Chapter 8 - The Investigator Offered Me the Truth, But Her File Contained My Signature
Mara Bell did not ask us to trust her.
She showed us her credentials, then invited us to verify them through an independent number.
Tomaso did.
Only then did she open her case.
Inside was a photocopy of a bank authorization bearing my name.
Analisa Vincenzi.
The signature was convincing.
It wasn't mine.
"They've used your identity for years," Mara said. "The accounts moved money while you worked and paid rent in Fishtown."
I felt suddenly exposed.
My ordinary life had been a costume someone else had borrowed.
"Who opened them?"
"A legal proxy. We believe Vittorio arranged it."
"Then arrest him."
"Evidence has disappeared every time we've come close."
Cedric looked at the ledger.
"You have it now."
"We have part of it," Mara replied. "The ledger references a witness under a new identity."
I leaned forward.
"My brother."
Mara didn't answer quickly enough.
"You know where he is."
"I know where he was last month."
She placed a photograph on the table.
A grown man stood outside a bookstore in Baltimore.
His hair was darker than I remembered. His face had changed.
But his left eyebrow still carried the tiny scar from the day we fell off our bicycles.
"Nico," I whispered.
I pressed the picture against my chest.
"Is he safe?"
"He contacted us, then vanished."
Cedric reached toward me, stopping before his hand touched mine.
I took it myself.
The gesture startled both of us.
Mara closed her case.
"There's another problem. Someone inside your household has been passing your movements to Vittorio."
I looked at Cedric.
He looked toward the corridor.
"Then we find them," he said.
But when we returned home, Mariana the housekeeper was gone.
May you like
Her room had been cleared.
And on her dressing table lay a train ticket to Baltimore.
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