Chapter 5 - THE FORTY-EIGHTH PEARL
Emma found the missing pearl.
It had never left Bennett Jewelers.
Nathan had hidden it inside the handle of his favorite polishing brush.
Inside was another microfilm capsule.
This one contained a photograph taken eleven months earlier.
Nathan meeting a man outside the shop.
Anthony recognized him instantly.
James Caruso.
His security chief.
The man who had stood against the wall during Eleanor’s birthday.
The man Anthony had trusted with his life for fourteen years.
Grace whispered:
“James killed my father?”
Emma shook her head.
“No.”
Everyone looked at her.
“Look at Grandpa.”
Nathan was handing James something.
Not resisting him.
Not afraid.
“He trusted him.”
Anthony enlarged the image.
Nathan was giving James an envelope.
They found James at Anthony’s house.
Anthony placed the photograph before him.
James did not deny it.
“Nathan contacted me last year.”
“Why?”
“He said somebody was looking for the necklace.”
“Who?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“What did he give you?”
“A key.”
James removed it from his pocket.
He had carried it for eleven months.
The key opened a safe-deposit box.
Inside was a cassette recording.
Nathan’s voice.
Weak but clear.
“If Emma found this, then I was right to teach that child everything.”
Emma covered her mouth.
Nathan explained that Walter was guilty of many things.
Lies.
Blackmail.
Cover-ups.
But not Salvatore’s murder.
Nathan had discovered the real traitor.
A man who had been eighteen years old in 1998.
A young driver nobody considered important.
A man who later rose through the Moretti organization.
James whispered:
“No.”
Anthony stared at the recorder.
Nathan spoke the name.
“Michael Moretti.”
Anthony stopped breathing.
Michael.
His cousin.
His closest living relative besides Eleanor.
The man who had eaten Thanksgiving dinner beside him for twenty years.
Michael’s father had been Salvatore’s younger brother.
And Salvatore’s death had made Michael’s branch of the family enormously wealthy.
But Michael had been eighteen.
Could an eighteen-year-old arrange a murder?
Nathan answered from the tape.
“No. Michael did not plan it.”
A pause.
“He delivered the replacement bomb.”
May you like
“For someone else.”
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