19: The North End Ghost

CHAPTER NINTEEN

POV: Julian Vane

The archives of the City Records Office were located in the basement of the Municipal Building a tomb of paper and microfilm that smelled of vinegar and forgotten sins. It was miles away from the gilded cages of the Moretti estate and the high-tech sensors of the Vane shipping docks. Here, the only security was a bored clerk who didn’t care about the name on my ID, as long as the f*e was paid in cash.

I sat in a corner booth, the flickering light of a microfilm reader illuminating my face in a ghostly, fluorescent blue. My eyes ached from hours of scrolling through 2009.

Fire at 442 O'Malley Street. Three dead. Cause: Chemical accelerant. Owner: Vane Logistics.

I stopped the reel. My breathing hitched.

The official report said it was an industrial accident, a storage error in a residential-zoned building. My father had wept at the funeral. He had held my brothers, telling us that our mother was an angel taken too soon by "the cruelty of fate."

I had believed him for fifteen years.

I turned the dial, moving to the police evidence logs from the investigation. I found the scan of the delivery manifest that Agent Vance had mentioned.

There it was. At the bottom of the yellowed page.

The first signature was my father’s Arthur Vane. Elegant, sweeping, and cold. The second signature, the one for the delivery confirmation, was a jagged, aggressive scrawl. D. Moretti.

I sat back, the air leaving my lungs. Dante hadn't just been a witness. He was the one who delivered the fuel to the house where my mother was sleeping. He was eighteen years old then, a rising star in the Moretti family, earning his bones by doing the dirty work the Vanes couldn't be seen doing.

My father had ordered the hit on his own wife because she was going to divorce him and take half the company. And he had used the Moretti boy to pull the trigger.

"Looking for something, Mr. Vane?"

I jumped, nearly knocking the microfilm reel off its spindle. Standing at the end of the aisle was Agent Sarah Vance. She was leaning against a shelf of property deeds, a cup of lukewarm coffee in her hand.

"You’re stalking me," I said, my voice sounding raw and brittle.

"I'm keeping an eye on an asset," she countered, walking toward me. She looked down at the screen, her eyes tracing the signatures. "The truth is a bitch, isn't it? Your father was a monster, Julian. But Dante Moretti was the blade he used to cut your life in half."

"Why are you telling me this now?" I hissed. "Why not five years ago? Why not when I was a child?"

"Because five years ago, you were nothing but a name in a trust fund," Vance said, sitting on the edge of the table. "Now, you're the only person in the world who can walk into Dante Moretti’s bedroom and walk out with his encryption keys. You want justice for your mother? Give me the Moretti server codes. I’ll put Dante in a cage for the rest of his life, and I’ll seize every asset the Vanes ever owned. You’ll be free, Julian. Truly free."

"Free?" I laughed, a hollow, bitter sound. "I’m married to a man who might have killed my mother, and my brothers are either dead or trying to blow me up. There is no such thing as 'free' for me."

"There's witness protection," she said, sliding a manila folder across the table. "A new name. A new city. Away from the blood and the silk. Think about it, Julian. Or don't. But know this Dante knows you’re here. He has GPS on your car, on your phone, and probably on that ring on your finger. If you don't come to me, he’s going to realize you’re auditing him."

She stood up and walked away, leaving the folder behind.

I looked at the microfilm reader. I looked at the signatures.

I felt a sudden, violent urge to rip the machine apart. I had been falling in love with a ghost. I had been sleeping with the man who had delivered my mother to her grave.

But then, I remembered the way Dante had held me in the Cathedral. I remembered how he had looked at me when he said he married a man, not a name.

Was he the man who lit the match, or was he just a boy forced to do a monster’s bidding?

I stood up, grabbed the folder Vance had left, and walked out of the archives. I didn't go to the FBI. And I didn't go back to the estate.

I drove to the North End. I drove to 442 O'Malley Street.

The building was gone now, replaced by a modern apartment complex with glass balconies and a rooftop garden. There was no plaque. No sign that anything had ever happened there.

I stood on the sidewalk, the cold wind biting through my coat. I felt the weight of the silver Moretti ring on my finger.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. A text from Dante.

Where are you? Dinner is waiting.

I looked at the text, then at the spot where my mother had died.

I'm coming home, I typed back.

But as I got into the car, I knew that "home" was now a battlefield. I wasn't just an auditor anymore. I was a double agent in my own marriage.

I was going to find out the truth from Dante’s own lips. And if he lied to me...

I would be the last thing he ever saw.