Chapter 21 - THE SIGNATURE ON THE MANIFEST
Rose entered the salon five minutes later, carrying a thick binder of forensic audits and a secure satellite phone. She found Nicholas standing in front of Isabella’s portrait, a glass of unwatered bourbon untouched in his hand. Lucy was happily munching on a butter cookie, swinging her little legs back and forth against the velvet chair.
"Nicholas," Rose said quietly, sensing the lethal energy radiating from the man. "I tracked the IP address from the Granite Harbor payout eleven days ago."
"It wasn't Portugal," Nicholas said without turning around.
Rose paused, her eyebrows arching. "How did you know?"
"Because Lisbon was the decoy. The payout was initiated from New York."
"Upper East Side," Rose confirmed, tapping a sheet of paper. "A private penthouse registered to a blind foundation called *The Egret Trust*. The proxy owner is listed as Evelyn Vance—Harold Vance’s sister. But the biometric signature used to authorize the wire transfer wasn't Evelyn's."
Nicholas turned slowly, his eyes burning like black coals. "Whose was it?"
"A palm-print scan registered to a deceased patient from Saint Mary’s Hospital, archived in 2014. Isabella Caruso." Rose lowered her voice, stepping closer so Lucy wouldn't hear. "Nicholas... did you ever see your mother’s body before the cremation?"
"The casket was sealed," Nicholas replied, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. "Arthur handled the arrangements. Arthur brought me the urn. I scattered her ashes over Long Island Sound with my own hands."
"Then you scattered wood ash," Rose said grimly. "Or somebody else's. Isabella didn't die ten years ago. She faked her terminal illness just like she faked Thomas Bell’s robbery. She stepped out of the spotlight when the Federal Task Force began closing in on Granite Harbor. She left you to run the family as a lightning rod while she moved into the shadows to control the real syndicate—the institutional banks that launder the cartel money."
"And Daniel Santos found her," Nicholas deduced.
"Daniel was auditing the Hart-Vance accounts. He realized that the foundation paying out Thomas Bell’s monthly hush-money was also funding the fertility ward at Saint Mary’s. He pulled the tissue donor records. He realized what had been done with Maria’s pregnancy." Rose looked at Lucy with profound sadness. "Daniel wasn't Lucy’s biological father, but he loved that little girl more than his own life. When he realized that Isabella was planning to take Lucy away—to groom her as the next clean corporate heir to a multi-billion-dollar shadow trust—Daniel took the White Book and ran."
"And Isabella cornered him," Nicholas concluded, his voice dropping to a gravelly register. "She went to their apartment. She grabbed Lucy’s wrist when Daniel tried to pull her away. That's where the bruises came from. That wasn't a nanny or a maid. That was my mother."
"Daniel fought back," Rose said. "He managed to get Maria and Lucy out the fire escape, but Isabella’s enforcers caught him on the balcony. They made it look like a suicide to discredit his audit."
Nicholas set his glass down on the table with enough force to crack the heavy crystal base.
May you like
"Where is she?"
Before Rose could answer, the mansion’s emergency klaxons began to wail—a low, rhythmic moan that triggered the automated steel shutters over every window on the ground floor.
