Chapter 12 - THE PRICE OF THE TRUTH
The ring was real.
A tiny nick marked the underside.
Nell had put it there at nine, dropping it down a drain while pretending to be married.
Her mother had laughed.
Her father had taken the pipe apart himself.
Nell hadn’t remembered that until she held it.
Agent Bell placed the ring in an evidence bag.
“We’ll need to know everyone who handled the package.”
Nell barely heard her.
“My mother was wearing it when she died.”
“Was it returned with her property?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“They said it must have been lost in the water.”
Mara’s office phone rang.
Her assistant looked through the doorway.
“He says she’ll know his voice.”
Agent Bell gestured for them to wait while she prepared to document the call.
Then Nell picked up.
Vittorio sounded almost cheerful.
“You always were sentimental.”
She stared at the ring.
“Where did you get it?”
“Your mother gave people too many chances.”
“Did you kill her?”
“Careful, Elena. You’ve spent too long around people who think a direct question deserves a direct answer.”
“What do you want?”
“The box. The recorder. Everything Rose kept.”
“And if I say no?”
He let the silence stretch.
Then another voice came through the phone.
A frightened boy.
“Nell?”
Jonah.
Odette had taken him home after the interview.
Security had been arranged for Nell.
Not for him.
Nell’s blood went cold.
Vittorio returned.
“The old restaurant on Tchoupitoulas. Ten tonight. Your father knows it.”
Agent Bell wrote something on a pad.
KEEP HIM TALKING.
Nell forced air into her lungs.
“Let me speak to Jonah again.”
“No.”
“How do I know he’ll be alive when I get there?”
“Because dead boys make poor bargaining chips.”
The line went quiet.
Then Vittorio added, “Bring Carmine. It’s time we finished a family conversation.”
He hung up.
Odette’s phone went unanswered.
Officers reached her house minutes later.
They found her on the kitchen floor, conscious but injured.
Jonah was gone.
Carmine arrived at Mara’s office before sunset.
Nell expected rage.
Instead, he looked at the evidence bags and asked Bell what she needed from him.
“Cooperation,” she said. “Complete cooperation.”
He nodded.
Nell stepped into his path.
“You don’t get to turn this into a private war.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to kill the only person who can tell us what happened.”
Carmine looked at the ring.
May you like
Then at his daughter.
“For once,” he said, “I will do exactly what you ask.”
