Chapter 6 - Adrian Had Planned to Leave That Night
The motive did not come from money.
It came from Elliot’s dinosaur backpack.
The little navy backpack had sat in a hallway closet for two years.
No one thought it mattered.
Elliot remembered.
“My dad packed it.”
Luciano turned toward him.
“When?”
“The bad night.”
Inside the bag were clothes sized for a five-year-old.
Old now.
Two storybooks.
A stuffed dinosaur.
A toothbrush still sealed in plastic.
And at the bottom, a handwritten note from Adrian.
Dad and Elliot — Grandpa’s tonight. We’ll sort everything tomorrow.
Luciano sat down.
Adrian had planned to take his son away from the mansion that night.
Not forever necessarily.
But away.
Why?
Elliot knew only part of it.
“Mom was mad because Dad said I was sleeping at Grandpa Everett’s.”
Different grandfather on Bernadette’s side? That did not fit.
Luciano corrected gently.
“Grandpa Richard’s?”
Elliot nodded.
Adrian had wanted Elliot out of the house.
That evening.
Before the crash.
Luciano found more context in Adrian’s old messages.
Nothing dramatic.
One text to Luciano:
Can you take Theo tomorrow? Need a long talk with B. Things are getting ugly around Elliot.
Another:
If she scares him again, I’m done pretending this is normal.
Luciano read it twice.
Bernadette had always been controlling.
But apparently it had become worse than Luciano understood.
Elliot eventually explained the “scaring.”
His mother locked away his favorite toys when angry.
Threatened to send him to relatives if he “embarrassed” her.
Made him sit alone in the dark media room after tantrums.
Adrian had begun intervening.
Bernadette hated losing authority.
The night Adrian died, he intended to take Elliot elsewhere and insist on family counseling before returning.
That gave Bernadette a reason to panic.
Not a reason to kill him.
Luciano refused to jump that far.
But it explained why Adrian and Bernadette argued before he went to the track.
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And why Bernadette might have followed him.
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