Chương 7
“Before that?”
“He had the key.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“No.”
“Did he say what would happen if you tried to leave?”
“No.”
“Did you believe you were free to leave?”
“No.”
The captain wrote for several seconds.
“Why did he lock the door?”
“Because I found these.”
Emilia placed the envelope on the table.
Captain Sarti did not open it immediately. She asked Emilia to describe where she found it, how she entered the study, who had handled the envelope afterward, and whether she had altered anything.
Emilia told the truth.
All of it.
She described the photograph from Anna’s cloud account, the Bellandi pennant, the museum assignment, her request to be sent to the villa, the days she spent looking for evidence, and the years she had concealed that motive from Matteo.
Ruth stared at the carpet during the confession.
Captain Sarti listened without visible judgment.
“You understand,” she said when Emilia finished, “that your reasons for entering the study may become relevant.”
“Yes.”
“You also understand they do not automatically make the contents false.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the original photograph?”
“In my apartment in Boston. A digital copy is stored with my family records.”
“Has it been provided to investigators before?”
“No. I found it after the case became inactive.”
“Why did you not submit it?”
Emilia’s shame arrived without surprise. She had lived beside it too long.
“Because it showed a boat near a restaurant, not an accident. Because I thought they would dismiss it. Then I came here, and after I met Matteo, I stopped wanting it to mean anything.”
Captain Sarti looked at her for a moment.
“That answer will be difficult for people to understand.”
“I know.”
“They may understand it incorrectly.”
“I know.”
“Do not change it later to make it easier.”
Emilia nodded.
The captain opened the envelope.
Across the villa, Matteo gave a separate statement. Emilia could hear none of it, but she saw him once through the library windows when he crossed the courtyard with an officer. Dawn had begun to lighten the sky. Without the darkness, the villa looked indecently beautiful: pale stone, clipped hedges, white flowers drooping after the celebration.
Matteo walked with his hands at his sides.
He did not look toward the library.
Lucia remained upstairs. Vittorio and his attorney occupied the dining room. Teresa had gone home to retrieve her brother’s boxes, accompanied by an officer who treated the task with less urgency than Emilia felt.
At seven, the police took the envelope and provided a receipt.
At seven fifteen, Ruth drove Emilia away from the villa in a rented hatchback that still had someone else’s sunglasses in the cup holder.
Emilia wore Lucia’s robe beneath Ruth’s raincoat and sat with the wedding gown folded in the back seat. Her ring remained on her finger because neither of them had thought to remove it.
They checked into a small hotel in Como under Ruth’s name. The receptionist glanced at Emilia’s smudged makeup and the garment bag over Ruth’s shoulder, but asked no questions.
In the room, Emilia stood before the bathroom mirror.
Her face looked almost normal.
The scrape was small. The mascara could be washed away. The marks around her wrist would fade in days. Nothing visible explained why her marriage had changed shape between midnight and sunrise.
She removed the ring.
A pale indentation circled her finger.
Ruth sat on the edge of the bed, calling airlines and muttering about change fees. Emilia placed the ring inside an empty water glass so it would not roll away.
“You don’t have to leave today,” Ruth said.
“I can’t stay.”
“The lawyer said we may need to remain available.”
“I mean I can’t stay here. In this room. In this city. In my body, apparently.”
Ruth ended the call.
“Take a shower.”
“That is your solution?”
“It is the only problem I can solve in under ten minutes.”
The shower water ran too hot, then too cold. Emilia stood beneath it until the hotel soap washed the last traces of wedding perfume from her skin.
When she came out, Ruth had ordered toast, eggs, fruit, and a pot of coffee. Neither of them touched the eggs. Ruth ate jam directly from a small glass jar.
Emilia’s phone had thirty-seven missed calls.
Most were from wedding guests who had noticed the couple’s disappearance. Three were from her parents. Nine were from Matteo.
There was one voice message from Lucia.
Emilia listened with the phone held away from her face.
“Emilia, I will not ask you to call me back. I only want you to know that I am sorry you were afraid in my home. I am sorry my son caused that fear. Whatever else is true, that is true. I should have known more. Perhaps I did. I don’t know what to call the things we refuse to know.”
The message ended.
Ruth stopped eating jam.
“Do you believe her?”
“I believe she is sorry I was afraid.”
“That is not what I asked.”
“I don’t know what she did.”
“You think she was on the boat.”
Emilia looked toward the window.
Morning traffic moved along the lake road. People carried shopping bags, walked dogs, and argued beside parked scooters. A delivery driver leaned on his horn while a man in an apron waved him backward. The ordinary movement felt almost offensive.
“Vittorio looked at her when Matteo mentioned blood,” Emilia said.
Ruth put down the jar. “Then tell the police.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
“I need five minutes.”
Ruth’s face changed.
The phrase hung between them.
Emilia closed her eyes. “That is not what I meant.”
“I know.”
“No, you’re right.”
Ruth took the phone and placed it on the table between them.
“Take five minutes,” she said. “But leave the door open.”
May you like
Captain Sarti called before Emilia did.
Teresa’s boxes contained the mechanic’s notebooks, several photographs of the damaged hull, and a copy of a handwritten repair order. They also contained a cassette tape from an old answering machine, though no one yet knew what was on it or whether it remained playable.
