Chương 9
Emilia read them anyway.
Strangers debated the scrape on her temple. Some said it proved violence. Others enlarged wedding photographs and claimed the mark had existed before the ceremony. A man in Ohio wrote that women invented fear when wealthy marriages disappointed them. A woman in Naples wrote that no innocent bride searched her father-in-law’s desk.
Both comments received thousands of approvals.
Giulia asked Emilia again whether she wanted to release a statement.
“Not yet,” Emilia said.
“Silence is also interpreted.”
“So is breathing.”
“That is unfortunately true.”
Matteo sent emails rather than calling.
The first said only: I am cooperating.
The second: I told them everything I saw that night.
The third arrived at 2:11 in the morning.
I did not know whether you loved me, so I used the door to delay the answer. I am not asking you to forgive that. I need you to know I understand what I did.
Emilia deleted it, then recovered it from the trash and saved it for Giulia.
The act made her feel cruel and practical at once.
A month after the wedding, Captain Sarti asked Emilia to return to Italy for a formal interview with prosecutors. Daniel refused to come. Her mother could not travel because she was recovering from minor surgery, though Emilia suspected the surgery offered everyone a polite reason not to place Daniel and the Bellandis in the same country.
Ruth accompanied her.
At the airport, Daniel handed Emilia a padded envelope.
Inside was Anna’s blue glass from the Boston apartment.
“You kept it,” Emilia said.
“You left it here after you moved.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“I don’t know.”
The answer sounded so much like Ruth that Emilia smiled.
Daniel did not.
Then he touched Emilia’s shoulder, an awkward gesture that lasted less than a second.
“Do not protect him because you loved him,” he said.
“I won’t.”
“Do not destroy him because you did.”
She looked at her father.
He seemed embarrassed by his own fairness.
“I’ll try,” she said.
“That is not very reassuring.”
“It is what I have.”
In Milan, Giulia met them at the prosecutor’s office. She wore a navy suit and carried three folders, each labeled in precise handwriting. Before they entered, she asked Emilia one final time whether her statement would include the full history of her interest in the Bellandis.
“Yes.”
“Even the parts investigators have not specifically requested?”
“Yes.”
“This may harm your credibility.”
“Leaving them out will harm it more.”
“It may expose you to claims from the family.”
“I know.”
Giulia studied her face.
“You have begun saying that less defensively.”
“I have had practice.”
The interview lasted four hours.
Emilia described Anna’s death, the photograph, her request for the villa assignment, the initial search, the relationship, the decision to stop investigating, and the discovery on the wedding night. She admitted that she had lied to Vittorio about photographing the documents. She admitted that she had not told the complete truth in her first conversation with Ruth. She admitted that part of her had accepted Matteo’s proposal because marriage made it possible to believe her suspicion had been wrong.
The prosecutor, a gray-haired woman named Dottoressa Ferri, asked, “Did you ever intend to use marriage to gain access to private family records?”
“No.”
“Did you believe marriage would provide that access?”
Emilia hesitated.
“Yes.”
“That is a different answer.”
“I know.”
“Which answer is true?”
“Both.”
Dottoressa Ferri leaned back.
Emilia forced herself not to fill the silence.
“I did not accept his proposal as an investigative strategy,” she said. “But once I accepted, I understood that becoming part of the family would place me closer to whatever they were hiding. I hated myself for noticing that. I still noticed.”
Giulia’s pen stopped moving.
“Did you marry him because you loved him?” the prosecutor asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you marry him because you wanted the truth?”
“Partly.”
“Which mattered more?”
Emilia looked at her wedding ring, sealed in an evidence pouch inside Giulia’s folder because Matteo’s fingerprints on it had briefly been considered relevant to the confinement complaint.
“I kept asking myself that,” she said. “The answer changed depending on what I was afraid to lose.”
The prosecutor’s expression remained neutral, but something in the room softened.
When the interview ended, Emilia felt emptied rather than relieved.
Outside, Matteo waited beneath the stone arcade.
He wore a charcoal suit without a tie. He had lost weight. His light stubble was uneven, and the exhaustion around his eyes made him look closer to forty than thirty-one.
Ruth stopped walking.
Giulia said, “Do not discuss evidence.”
Matteo looked at Emilia. “I’m not here to discuss evidence.”
“Then why are you here?” Ruth asked.
He seemed to consider the safest answer and reject it.
“I wanted to see her.”
“That is not a reason she has to see you.”
“No.”
Emilia handed her folder to Giulia.
“Five minutes,” she said.
Ruth stared at her.
“Outside,” Emilia added. “With everyone watching.”
They walked to the edge of the courtyard. Office workers passed carrying phones and paper cups. A courier balanced a box against one hip while arguing about an address. No one paid attention to them.
Matteo kept several feet between them.
“I read your statement,” he said.
“How?”
“My attorney received the relevant portions.”
“You mean the portions Vittorio plans to use against me.”
“My father is not directing my defense.”
“Does he know that?”
Matteo glanced toward the street.
“He believes this can still be contained.”
“Can it?”
“No.”
Emilia waited.
He rubbed one thumb across his knuckle, the same habit he had shown in the bridal suite.
“I identified my mother,” he said.
Emilia’s breathing changed.
“As the driver?”
“Yes.”
The courtyard noise seemed to recede, though nothing around them grew quieter.
“How do you know?”
“I saw her dress.”
May you like
“That is not an answer.”
“She came into the lower hall at two fifty. The silver silk was wet below the knees. She had lost one shoe. My father took her upstairs, then called me from the marina. I did not see her leave the boat, but I knew she had been out.”
