Chapter 3 - THE GIRL BESIDE ROUTE NINE
Ten years earlier, Delaney had been sixteen.
Her father was still alive.
Her mother still laughed while cooking.
Juny was four, small enough to fall asleep with her head on Delaney's shoulder.
Their family had been driving home from a church fundraiser when the storm arrived.
Rain hammered the windshield.
The road disappeared beneath a sheet of water.
Then they saw the headlights.
A black sedan sat sideways beside Route 9.
Its front end was crushed against a tree.
Steam rose from beneath the hood.
Delaney's father pulled over.
“Stay in the car,” he said.
But Delaney saw movement through the broken driver's window.
Someone was trapped.
Her father called emergency services while Delaney ran toward the wreck.
The driver was unconscious.
Blood ran down his temple.
His coat was soaked.
She remembered the smell of gasoline.
The rain.
The cold.
She remembered speaking because she didn't know what else to do.
“Hey. Can you hear me?”
The man groaned.
“Don't move,” she said. “Help's coming.”
He tried to lift his head.
His eyes opened.
Dark.
Unfocused.
“Get away,” he whispered.
She thought he was confused.
Then she heard an engine approaching.
A dark SUV stopped thirty yards behind the wreck.
Its headlights went out.
Two men emerged.
Delaney froze.
One carried something metallic in his hand.
Her father shouted from their car.
“Delaney! Get down!”
She dropped into the ditch.
A sharp cracking sound split the rain.
Then another.
The men ran toward the damaged sedan.
Her father drove forward, blocking the narrow shoulder with their station wagon.
The SUV reversed.
Its tires spun across the wet pavement.
Then it disappeared.
Delaney scrambled toward the sedan.
She and her father stayed until the ambulance arrived.
She remembered pressing a towel against the driver's wound.
She remembered telling him her name.
But she had never known whether he survived.
A week later, her father told her not to speak about the accident again.
He was frightened.
Not of the police.
Of the men who had returned.
Now, ten years later, Delaney sat across from Allesio Corsetti in a quiet room above a bookstore.
She had chosen the location.
He had agreed without argument.
Ruth Anne waited downstairs.
Delaney had insisted she come.
Allesio sat opposite her with his hands resting openly on the table.
He looked different away from the diner.
Less like a legend.
More like a tired man who had lived too long with unanswered questions.
“Your father saved my life,” he began.
Delaney shook her head.
“We both helped.”
“He told the ambulance crew you were the one who reached me first.”
She looked down.
“He was trying to keep me safe.”
Allesio's expression changed.
“From whom?”
“The men who came back.”
He went completely still.
“What men?”
She described the SUV.
The headlights.
The metallic object.
The sounds she had heard.
Allesio listened without interrupting.
When she finished, he leaned back.
“Were you ever questioned?”
“Once. A police officer came to our house.”
“Do you remember his name?”
“No.”
“Did he ask about the SUV?”
Delaney hesitated.
“My dad mentioned it.”
“And?”
“He told us the road had been empty.”
Allesio stared.
“Empty?”
She nodded.
“He said the other vehicle must have been a reflection in the rain.”
For a long moment, Allesio didn't speak.
Then he asked, “What happened to your father?”
Delaney swallowed.
“He died three years after the accident.”
“I'm sorry.”
She looked away.
“He was working on a bridge construction project. There was a fall.”
Allesio lowered his eyes.
“Did anyone investigate?”
“Yes.”
“Were there any unusual circumstances?”
Delaney's expression hardened.
“Why?”
“Because the people who attacked me that night weren't strangers.”
She felt cold.
“They were men who worked for me.”
Allesio told her part of the truth.
At thirty-eight, he'd been trying to leave an organization built by his father and uncles.
The Corsetti family controlled transportation companies, warehouses, and a network of illegal enterprises that had operated for generations.
Allesio had wanted to separate the legitimate businesses from the criminal ones.
Several senior members resisted.
One was his cousin, Marco Corsetti.
Another was a businessman named Harrison Howerin.
Delaney looked up sharply.
“Howerin?”
Allesio nodded.
“Bryce's father.”
Her stomach tightened.
“What does he have to do with your accident?”
“Harrison financed some of our operations. When I moved to end them, he stood to lose a great deal.”
“Are you saying he tried to kill you?”
“I'm saying I believed someone arranged the attack. I never proved who.”
Delaney stared.
“And now his son is humiliating me at work?”
Allesio looked deeply troubled.
“I didn't know Bryce would come to the diner.”
“But you've been watching me for three months.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
He hesitated.
Then answered.
“Because I found your father's name in the old emergency report.”
She stared.
“So you came to thank him?”
“At first. Then I learned he'd died.”
“And you stayed?”
Allesio looked ashamed.
“I wanted to know whether his family was safe.”
“Without speaking to us?”
“I told myself it was less intrusive.”
Delaney folded her arms.
“Leaving two hundred dollars under a coffee cup every Thursday isn't particularly subtle.”
He almost smiled.
“No.”
“Did you know about Juny?”
“I knew you had a sister.”
“Did you know about her surgery?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He looked surprised.
“Good?”
“Because I don't want you believing that gives you permission to make decisions for us.”
Allesio studied her.
Then nodded.
“Understood.”
When Delaney returned home, she found Juny at the kitchen table.
Her sister had been drawing the Route 9 bridge.
Not the real bridge.
An imagined one.
Tall concrete supports.
A blue river.
Tiny workers beneath the roadway.
“Why are you drawing that?” Delaney asked.
Juny shrugged.
“We're doing local history at school.”
Delaney stared at the page.
“Dad worked on that bridge.”
“I know.”
Juny turned the sketchbook around.
“Did you know there's a memorial plaque?”
Delaney nodded.
“Somewhere near the access road.”
“Our teacher said the original construction records were never digitized.”
“Why does that matter?”
Juny showed her a printed article.
It described safety complaints made shortly before their father's death.
The article quoted a construction inspector who had questioned the use of uncertified materials.
Delaney read the inspector's name.
Then read it again.
Harrison Howerin.
Her hands began to tremble.
Juny noticed.
“Del?”
Delaney looked toward the hallway drawer where she kept her phone locked away.
For ten years, she'd believed the accident on Route 9 and her father's death were separate tragedies.
Now she wasn't so sure.
May you like
She reached for the telephone.
And called Allesio Corsetti.
