Chapter 17 - THE WOMAN WHO BROUGHT BELLAROSE'S KEY
Z
Three months after Nell agreed to marry Carmine Orsini, Conrad Bellarose's daughter walked into Fontaine Bakery carrying a brass key.
Nell recognized her before the woman introduced herself.
Everyone in New Orleans had seen Charlotte Bellarose on television during her father's trial.
Thirty-two.
Dark hair.
Expensive coat.
A face that looked enough like Conrad's to make Nell's stomach tighten.
Charlotte waited beside the front counter while the breakfast crowd moved around her.
She did not ask for coffee.
She did not order pie.
She simply said, “I need to speak with Nell Fontaine.”
Maria looked toward the kitchen.
Nell was rolling biscuit dough.
Carmine sat at his usual corner table reviewing invoices for one of the few transportation companies he still controlled.
He heard the name.
So did Benny.
Neither man moved.
Nell wiped flour from her hands and stepped through the kitchen door.
“I'm Nell.”
Charlotte looked at her.
For several seconds, neither woman spoke.
Then Charlotte placed the brass key on the counter.
“My father left this behind.”
Nell did not touch it.
“That sounds like your problem.”
“It has your name attached to it.”
Carmine stood.
Charlotte noticed him.
“Of course you're here.”
Carmine buttoned his jacket.
“Is that disappointing?”
“No.”
Charlotte looked tired.
“Predictable.”
Benny moved closer.
Charlotte noticed that too.
“I don't have a weapon.”
Benny shrugged.
“People keep saying that around me like it's reassuring.”
Nell looked at the key.
A small metal tag hung from it.
“What does it open?”
“A bank deposit box.”
“Whose?”
“My father's.”
“Then give it to federal investigators.”
“I did.”
Nell frowned.
Charlotte continued.
“They opened the box yesterday.”
“And?”
“There was another box inside.”
Carmine's expression changed.
“Another key?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“Documents.”
She looked directly at Nell.
“About your family.”
The bakery seemed quieter.
It was not.
Plates still moved.
Coffee still poured.
Someone near the window laughed.
But Nell heard only Charlotte.
“What documents?”
Charlotte reached into her handbag.
Benny stepped forward.
Charlotte stopped.
“Copies.”
She removed a thin folder.
She placed it beside the key.
Carmine did not reach for it.
Neither did Nell.
Charlotte opened the folder herself.
The first page was a trust agreement.
The title read:
FONTAINE RESTORATION TRUST.
Nell stared.
“What is that?”
“My father created it fourteen years ago.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
“How much?”
Charlotte hesitated.
That was the first thing that frightened Nell.
“Charlotte.”
“Four-point-eight million dollars.”
Nell laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes a number was so absurd the body rejected it before the mind could understand.
“Four million?”
“Four-point-eight.”
Benny whistled.
Carmine did not.
He read the page.
“Beneficiary?”
Charlotte looked at Nell.
“You.”
Nell stepped backward.
“No.”
“It isn't optional that your name appears there.”
“I don't want it.”
“That isn't the problem.”
Nell looked at Carmine.
His eyes were moving quickly across the paperwork.
“What is?”
Charlotte answered before he could.
“Someone leaked the trust to the press this morning.”
Nell went still.
The first camera arrived twenty minutes later.
Then another.
By ten, three reporters stood outside Fontaine Bakery.
By eleven, the headline appeared online.
DAUGHTER OF RUINED BAKER TO RECEIVE MILLIONS FROM BELLAROSE FORTUNE.
Nell read the sentence once.
Then she turned off her phone.
Carmine took it from her anyway.
“You shouldn't read comments.”
“I wasn't.”
“You were about to.”
“I can survive strangers saying mean things.”
“Yes.”
He put the phone in his pocket.
“But you shouldn't have to volunteer.”
Nell glared.
“Give me my phone.”
“No.”
“Carmine.”
“Later.”
“You have learned nothing about controlling people.”
“I have learned several things.”
“Apparently not enough.”
He returned the phone.
Benny watched them.
“Beautiful engagement.”
Nell ignored him.
Charlotte remained in the bakery office.
She had refused Carmine's offer of a driver.
She had refused lunch.
She had refused everything except black coffee.
Nell finally sat across from her.
“Why did your father create a trust for me?”
Charlotte looked toward the closed door.
“He didn't tell me.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Charlotte's voice remained calm.
“I expect you to believe I hated him too.”
Nell stared.
Charlotte continued.
“My father did not become a monster the day you exposed him.”
Her fingers tightened around the coffee cup.
“He was one long before that.”
Nell said nothing.
“He used my name on companies.”
“Did you know?”
“Sometimes.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“Yes.”
Charlotte swallowed.
“Sometimes I knew.”
Nell leaned back.
There it was.
Not innocence.
Not redemption.
Complicity.
It was almost easier.
Charlotte continued.
“When I was twenty-two, he told me signing papers was family loyalty.”
Nell nearly laughed.
“I've heard versions of that sentence.”
“I believed him.”
“For how long?”
“Too long.”
Silence.
Then Charlotte slid another page across the desk.
It was a handwritten note.
Conrad's handwriting.
IF FONTAINE EVER FINDS THE ACCOUNT, SHE WILL THINK IT IS PAYMENT.
Nell read it twice.
Below that:
LET HER.
Carmine entered without knocking.
Nell handed him the note.
His jaw tightened.
“He wanted it to look like hush money.”
Charlotte nodded.
“So if the account was discovered?”
“She would look bought.”
Nell looked at her.
“Even after twenty years.”
“My father did not believe in unfinished threats.”
That sounded like Conrad.
Nell looked toward the bakery floor.
Maria carried plates to table six.
Odette was arguing with a supplier on the telephone.
Normal life.
One headline could poison it.
One hidden account could rewrite everything.
Carmine sat beside her.
“Federal prosecutors will freeze the trust.”
Charlotte nodded.
“They already have.”
“Good.”
Both women looked at him.
Carmine continued.
“Nothing moves until ownership is established.”
Nell stared.
“I don't want ownership.”
“That may not matter legally.”
“It matters to me.”
“Yes.”
His tone softened.
“But first we find out why it exists.”
Charlotte looked at Carmine.
“There was one more thing.”
He waited.
“My father visited the box four days before his arrest.”
Nell frowned.
“After the gala?”
“Yes.”
“He knew everything was collapsing.”
“Yes.”
“What did he put inside?”
Charlotte's face changed.
“I don't know.”
“You just said investigators opened it.”
“They did.”
“What was missing?”
Charlotte reached into the folder and removed an inventory sheet.
One line had been circled.
AUDIO CASSETTE — LABEL: NELL.
Nell stopped breathing.
Carmine looked at Charlotte.
“Where is it?”
“That is the problem.”
Charlotte's voice lowered.
“The bank inventory says the tape was inside when the box was sealed after my father's arrest.”
Nell already understood.
Charlotte continued.
“When federal agents opened the box yesterday…”
She looked at the brass key.
“The tape was gone.”
No one spoke.
Bellarose was in prison.
Marco DeLuca was under federal protection.
Vincent Orsini was dead.
The old network had supposedly collapsed.
Yet someone had entered a sealed bank box.
May you like
Someone had known exactly what to remove.
And whatever Conrad Bellarose had recorded beneath Nell Fontaine's name was important enough for someone to steal before she ever knew it existed.
