Chapter 10 - The Missing Minute
Marcus DeLuca had worked in security long enough to distrust perfect stories.
A person who remembered every second of a frightening event was often remembering the version they wished had happened.
A camera that recorded an entire building without a single interruption was often being described by someone who had never maintained one.
The Moretti mansion's surveillance system was extensive but imperfect, with overlapping cameras, routine maintenance records, and blind spots created by old architecture.
That made the missing minute in the west corridor especially important.
The system showed a brief loss of feed near the time of Celeste's attack.
Dante's access credential had opened the restricted door shortly beforehand.
The resulting gap might have been a technical failure, a deliberate interruption, or a coincidence.
Marcus refused to label it until somebody could prove which.
He met Officer Ramirez and a digital forensic specialist in an ordinary municipal office where nobody cared about his reputation as the personal security chief of Chicago's most notorious businessman.
He provided original storage devices, maintenance logs, and the recorded procedures used to retrieve copies after the incident.
The specialist checked timestamps against independent system events and examined whether the missing data could be reconstructed from adjacent cameras.
One neighboring view showed the west corridor's antique mirror reflected in a polished brass panel.
The image was faint, but the overlap captured a figure entering with a silver anchor-shaped tie clip.
Elena had correctly identified the accessory as one Paul Rizzi wore frequently.
The image still did not prove that the figure was Paul.
But it gave investigators a concrete reason to examine his movements that evening.
Paul, meanwhile, had begun acting like a man who was losing patience with normal procedures.
He called Luca three times and left no voicemail.
He sent Mara Chen a short note saying the financial review was damaging the company's reputation.
Then he requested a private meeting with Dante, claiming they needed to protect the Moretti family from Luca's unreasonable suspicions.
Dante accepted.
Their meeting took place in a quiet dining room at a downtown hotel.
A staff member later described how the two men avoided their customary corner table and requested a room without anyone passing behind them.
Paul arrived carrying a leather portfolio.
Dante looked exhausted.
“Celeste is going to talk,” Dante said as soon as the waiter left.
Paul stirred his coffee without drinking.
“Then you should know exactly what she can prove.”
“She knows enough.”
“She knows what you told her.”
Dante leaned forward.
“You said nobody would discover the arrangements.”
“I said there were ways to protect the business.”
“Don't lecture me about words.”
Paul put the spoon down.
“Words are what people use when documents become dangerous.”
Dante glanced toward the closed door.
The possibility that Celeste might cooperate with prosecutors had transformed his confidence into a permanent physical tension.
He slept poorly, argued with his lawyers, and flinched when strangers recognized his name.
Paul remained calm, which made Dante feel increasingly alone.
“You've always been good at leaving someone else in the room when things go wrong,” Dante muttered.
Paul's expression hardened.
“Be careful, son.”
“You're not my father.”
“No,” Paul answered.
“I simply knew him better than you did.”
Across the city, Luca was beginning to understand that the crisis could not be solved with a victory in a boardroom.
He had the names of suspicious consultants, conflicting statements about the garage, and evidence of an attempt to kill him on the staircase.
But he did not yet know how the pieces fit together.
He met with Mara and Simon in his library and asked them to examine the old financial relationships without shielding him from embarrassment.
Simon hesitated.
“There may be conduct from years ago that exposes you to scrutiny as well.”
“I know.”
“Your name appears on some of these approvals.”
“Then include them.”
Mara studied him carefully.
“Are you prepared for what that means?”
Luca thought of the men who had worked for his father, the favors he had once accepted, and the convenient ambiguity he had used to avoid asking where certain fees originated.
He had built a life on the assumption that he could choose which truths deserved daylight.
“I'm prepared to stop pretending I can bury one part and save the other,” he said.
The decision frightened him more than Celeste's raised hand.
It meant some legitimate successes might be questioned alongside past wrongs.
It meant acquaintances could become witnesses and friends could become adversaries.
It also meant he could no longer ask Elena to trust the same private power structure that had nearly cost her life.
That evening Marcus received a call from a retired driver named Frank Bellini.
Frank had transported Paul and Dante for years and left the company shortly before Luca's automobile accident.
He had heard the news about Celeste and wanted to speak with detectives.
He did not want payment.
He wanted assurance that he would not be forced into a private room with the family again.
Marcus gave him Ramirez's official contact information.
Frank's eventual statement described a meeting between Paul, Dante, and Celeste at a lakeside property several days before the crash.
He had not heard every word.
But he remembered Celeste saying that Luca's new succession documents would leave them with nothing they could control.
Paul had replied that the timetable could change.
Frank had assumed they were discussing a corporate maneuver.
Only after the crash did the conversation begin to haunt him.
When Ramirez asked why he had stayed silent, Frank looked at the table.
“I knew what their father used to do to men who spoke out of turn.”
She waited.
Frank swallowed.
“Then I saw a housemaid on television saying she ran toward danger because somebody needed help.”
“She made me ashamed of the thing I called caution.”
Ramirez recorded the account and began seeking independent corroboration.
She did not mistake Frank's memory for a conviction.
But it explained why three people with separate interests might have chosen to act together.
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The missing minute was still missing.
The truth surrounding it, however, was beginning to arrive from people who had spent years too frightened to speak.
