Chương 2
“And you brought her upstairs?” Lucia asked.
“She was leaving.”
“So you locked her in?”
“I wanted five minutes.”
“She asked you to let her leave.”
“I wanted her to explain.”
“You could have listened with the door open.”
“I know.”
The admission landed without drama. Matteo did not defend the lock or pretend he had misunderstood her fear. He sounded like a man who had spent twenty minutes discovering that the sentence I wanted five minutes could not be made large enough to contain what he had done.
Lucia closed her eyes briefly.
Vittorio held out his hand. “The envelope.”
Emilia did not move.
“What is in it?” Lucia asked.
No one answered her.
She looked at Vittorio. “What is in it?”
“It concerns the family business.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only answer necessary tonight.”
Lucia turned toward Emilia. Her pale blue eyes were wet but steady. “Open it.”
Vittorio said her name in warning.
She ignored him.
Emilia slid one finger beneath the loosened flap. Inside was a maintenance ledger, folded photocopies of bank-transfer instructions, and a handwritten note in Italian that she had read three times before Matteo entered the study. The note was only seven lines long. She understood enough Italian to follow the meaning without help.
Emergency hull repair.
No external invoice.
Payment in cash.
Remove the launch from the marina before dawn.
The date at the top was September 18, eight years earlier.
The night Emilia’s sister disappeared on Lake Como.
She removed the photocopy and held it out, not to Vittorio but to Lucia.
Lucia hesitated before taking it.
At first her expression showed only confusion. Then her eyes reached the date.
The paper began to tremble between her fingers.
Vittorio crossed the room. “That is enough.”
Lucia drew the page away from him.
“What is this?”
“An internal maintenance matter.”
“Why was the Livia repaired before dawn?”
Vittorio’s jaw moved once.
Matteo stared at the rose petals behind him.
Emilia heard herself say, “My sister’s boat was struck that night.”
Lucia’s eyes lifted.
“Her name was Anna Hart,” Emilia continued. “She was twenty-four. She had rented a small motorboat in Bellagio with a friend. A larger boat hit them after midnight. Her friend survived. Anna didn’t.”
Vittorio’s face did not change.
That frightened Emilia more than surprise would have.
Lucia lowered the paper. “Your sister drowned here?”
“You knew she died here,” Matteo said.
Lucia turned on him. “Not like this.”
Emilia had told them Anna died in an accident when Emilia was nineteen. She had said the loss was the reason her father stopped traveling and why her mother could not bear large family celebrations. She had never said the lake’s name. Not to Lucia. Not to Vittorio.
She had told Matteo.
She had told him on a winter evening in Boston, six months after they met, while snow collected along the windows of her apartment. She had sat on the kitchen floor with a glass of water and described the call from the Italian police, her father’s disbelief, the eleven days before divers found Anna’s body. Matteo had held her until morning.
He had known then what the Livia had done.
Emilia looked at him. “Tell them.”
His throat moved.
“Tell them what you told me upstairs.”
“I didn’t tell you anything upstairs.”
“That was the problem.”
Vittorio took the photocopy from Lucia’s hand with a quickness that made her step back.
“Whatever you believe,” he said to Emilia, “this is not the place for it.”
“It happened in this house’s marina.”
“It happened eight years ago, and you have no idea what happened.”
“Then explain it.”
“This is our son’s wedding night.”
Emilia almost laughed. The sound rose somewhere inside her and vanished before it reached her mouth.
“It was mine too.”
Vittorio looked toward the corridor. “We will speak tomorrow, after everyone has rested.”
“No,” Emilia said.
His eyes returned to her.
She had spent years imagining powerful men dismissing her with raised voices, threats, and cruelty. Vittorio needed none of those things. He simply behaved as though tomorrow belonged to him.
“There will be no discussion tonight,” he said.
Emilia reached into the bodice of her gown and removed her phone.
Matteo stood.
She flinched so visibly that he stopped at once.
The movement seemed to age him.
“I’m calling the police,” she said.
Vittorio’s calm finally broke. “On what grounds?”
“My husband locked me in a room when I tried to leave.”
The word husband brought a small, involuntary change to Matteo’s face.
“And I found documents that may concern my sister’s death.”
“You stole private records.”
“I took photographs before I brought the envelope upstairs.”
It was not true.
She had tried to take photographs, but her phone had slipped from her hand when Matteo appeared in the study doorway. She had recovered it without checking whether any image was clear.
The lie bought her several seconds.
Vittorio looked at Matteo.
Matteo did not confirm or deny it.
Lucia walked to the open doors. “Teresa.”
Her voice carried down the corridor.
A moment later, the housekeeper appeared at the far end, moving quickly but without running. Teresa Riva was a compact woman in her late fifties who had worked for the Bellandis since Matteo was a boy. She had exchanged her usual black dress for a dark green one at Lucia’s insistence, though she still wore practical shoes. Her gray-streaked hair had begun to loosen around her face.
She slowed when she saw Emilia.
“Madonna.”
“Please bring Dr. Bassi,” Lucia said. “Quietly.”
“I don’t need a doctor,” Emilia replied.
Lucia looked at her. “Then he will confirm that.”
Teresa’s gaze moved toward the envelope in Vittorio’s hand.
Her expression changed.
Only for a second.
Vittorio saw it.
“Go,” he told her.
May you like
Teresa lowered her eyes and left.
The reaction was so slight Emilia might have missed it if she had not spent eight years studying what people did when Anna’s name entered a room. Matteo pressed his fingertips together again. Lucia remained near the doors, blocking no one, but standing as if she had chosen a side without understanding what the sides were.
