Chapter 5 - The Financial Footprint
The original identification collapsed quickly under review. The body had been badly burned. Dental comparison had been performed using digital records supplied by a private dentist affiliated with the DeLuca family; those records showed apparent consistency, but a second forensic odontologist found discrepancies—not obvious ones, but enough.
The jewelry? Isabella’s. The vehicle? Isabella’s. The DNA? Never completed. Why? Thermal damage and rushed identification supported by circumstantial evidence. A serious failure. Possibly negligence. Possibly manipulation.
Rachel reopened everything. The dentist who supplied the records, Dr. Calvin Rusk, had retired unexpectedly three weeks after the crash, his office sold, now living in Florida. Interesting.
Then investigators identified the deceased woman through surviving tissue and missing-person databases: Claire Donnelly, thirty-four, a part-time event coordinator from Yonkers, reported missing the same week Isabella disappeared. No known connection to Lorenzo. No known connection to Isabella. Yet.
Lorenzo sat across from Rachel when she told him. “So I buried another woman.”
“Yes.”
His face hardened. “Her family?”
“She has a sister.”
“Did she attend my wife’s funeral?”
“No.”
“Does she know?”
“We notified her.”
Lorenzo looked away. A family had spent two months not knowing where Claire was while he mourned her beneath someone else’s name. He paid for Claire Donnelly’s funeral later, privately, with no press and no attempt to turn guilt into generosity. Her sister accepted only because she wanted Claire buried beside their mother. Lorenzo attended from a distance. That mattered.
The deeper investigation centered on Isabella’s last forty-eight hours. She had been working quietly on something before the crash. Her laptop was missing; her primary phone burned in the vehicle. But an old tablet in her dressing room contained a partially synced email thread to herself.
Subject: PORT FILES Attachments were missing. Body text: If numbers are right, Vincent has been moving money through North Pier vendors for at least 18 months. Need independent review before telling R. Too close to home.
Lorenzo read the message three times. Vincent. Vincent Moreau. His chief operating officer. Best friend for twenty-two years. The man who stood beside Lorenzo at Isabella’s funeral. The man who held his shoulder when the casket was lowered. The man who told him: “You have to keep living.”
Isabella had apparently been investigating him. Lorenzo’s hands shook. Rachel saw. “Do not confront him.”
He laughed once. “You think I need that instruction?”
“Yes.”
Fair.
May you like
Vincent had grown up with Lorenzo. Same neighborhood, same schools, same first stupid business venture selling imported watches from a borrowed van. When Lorenzo’s father died, Vincent helped keep the early freight company alive. When Lorenzo expanded into ports and logistics, Vincent ran operations. He knew everything: security systems, family routines, Isabella’s travel schedule, Bruno, the dentist, the road she used.
If someone had the access to construct a fake death, Vincent did. But access was not guilt. Lorenzo repeated that to himself until the words became painful. Evidence first. Always.
