Chapter 15 - What Bianca Hid
We could not save the office at Red Hook.
By the time firefighters controlled the blaze, Bianca's desk, the hidden floor compartment, and half the records room were ash.
Bennett had planned for failure.
He smiled when Marco told him.
"You have a grief-stricken letter and a frightened nanny. Nothing that proves murder."
I wanted to break his face.
Instead, I called Elena.
"Put Sophie on."
A moment later, her small voice came through.
"Hi, Mr. Moretti."
"Sophie, remember your Button doll?"
"Yes."
"Did you ever record anything in the blue room at Dr. Gable's office?"
"Maybe."
Bennett's smile faded.
Sophie continued, "Mommy had a meeting and I was bored."
Elena took the phone. "Adrien, what are you thinking?"
"Bring me every recording on that device."
Two hours later, Marco recovered eleven files.
Most were Sophie singing, telling stories, or arguing with her doll.
The ninth recording began with fish tank bubbles.
Then Bianca's voice.
My wife had met Graham Bennett in Dr. Gable's office nine days before she died.
We listened in silence.
"You forged Adrien's signature," Bianca said.
Bennett answered, "You do not understand the structure."
"I understand theft."
"It predates your marriage."
"Then it ends now."
A chair scraped.
Bennett's voice dropped.
"If you expose this, you do not only hurt me. You destabilize the trust, the company, the family."
"Stop calling crimes stability."
I closed my eyes.
That sounded exactly like Bianca.
Then another woman spoke.
Celeste.
"Bianca, think about the children."
"I am thinking about them. I don't want them inheriting a machine built on lies."
The recording ended when Sophie began singing loudly to herself.
It was not proof of murder.
But it proved Celeste and Bennett lied about knowing Bianca's investigation.
Then Marco found something else.
The recorder's memory card held a deleted audio fragment from the same day.
Only twelve seconds.
Bennett: "If she goes public, the truck plan moves forward."
Celeste: "No accidents. Do you understand me?"
Bennett: "Of course."
The room went silent.
Bennett's face changed for the first time.
"That is edited."
Marco almost smiled. "You can tell the lab."
Luca looked at his mother.
She seemed to age ten years in one minute.
"I told him not to hurt her."
"And then you kept him as the family attorney," Luca said.
She started crying.
He turned away.
Bennett leaned back in his chair.
"You still don't have the driver."
Marco's phone buzzed.
He looked at the screen.
"Actually," he said, "we might."
Evan Price had identified Neal Varga as the man who copied his uniform.
Varga had just been arrested trying to cross into Canada.
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And according to the officer who called us, Varga was offering information about a five-year-old warehouse fire and an eight-month-old traffic death.
He wanted a deal.
