Chapter 3 - SIXTY-TWO DOLLARS
Lorenzo showed the photograph to Nico, who stepped into the hall and began making calls.
Elena saw enough to understand.
“Someone followed you.”
“Someone was watching.”
“That's not better.”
Behind the treatment-room window, a nurse adjusted Lucia's blanket. The baby's face had lost that terrifying blue shade, but she was still far too still.
Lorenzo lowered himself into a chair.
“My daughter had a fever yesterday. Her nanny was supposed to stay with her while I worked.”
“Where's the nanny?”
“Missing.”
“And her mother?”
He stared at the floor.
“Dead. Five months.”
Elena's anger paused, but it didn't disappear.
“Then that little girl has already lost enough.”
A man in a tailored gray suit arrived carrying the confidence of someone who had never waited outside a locked door.
“Lorenzo.”
He embraced him, then studied Elena.
“I'm Vittorio. His uncle. You've done our family a great service.”
He placed a thick envelope beside her.
“For your trouble.”
Elena didn't touch it.
“My trouble?”
“You missed work. You need clothes.”
“I need to know she'll live.”
“Of course.”
His smile remained. His eyes didn't.
A detective named Mara Bell arrived minutes later and asked Elena to describe the alley. Elena told her everything, including the call she had almost made and the terrible decision to go home.
Vittorio interrupted.
“She was frightened. We can spare her the interrogation.”
Bell looked at him.
“She can speak for herself.”
Elena could have hugged her.
When Bell asked whether she had noticed anyone near the dumpster, Elena remembered a delivery van parked at the alley entrance. White. Engine running. One rear light cracked.
Vittorio's fingers stopped smoothing his sleeve.
Only for a second.
Then he asked whether she was sure.
Elena looked directly at him.
“Yes.”
After he left, Lorenzo pushed the envelope toward her.
“Take it.”
She pulled sixty-two crumpled dollars from her pocket and laid them on top.
“This was everything I had when I picked her up. I didn't check her clothes first.”
Lorenzo said nothing.
Nico returned, holding his phone.
“We checked Elena's apartment.”
“Why?” she asked.
His silence answered before he did.
“The door was forced. Everything's been torn apart.”
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Elena looked toward Lucia's room.
Somebody had searched the only home she had, and she knew exactly what they hadn't found.
