Chapter 5 - THE NOTEBOOK WITH THE MISSING PAGES
Thomas Bennett kept notebooks.
He wrote down measurements, equipment inspections, supplier names, and safety concerns.
Adeline had preserved them in a cardboard box beneath her bed.
When Roman and Gabriel visited her small apartment, she brought the box into the kitchen.
Her mother, Margaret, sat beside the window.
She was sixty-three, pale from illness, but her eyes remained sharp.
When Roman introduced himself, Margaret stared.
“Bellandi.”
Roman nodded.
“Yes, ma'am.”
She looked at Adeline.
“Why is he here?”
Adeline took her mother's hand.
“He's helping us look into Dad's accident.”
Margaret's expression hardened.
“Your family owned the building where my husband died.”
Roman nodded.
“I know.”
“And now you want to help?”
He didn't defend himself.
He didn't offer excuses.
He simply said, “I should have asked questions years ago.”
Margaret studied him.
Then looked away.
Adeline opened the box.
Inside were six notebooks.
Roman examined them carefully.
The final notebook ended three days before Thomas died.
Several pages had been torn out.
Gabriel looked at the binding.
“Someone removed them.”
Adeline nodded.
“I noticed that years ago.”
“Did your father mention anything unusual?”
She thought for a moment.
“He said the warehouse inspection wasn't about safety anymore.”
Roman looked up.
“What did he mean?”
“I don't know.”
Margaret spoke quietly.
“He said someone was using the building to move things that shouldn't be there.”
Roman's expression changed.
“What things?”
Margaret shook her head.
“He wouldn't tell me.”
She looked toward the window.
“He said knowing would put us in danger.”
Silence filled the kitchen.
Then Adeline remembered something.
“My father gave me a wooden music box two weeks before he died.”
Roman looked at her.
“Do you still have it?”
She nodded.
“It doesn't work.”
Gabriel glanced at Roman.
Roman looked at Adeline.
“May we see it?”
She went into her bedroom.
When she returned, she carried a small walnut box.
A carved bird sat on the lid.
Her father had made it himself.
Roman took it carefully.
Gabriel examined the underside.
Then stopped.
“There is a false bottom.”
Adeline stared.
“What?”
Gabriel pressed a narrow wooden seam.
The panel shifted.
Inside lay a small brass key.
And a folded piece of paper.
May you like
On it, Thomas Bennett had written:
IF I DON'T COME HOME, DON'T TRUST CARUSO.
