Chapter 14 - Six People Below the Water
Paloma answered before the first ring ended.
“It's about Mateo,” she said.
Elena closed her eyes.
“You heard from him?”
“Yesterday. He said the job was nearly finished. He was going to come home after the next rotation.”
For a moment, Elena could see him as he had been on the island: a tall young man carrying flour sacks up the bakery stairs, showing four toddlers how to fold paper boats so they would not immediately sink.
He had left for maritime engineering work months earlier. Paloma had been proud of the contract.
Who had recommended the contractor?
She did not need to ask before the answer came.
“The people who handled the medical boat,” Paloma whispered. “Rinaldi's office.”
Elena sat down.
“We have people working to reach him. I won't tell you more than they've confirmed. I will keep calling.”
“Is he alive?”
“He was when the engineer made contact.”
It was the hardest honest answer she had ever given.
At the recovery command, Shaw assembled the available information. Antonio's facility had been maintained quietly over the years, its private systems sustained by people hired through layers of contractors. The financial records described storage and inspection work. They did not describe the extraordinary level of control Rinaldi had retained over access and reporting.
The boy's name on the authorization was part of that control. It supplied a pretext for saying legitimate oversight required family consent while Rinaldi moved property under an emergency mandate of his own making.
Shaw did not need a six-year-old's voice to justify a rescue.
She needed reliable information about the people, the current condition of the facility, and a safe way to reach them.
The recovery team was already working on all three.
Rinaldi called Dominic through the family office while those efforts continued.
His voice was beautifully calm.
“Your mother will explain the continuity provisions.”
“My mother is finished explaining your decisions for you.”
A pause.
“I understand the last twenty-four hours have been distressing.”
“Are the workers inside?”
“The personnel have been reassigned.”
“Then put Anna Leclerc on the line.”
Rinaldi did not answer.
Dominic looked through the study window toward the lawn. Leo was walking its perimeter with Marco, who wore a sling and the expression of a man discovering that enforced rest did not prevent a child from asking thirty questions.
Dominic had told Marco to explain the garden, not recruit a successor.
Now he held on to that ordinary picture while Rinaldi began naming numbers.
A private indemnity. Control of a substantial portion of the recovery assets. An agreement not to challenge the Carina's movement until a later accounting could be completed.
In return, Rinaldi would resolve the access problem.
“You're asking me to purchase people you were paid to protect.”
“I'm offering a solution before this becomes a public catastrophe.”
Dominic's hand closed around the edge of the desk.
For one instant, he imagined how much simpler the conversation would be with Rinaldi pinned against a wall.
Then he looked at the notes the investigators had asked him to keep and continued the call without making that fantasy a plan.
“Send the terms to counsel.”
“How soon can you sign?”
“As soon as someone explains where the six workers are.”
Rinaldi ended the call.
Dominic put the phone down carefully.
Elena had heard the exchange from the other side of the desk.
“He's frightened,” she said.
“Of losing the gold.”
“Of losing the papers that show what he did. The gold is how he hopes to buy his way beyond them.”
Dominic looked at her.
On Nantucket she had repaired nets, kept accounts for small businesses, and learned which promises meant a boat would actually arrive before bad weather. He had spent the morning thinking of all the things he could finally give her.
He was beginning to understand how much she already brought into a room.
“Paloma has the correspondence about Mateo's contract,” Elena continued. “There may be drawings or inspection notes he sent home. She doesn't know which ones matter.”
“Have her send them.”
“She has paper copies and an old telephone. I want to go.”
He stood immediately.
“No.”
The word hung between them.
Elena waited.
Dominic looked down, then forced himself to begin again.
“What would make that a safe, useful trip?”
She took a breath.
“We ask Shaw. We arrange proper transport. The boys stay here with people we agree on. I call when I arrive. And nobody pretends keeping Paloma alone beside a telephone is protection.”
He nodded once.
They told the children about the trip that evening. Elena explained where she was going, whom she would see, and which adults would be at Brookline while she was away.
Lucas wanted the route drawn. Liam wanted her to bring the baking tin if Paloma agreed. Lorenzo asked whether she would sleep in the attic.
Leo said he would keep his brothers together.
Dominic sat beside him.
“You can play with them. You don't have to guard them.”
“What if one goes away?”
“An adult will help find him.”
The boy looked unconvinced.
Dominic remembered giving an order beside the armored vehicle and calling it courage. The child had followed it faithfully. Letting him stop would take more than one sentence over pancakes.
“We will keep telling you,” Elena said. “And we will keep doing it.”
She put the travel plan where the children could see it. The timing was expected, not promised beyond what they knew. Beside it, Lucas drew a boat with an unusually large emergency biscuit compartment.
That detail made Liam feel considerably better about the journey.
Outside, Leo pointed toward the gate and asked Marco something Dominic could not hear.
The wounded lieutenant shook his head, then sat with the boy on a bench.
May you like
For the moment, both remained where they belonged.
Then Shaw's message arrived. The Carina had filed an evacuation manifest naming Mateo among the people supposedly aboard. Its captain had told investigators he had never seen him.
