Chapter 4 - The Drive to the Shore
The rain had turned into a thick, slushy snow by the time we reached the garage beneath the west wing.
The air smelled of cold concrete, damp tires, and motor oil. Parked in a neat row were four vehicles: Dante's pristine Porsche 911, my dark gray armored Range Rover, an old Mercedes estate wagon, and a small service van used by the domestic staff.
I opened the rear door of the Range Rover.
"Get in, Clara," I said, helping her slide onto the heavy leather seat. She was clutching Ellie against her chest, wrapping the child in a heavy wool blanket I had pulled from the hallway closet.
Ellie looked up at me from the warm folds of the blanket. Her small face was clean now, her dark eyes bright in the dim overhead lights of the garage. In her small fist, she was still holding the first gold coin—Sofia's coin—clutched so tightly her knuckles were white.
"Are we going on a boat?" Ellie asked softly.
"Not tonight, little one," I said, offering her a faint, tired smile. "Tonight you're going to a quiet house near the woods where nobody yells."
She looked at the leather tote bag resting on the seat beside her mother—the bag containing two hundred thousand dollars in unmarked bills, her mother's passport, and the second gold coin.
"Is Uncle Dante coming?" she asked, her voice dropping into a small, fearful whisper.
"No," I said, stepping back and looking at my brother, who was sitting on the concrete floor against the garage wall, a hand pressed against his swollen, bloody face, guarded by two elderly house staff members I had trusted for twenty years. "Uncle Dante is staying right here."
I closed the heavy rear door of the Range Rover, the double-glazed bulletproof glass shutting out the cold drafts of the garage.
I walked around to the driver's side, opened the door, and climbed into the leather seat. The engine turned over with a deep, smooth roar, the V8 engine humming softly through the floorboards.
I looked in the rearview mirror.
Clara was staring at the back of my head, her hand resting on her daughter's hair. "Mr. Moretti... where are you taking us?"
"There's a house near Montauk," I said, shifting the heavy SUV into drive. "It belonged to my wife's family before she passed. It's not registered under the Moretti name. It's not on any tax roll in Nassau County. You'll stay there tonight. Tomorrow morning at eight, a retired captain named Sullivan will pick you up at the slip behind the house and take you across the Sound to a small airfield in Connecticut."
"And then?" Clara asked, her voice barely audible over the hum of the heater.
"And then you buy a life," I said, pressing the garage door opener mounted on the visor.
The heavy overhead door rolled upward, revealing the dark, snow-swept driveway leading down toward the main iron gates half a mile away.
As the Range Rover rolled out into the freezing night air, the red taillights illuminated the snow behind us.
Through the side mirror, I saw the main security gates standing wide open. Marco Vane was standing outside his black SUV in the driving snow, wearing a heavy tactical parka. As my vehicle passed him, he didn't raise a rifle. He didn't signal his men.
He simply stood at attention in the freezing slush, lifted his right hand to the brim of his cap, and held a crisp military salute until my red lights disappeared into the dark trees of the estate drive.
I turned the Range Rover onto the coastal highway heading east toward the tip of Long Island.
The road was completely empty. The dark waters of the Sound churned violently to our left, gray waves crashing against the black boulders of the shoreline under a pitch-black sky.
For thirty minutes, no one spoke in the vehicle.
The only sound was the steady sweep of the windshield wipers clearing the wet snow from the glass and the soft, rhythmic breathing of the little girl asleep in the backseat.
"Mr. Moretti?" Clara whispered from the dark rear cabin.
"Yes, Clara?"
"Why did you keep those coins?" she asked. "All those years... why did you keep them on the table?"
I looked at the snow blowing across the asphalt in front of my headlights, white needles cutting through the dark.
"Because after Sofia died, I thought they were just pieces of metal," I said quietly. "I thought the wishes died with her. I thought keeping them on the table was just a way to remind myself of what I had lost."
I reached into my coat pocket with my right hand, feeling the small, round shape of the third gold coin resting against my thumb.
"I didn't realize," I said, my voice barely louder than the hum of the tires, "that they were waiting for someone who actually needed them."
In the rearview mirror, I saw Clara lean her head back against the leather seat, tears quietly slipping down her cheeks in the dark. For the first time in eight months, her shoulders were completely dropped, relaxed, free of the heavy, invisible iron weight she had carried into my home.
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In the backseat, little Ellie slept peacefully, clutching a piece of cheap gold-plated metal in her sleep, dreaming of a world where her mother never had to say sorry again.
And in my pocket, the third coin rested cold and silent, waiting for the end of the night.
