Chapter 4 - WHAT HAPPENED THE NIGHT DAD DIED
Dad was forty-four when he was killed.
Until my eleventh birthday, that sentence contained almost everything Esme and I were allowed to know.
The fuller version came from retired Detective Mara Chen.
She had investigated the case before leaving the NYPD.
Dad was found in his study shortly after nine on a Thursday night.
Gunshot wound.
One shot.
No weapon.
No sign of forced entry.
The mansion's internal cameras had gone offline for eleven minutes.
Mom called 911.
Esme and I had been asleep in the playroom after a movie.
At least that was what Mom always told us.
Detective Chen corrected her.
“You weren't asleep.”
Mom closed her eyes.
I stared.
“What?”
Chen looked at us carefully.
“You were awake when officers arrived.”
Esme went pale.
“I don't remember.”
“You were seven.”
“What did we say?”
“Very little.”
Apparently I kept asking for Dad.
Esme refused to speak.
Neither of us had reported seeing the shooter.
The original investigation focused on people with access.
Employees.
Executives.
Security contractors.
Dante.
That surprised us.
“Why Dante?” I asked.
Chen looked toward Mom.
“Your father and Mr. Moretti had a complicated business relationship.”
Dante had invested early money into one of Dad's restaurant projects before Celeste’s biotech company became successful.
Some of that money came from businesses police believed were tied to organized crime.
Adrian later severed the financial relationship.
The friendship remained.
“Was Dante a suspect?”
“Many people were examined.”
That's what detectives say when the answer is complicated.
“No murder weapon was ever found?”
“No.”
Mom stared at her hands.
Chen noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Celeste.”
“No.”
The room changed.
Four years ago, Chen had questioned my mother repeatedly.
Now she knew her body language.
“So there is something.”
Mom stood.
“This conversation is over.”
I blocked the doorway with my chair.
Not dramatically.
There simply wasn't enough room for her to pass without asking me to move.
She stopped.
I had never used my chair as leverage before.
“Ivy.”
“Did you lie to the police?”
“No.”
“Do you know where the gun was?”
Her face changed.
Tiny.
Enough.
Esme whispered:
“Mom.”
Celeste sat down again.
“I knew where it was for about twenty minutes.”
Nobody spoke.
Then:
“And then?”
Mom looked toward the ceiling.
Toward the floor above us.
Toward the room she had kept locked for four years.
“I made a decision.”
Detective Chen became very still.
“What decision?”
May you like
Mom's voice dropped.
“I moved it.”
