
“What?”
“My father required veterinary logs. Feeding logs. Handler records.”
“You think they still exist?”
“Archives.”
Victor left.
Grace looked at Luca.
“Your father said Titan saw someone.”
“Yes.”
“Dogs can’t testify.”
“No.”
“But Dad trained him.”
Luca rubbed his jaw.
“Samuel used location commands.”
Grace remembered.
“Object association.”
Luca looked at her.
“You know it?”
“Dad used to hide treats beside people’s belongings. He taught rescues to identify things by scent.”
Luca’s eyes sharpened.
“If Titan associated someone with an object…”
“He might still react to the scent.”
“After twelve years?”
“To a person, maybe not. To something distinctive, possibly.”
Victor returned twenty minutes later carrying a dusty archive box.
Inside were kennel records.
Grace and Luca searched page after page.
Handler names.
Food.
Medical appointments.
Visitors.
Then Grace found the final week.
Titan had behaved strangely on three nights.
Pacing.
Growling.
Refusing to enter his sleeping area.
Samuel had written notes.
Unscheduled visitor after 1 a.m.
Next night:
Same scent. Titan reactive.
Third:
Found leather glove near north wall. T. alerted immediately. Stored for Antonio.
Grace looked up.
“Leather glove.”
Luca stared.
“Stored where?”
Another handwritten line:
Kitchen cold room. Box B-17.
They rushed downstairs.
The old cold room had been converted into wine storage years ago.
Teresa joined them.
“Box B-17?”
She frowned.
“Those boxes were moved after renovation.”
“Where?”
“Basement.”
The basement held decades of household storage.
Victor located shelf B.
Box seventeen remained.
Grace’s heart raced.
Inside were receipts.
Old napkins.
A broken clock.
And a sealed plastic evidence bag containing a single brown leather glove.
Titan stood at the basement entrance.
Grace lifted the bag carefully.
The dog’s body changed instantly.
His head lowered.
His ears flattened.
A deep growl rolled through his chest.
Luca stared.
“Twelve years.”
Grace looked at the glove.
“Who wore it?”
Teresa entered behind them.
She saw the leather.
And stopped.
Grace turned.
“You recognize it.”
Teresa’s face drained.
“No.”
“You do.”
Teresa whispered something in Italian.
Luca stepped closer.
“Teresa.”
The house manager looked frightened in a way Grace had not yet seen.
“That glove belonged to your father.”
Luca froze.
“Antonio?”
Teresa shook her head.
“No.”
She pointed toward an embossed symbol near the wrist.
A small gold V.
“It belonged to Vincent.”
The answer seemed simple.
Too simple.
Then Teresa added:
“But Vincent was in Rome that week.”
Grace stared.
“How do you know?”
“I packed his luggage.”
Luca looked again at the glove.
“Then someone wanted Titan to smell Vincent.”
Grace’s pulse accelerated.
A planted scent.
A false suspect.
A misdirection prepared twelve years earlier.
Samuel had believed Vincent was involved.
But someone else had been inside the kennel wearing his glove.
And if that person had manipulated Titan, the evidence, and the financial records—
May you like
then the greatest threat to Samuel Walker might never have been Vincent Moretti at all.
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