He intended to return it once Angela and her mother were beyond anyone’s reach.
Then he discovered he was being followed.
So he disappeared alone.
Angela’s hand began to tremble.
The next lines were addressed directly to Raphael.
The account information was written in a coded form only the two men would recognize.
Her father told him how to recover the full amount.
Then came the sentence that made Raphael close his eyes.
“I took your money, Raphael.
I will answer for that wherever men like us answer for their sins.
Angela will not.
You gave me your word once.
I am asking you, perhaps for the last time, to remember what that word meant before power taught you to forget.”
Angela stared at Raphael.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Finally she asked, “Did you know the money still existed?”
“No.”
“Johnny did?”
Raphael’s expression hardened again, but the arrogance did not return.
“He knew there was something your father had left behind.
He had been searching for it.”
Angela glanced at the scattered papers on the SUV floor.
Her mind began rearranging the last year of her life.
Johnny volunteering to help clear her mother’s storage unit.
Johnny asking strange questions about her father.
Johnny insisting they keep old documents instead of throwing them away.
Johnny becoming suddenly nervous whenever Angela mentioned selling the few boxes she had inherited.
“You said he helped conceal my father’s trail.”
“He exaggerated his usefulness,” Raphael said.
“Men like Johnny often do when they are afraid.”
“What exactly did he offer you?”
Raphael hesitated.
Angela leaned forward.
“You kidnapped me.
You don’t get to become private now.”
His eyes met hers.
“When I found him, he thought I believed he had access to your father’s money.
He didn’t.
So he tried to buy time.
He told me you were the one thing your father had valued more than ten million dollars.”
Angela felt cold despite the heavy wedding dress.
“He offered me.”
“Yes.”
“As what?”
Raphael looked away for the first time.
“Leverage.”
The word disgusted her more than anything else he could have called it.
“And you accepted.”
Raphael’s silence answered.
Angela folded the letter carefully.
Then she struck him with it across the chest.
It was only paper, but Raphael reacted as if she had hit him much harder.
“You’re both cowards.”
One of the guards in the front passenger seat glanced into the mirror, then quickly looked away.
Angela continued before Raphael could speak.
“Johnny was too cowardly to admit he had been using me.
