Dante arranged the meeting. It was at a secluded diner, far from the city center, the kind of place where conversations could easily get lost in the clatter of plates and the hiss of the coffee machine. Tony Morello, “The Eraser,” sat across from me, looking visibly nervous under Dante’s silent, watchful eye.
He was a lean man, with quick, darting eyes that avoided mine. Dante simply sat, sipping coffee, his presence a clear, unspoken threat.
“Tony,” Dante said, his voice soft but firm, “Maria here has some questions about a job you did for Ms. Caldwell. A gala event, a few weeks back.”
Tony’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “It was… a standard security protocol revision,” he stammered.
“No,” I cut in, my voice unwavering. “It was a cover-up. You wiped footage. Specific angles.”
I described the kick, Leo’s fall, Veronica’s furious denial. I watched his face. He flinched.
“She paid me a lot of money,” Tony finally confessed, his voice barely a whisper, his gaze fixed on his coffee cup. “Fifty thousand dollars in cash. To make sure nothing incriminating remained. Specifically, footage of her, uh, ‘interaction’ with the child. And another angle, in a hallway, where she… exchanged something with the police chief.”
My breath hitched. He confirmed it all. Not just the kick, but the bribe. The technician’s confession, wrung out under Dante’s subtle pressure, laid bare Veronica’s exact orders and her meticulous attempt to erase all traces of her actions. It was the missing link, connecting all the threads.
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