Chapter 12 - No More Quiet
We hadn’t been in the guesthouse for two days.
Still, the open door made me feel as if someone had reached into the hotel room and touched my daughter.
Ward arranged a different place for us to stay.
No grand gates. No marble floors. Just a plain house with a kitchen clock that ticked too loudly.
I called Tessa and told her enough that she cried.
Then she got angry.
“You should’ve called sooner.”
“I know.”
“You always think handling it means handling it alone.”
I looked through the doorway at Sophia building a crooked tower out of plastic cups.
“I’m learning.”
Dante wasn’t staying with us.
That was one of my conditions.
Investigators needed to know where he was. His attorneys needed access to him. My daughter needed a few hours without grown men arriving with bad news.
He called that evening.
“How is she?”
“She wants to know why hotel waffles have squares.”
“Does she need anything?”
“A normal day.”
He was quiet.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know. But being sorry can’t be the whole thing.”
“It won’t be.”
The next morning, Mrs. Bell gave a formal statement about Vittorio’s threats.
I gave mine about the study conversation, the envelope, the break-in, and the note.
Luca provided records he had lawfully accessed through his work.
Piece by piece, the house that had survived on silence began to speak.
Not everybody was brave.
One guard denied things I knew he had seen. A driver suddenly remembered being out of town. A cook asked whether telling the truth meant she would lose her pension.
I understood all of them.
I had been counting rent money when Vittorio offered me that envelope.
That afternoon, Elaine called.
“Carmela’s bank records match the notebook. The foundation board has suspended access to the accounts.”
“And Vittorio?”
“Still being sought.”
After dinner, Sophia sat beside me on the couch.
“Is Mister in trouble?”
“Yes,” I said carefully. “Some.”
“Did he do a bad thing?”
“Grown-ups can do good things and bad things. He has to tell the truth about both.”
She thought about that.
“Like when I said the dog ate my cookie?”
“We don’t have a dog.”
“I know.”
For the first time in days, I laughed.
Then my phone rang.
An unknown number.
I almost let it go.
Vittorio’s voice came through softly.
“Your daughter misses the pretty room, doesn’t she?”
I stood so quickly Sophia looked up.
May you like
He continued.
“Tell Dante to meet me there. Or I start visiting the people he’s trying to protect.”
