Chương 4
“You came here to investigate us,” Lucia said.
“At first.”
“At first?”
“I expected to spend two weeks cataloging damaged tapestries and looking for records. I did not expect Matteo to be here.”
Vittorio’s expression sharpened with satisfaction. He had found the shape of the argument he wanted.
“You targeted this family.”
“Yes.”
“You entered our home under false pretenses.”
“My professional work was real.”
“You allowed my son to believe your presence here was accidental.”
“Yes.”
“You accepted his proposal.”
Emilia swallowed. “That came later.”
“And during all that time, you were searching our rooms?”
“No.”
“Your behavior tonight suggests otherwise.”
“I stopped looking after the first week.”
Vittorio gave a small, dismissive tilt of his head.
“I did,” Emilia said. “I told myself the photograph meant nothing. I told myself grief had made me see patterns. I fell in love with Matteo.”
“Convenient.”
“No. It was not.”
The words came out harder than she intended.
Nothing about loving Matteo had been convenient. It had made every suspicion feel ugly. It had turned Anna’s unanswered death into a private betrayal Emilia committed each time she chose happiness over questions. She had avoided the Bellandi study for almost three years. She had married a man while knowing there was a locked room inside her own mind where she had placed the reason they met.
Then, an hour after the ceremony, Teresa had whispered to her beside the service staircase.
Your sister’s name was Anna, wasn’t it?
That question had opened everything again.
Emilia looked toward the corridor, but Teresa was gone.
Lucia noticed. “What happened tonight?”
Emilia’s gaze returned to her. “Teresa told me to look in Vittorio’s lower desk drawer.”
Vittorio’s control vanished.
“She did what?”
“She said the key was kept behind the small icon in the library.”
“That is impossible.”
“She knew the date.”
Vittorio moved toward the doors.
Lucia stepped into his path.
He stopped before touching her.
For the first time since entering the suite, husband and wife looked directly at one another without anyone else between them. Sixty years of elegance had settled into Lucia’s posture: the straight back, the carefully placed hands, the instinct to keep private things private. Yet her face showed the naked terror of someone hearing footsteps approach a door she had spent years pretending did not exist.
“Do not frighten Teresa,” she said.
“I am asking her a question.”
“No.”
“Move.”
“No.”
Vittorio’s eyes narrowed.
Matteo left the window. “Father.”
No one raised a voice. The restraint made the room feel more dangerous, not less.
Dr. Bassi arrived with Teresa behind him. The physician was a thin man with round glasses and a dinner jacket thrown over his pajamas. He carried a leather medical case that looked older than Emilia. He paused inside the doorway, took in the four faces, and decided not to ask the obvious question.
“Mrs. Bellandi,” he said to Emilia, “may I examine you?”
She almost corrected him. Mrs. Bellandi had existed for less than six hours and already felt like the name of a stranger trapped in a legal document.
“Only here,” she said.
Lucia moved a lamp closer. Dr. Bassi crouched without touching Emilia until she nodded. He examined the scrape at her temple, checked her pupils, then looked at the marks around her wrist.
“How did this happen?”
“My bracelet was too tight. Then my sleeve caught on the door handle.”
“Did you lose consciousness?”
“No.”
“Nausea?”
“No.”
“Headache?”
“A little.”
He cleaned the scrape while everyone watched. Emilia hated the intimacy of it. She hated the soft cotton, the antiseptic smell, Lucia’s grief, Matteo’s silence, Vittorio’s impatience. Most of all, she hated the small part of herself that wanted Matteo to cross the room and say something only he would know how to say.
He did not.
Dr. Bassi recommended observation and offered a mild pain reliever. Emilia declined it. He did not argue. Before leaving, he wrote a short note recording what he had seen and the explanation she had given.
Vittorio watched him fold the paper.
“I would prefer discretion,” he said.
Dr. Bassi slid the note into his case. “Then everyone should behave in a way that deserves it.”
Lucia almost smiled. The expression appeared and disappeared so quickly it seemed borrowed from another life.
When the doctor left, Teresa remained in the corridor.
Vittorio pointed at her. “Inside.”
She entered and closed her hands in front of her dress.
“Did you direct Emilia to my study?”
Teresa looked at Lucia.
“Answer him,” Lucia said. “But you may leave whenever you wish.”
Teresa nodded.
“Yes,” she said.
Vittorio’s mouth became a thin line. “Why?”
“Because I am tired.”
“Of what?”
“Polishing silver that no one uses. Pretending I cannot hear doors close. Watching all of you grow old around the same lie.”
Lucia sat again.
Teresa looked at Emilia’s gown, then at the envelope in Vittorio’s hand.
“My brother repaired the Livia,” she said. “He was the marina mechanic that year.”
Emilia’s pulse quickened.
“Your brother signed a confidentiality agreement,” Vittorio replied.
“My brother drank himself to death.”
“That had many causes.”
“Yes. You were one.”
Vittorio’s face darkened, but Teresa did not look away.
She had the stillness of someone who had rehearsed fear until it lost its authority. Emilia wondered how many nights Teresa had imagined this conversation while folding towels or counting wineglasses.
“He told me there was blue paint on the hull,” Teresa continued. “He told me Mr. Bellandi paid in cash. He told me young Matteo moved the boat before sunrise. After the body was found, he wanted to speak to the police. Mr. Bellandi reminded him that our mother’s medical bills were being paid by the foundation.”
Lucia whispered, “Vittorio.”
“He was not threatened,” Vittorio said.
“You did not need to threaten him. You only needed to mention the bills.”
Teresa’s voice remained matter-of-fact.
That made Emilia believe her.
May you like
“Why now?” Matteo asked.
Teresa looked at him with something close to pity. “Because she married you.”
