Chapter 5 - The Truth Camilla Chose to Believe
Camilla met Gina at a diner near Route 10 because Gina refused to come to Domenico’s house.
“She’ll talk more somewhere public,” Camilla told her father.
Domenico suspected Gina simply did not want to sit beneath the same roof where Teresa’s envelope waited on the mantel.
He let Camilla go alone.
Two hours later, she returned.
Marco was with her.
Domenico nearly shut the door.
Camilla blocked it with her hand.
“Please. He needs to hear this too.”
Marco looked exhausted rather than angry.
Domenico stepped aside.
No one sat in the armchair Marco had fallen into the previous day.
The envelope was still on the mantel.
Marco noticed it immediately.
“What did my mother say?”
Camilla answered before Domenico could.
“She said your dad’s sixty thousand was a loan.”
Marco’s mouth tightened.
“I know what paperwork can say.”
“She said it too.”
“She wasn’t there when he started the company.”
“She was married to him.”
Marco looked toward Domenico.
“So now everybody agrees you’re right.”
Domenico folded his arms.
“No.”
That got Marco’s attention.
“I said your father’s money was a loan. I did not say I can currently prove every dollar was repaid.”
Camilla stared at him.
Marco almost smiled.
“Exactly.”
“Don’t get comfortable,” Domenico said. “A missing ledger does not turn company money into yours.”
Marco looked away.
Camilla took a folded photocopy from her purse.
“This is what Gina gave me.”
It was an old bank statement from Anthony and Gina’s joint account.
One line showed a deposit from DeLuca Millwork eleven months after Anthony left.
$2,400.
A second photocopy showed another deposit the following month.
Same amount.
Marco pointed.
“That’s repayment.”
“It may be,” Domenico said.
“You just said the checks weren’t repayment.”
“I said Teresa’s checks to Gina weren’t repayment of the sixty thousand.”
“These came from the company.”
Domenico looked more closely.
Marco was right.
The deposits had come from DeLuca Millwork.
Camilla watched her father.
“You didn’t remember these?”
“I remember making payments to Anthony. I don’t remember every amount from twenty-nine years ago.”
Marco gave a short laugh.
“That’s convenient.”
Domenico ignored him.
“How many statements does Gina have?”
“Only three months,” Camilla said. “She said Anthony handled most of the old records.”
Marco leaned forward.
“If there were twelve payments at twenty-four hundred, that’s twenty-eight-eight. Not sixty.”
Domenico looked at him.
“And your conclusion is?”
“That he never got the rest.”
“No. Your conclusion was that before you had even done the math.”
Marco’s expression shifted.
That was the first crack Domenico saw in his certainty.
Camilla saw it too.
She sat on the sofa.
“I need to tell you both something.”
Domenico already knew he would not like it.
Camilla clasped her hands.
“The first time Marco showed me the withdrawal and Mom’s check, I told him it didn’t prove anything.”
Marco remained silent.
“He kept bringing it up. Then we found those old company payments in Gina’s statements.”
Domenico waited.
“And?”
“I started believing him.”
“That still doesn’t explain approving false invoices.”
Camilla’s eyes moved to the floor.
“Marco said he was only taking the amount you still owed Anthony.”
Domenico’s jaw tightened.
“How much did he say that was?”
“Thirty-one thousand two hundred.”
The number was too precise.
“Why that amount?”
Marco answered.
“Sixty thousand minus twelve payments of twenty-four hundred.”
Domenico stared at him.
“You assumed there were twelve payments.”
“My mother said Teresa helped for about a year.”
“Teresa’s personal payments were not the company payments.”
Marco faltered.
Only slightly.
But enough.
Domenico suddenly understood the dangerous chain they had built.
A true sixty-thousand-dollar loan.
A real series of company payments.
A separate real series of payments from Teresa.
Anthony’s old grievance.
Gina’s silence.
Each fact existed.
The lie lived in the way Marco had connected them.
Camilla had helped him because those connections seemed to explain everything.
Then Domenico asked the question neither of them had apparently asked.
“If your father was owed exactly thirty-one thousand two hundred dollars, why have the questionable invoices already passed eighteen thousand?”
Marco looked at Camilla.
Camilla looked back at him.
Domenico watched something new enter her face.
Not fear.
Suspicion.
Marco stood.
“I don’t know the final number yet.”
Camilla’s voice changed.
“What does that mean?”
May you like
Marco did not answer.
And Domenico realized Camilla had finally reached the edge of the story she had chosen to believe.
