Chương 6
“Can I touch you?”
Emilia nodded.
Ruth wrapped both arms around her and held on without speaking.
Behind them, Teresa placed a tray of coffee on a table. No one drank it. Lucia brought a plain white nightgown and a robe, then left while Ruth helped Emilia out of the wedding dress.
The gown resisted them.
Tiny covered buttons ran from the base of Emilia’s neck to her waist. Ruth’s fingers were clumsy with anger, and twice she swore under her breath. Emilia stared at the wallpaper while each button came undone.
“You said the wrist marks were from the bracelet,” Ruth said.
“They were.”
“And the scrape?”
“The door.”
“Did he push you?”
“No.”
“Did he touch you?”
“No.”
“Did he lock you in?”
“Yes.”
Ruth stopped working on the buttons.
“Why?”
“Because I found something.”
“That is not a reason to lock someone in.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
Emilia turned her head.
Ruth’s face softened at once. “Sorry.”
“No. I know.”
They removed the gown and spread it over a chaise. Without the dress, Emilia felt smaller and more exposed. She put on Lucia’s robe, tying it twice around her waist.
Ruth looked at the envelope on the table.
“What did you find?”
Emilia told her.
Not everything. Not yet.
She described the maintenance ledger, Matteo’s admission, Teresa’s brother, the damaged launch. She did not explain that she had requested the villa assignment deliberately or that suspicion had been present the first day she met Matteo.
Ruth listened without interrupting. When Emilia finished, she poured coffee and drank half the cup in three swallows.
“We call the police now.”
“I’m not sure.”
Ruth set down the cup. “What part are you unsure about?”
“All of it.”
“Your sister died.”
“I know.”
“They hid evidence.”
“I know.”
“Your husband locked you in a room.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that like knowledge is the same thing as action.”
Emilia sat on the edge of the bed. “If I call now, it becomes whatever Vittorio’s lawyers say it is. A hysterical bride. A family argument. Stolen documents. A woman who married into money and invented a crime on her wedding night.”
“Then we get a lawyer.”
“At three in the morning?”
“I know lawyers. Some of them are terrible people, but they own phones.”
Despite herself, Emilia laughed.
The sound cracked in the middle. She covered her mouth and began to cry.
She did not sob or collapse. Tears simply slid down her face while Ruth sat beside her and watched the dark window. When Emilia’s breathing steadied, Ruth handed her a tissue.
“I need to tell you something,” Emilia said.
Ruth waited.
“I knew the Bellandi name before I came here.”
Ruth’s stillness answered before her voice did.
“How?”
“The investigation file.”
“You told me the villa assignment was random.”
“It wasn’t.”
“How long did you plan it?”
“I didn’t plan Matteo.”
“That was not my question.”
Emilia wiped beneath her eyes. “I requested the work. I thought I might find records. I looked for a few days, then stopped.”
“And then?”
“I stayed.”
“For him?”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No.”
Ruth stood and walked to the window. The lake reflected nothing. She folded the used tissue Emilia had dropped on the bed, then unfolded it, irritated by her own useless action.
“You let me give a speech today,” she said.
“I know.”
“I said you two met because life had finally decided to be kind.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I wasn’t asking for an apology.”
“What are you asking for?”
“I don’t know yet.”
That was Ruth’s way. She had never pretended emotions became clearer simply because people named them. She worked as a hospital administrator in Chicago and distrusted any conversation that resolved itself before the paperwork did.
She turned from the window.
“You still need to call the police.”
“Vittorio will say I manipulated Matteo.”
“Did you?”
“I loved him.”
“That was also not my question.”
Emilia looked down at the red marks around her wrist.
“I used the assignment to enter the house. I kept the reason secret. After we became serious, I told myself there was no proof. Then every month I waited made telling him worse.”
“Did you marry him for access?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
Emilia opened her mouth.
Nothing came out.
Ruth nodded as though the absence of an answer had answered something important.
“Call a lawyer first,” she said.
They found one through Ruth’s colleague, who woke her cousin, an attorney in Milan named Giulia Conti. Giulia answered from what sounded like a moving car and asked questions without reacting to the answers. She wanted photographs of Emilia’s injuries, copies of the documents, names of everyone present, and a written timeline before memories blurred.
“Do not post anything,” she said. “Do not send images to friends. Do not negotiate with the family. If you leave the villa, take the original envelope with you and document where it goes.”
“Should I call the police?”
“Yes.”
“What if the documents were obtained illegally?”
“We will deal with how they were obtained. We cannot deal with them if they disappear.”
Giulia advised Emilia to report the confinement separately from the older evidence. She did not promise that either report would produce immediate action.
“Truth and proof are not the same object,” she said. “Tonight you may possess parts of both.”
At four twenty, two Carabinieri officers arrived through the service entrance. Vittorio had already contacted the family attorney. The guests were gone, though several cars remained in the courtyard. Staff moved quietly through the downstairs rooms, avoiding one another’s eyes.
Emilia gave her statement in the villa library.
Captain Elena Sarti, a dark-haired woman in her forties, sat across from her while a younger officer recorded names and times. Ruth stayed nearby. Giulia listened through Emilia’s phone.
Captain Sarti examined the scrape and wrist marks but did not make assumptions about them.
May you like
“Did your husband physically prevent you from reaching the door?”
“He stood between me and it after unlocking it.”
