Chapter 7 – THE COAT

It was my father’s handwriting.

I leaned against the hospital wall, the floor spinning beneath my feet. Why would my father write a note instructing someone to ask me about the surgery?

Unless he didn’t write it for Claire. He wrote it for me to find.

I ran out of the hospital and drove straight back to the assisted-living center. The sun was just starting to rise, casting long, gray shadows across the streets.

The man in the suit was gone. My father was sitting exactly where I left him, staring at the shattered lamp on the floor.

“Dad,” I said, dropping to my knees in front of him. “I found your note on the back of my drawing. The one Claire had.”

He looked at me, his eyes tired. “She stole it from my room yesterday. She came here to threaten me.”

“Dad, Claire transferred six million dollars into my name. Luca thinks I’m working with her. I’m going to go to prison, or worse. You have to tell me the truth. All of it.”

My father reached out and took my hands.

“Arthur Venturi didn’t pay for your mother’s surgery,” he said softly.

“Then who did?”

“Eleanor did.”

I stared at him.

“Eleanor knew what I did for Arthur. She knew I broke into Rebecca’s mother’s house to steal the documents,” my father explained. “But she also knew Arthur was going to have me killed to tie up loose ends.”

My breath caught in my throat.

“Eleanor warned me. She gave me the money for the surgery, and she gave me that gold watch and the confession to hold as collateral so Arthur could never touch us.”

“So Eleanor isn’t a murderer?”

“No,” my father said. “Arthur killed his own father. Eleanor forged the confession in her name to protect Arthur from the mafia families, but she kept the original proof to protect herself from Arthur.”

Claire had it backwards. Eleanor wasn’t the villain. She was the only reason my family survived.

“We have to tell Luca,” I said, pulling him up.

“Luca won’t believe us without proof that Claire orchestrated the bank transfer,” my father said.

He walked over to the closet and pulled out his old, heavy winter maintenance coat. The one he wore when he worked for the Venturis.

He reached into the lining of the coat and unzipped a hidden pocket. He pulled out a small, black USB drive.

“What is that?” I asked.

“Claire came here yesterday to threaten me,” he said. “But she didn’t realize I still have the Venturi security bypass codes in my head. While she was screaming at me, I slipped this into her purse, downloaded her phone’s backup, and slipped it out.”

I stared at him in awe.

“It has every text, every email, every bank routing number she’s used in the last three years,” he said, pressing it into my palm.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

It was Luca.

“Natalie,” his voice sounded dead. “Claire is at the mansion. She offered to return the money and drop the petition against my mother.”

“In exchange for what?” I asked, my heart pounding.

“She wants me to marry her today. And she wants you arrested for embezzlement.” Luca paused. “Come to the house. We’re finishing this.”

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