Chương 3
“I’m scared.”
Lucia considered this. “Because of Mr. Marchetti?”
“Yes.”
“He was cold.”
“That doesn’t make him kind.”
“I didn’t say kind.”
Mrs. Donnelly looked away to hide another smile.
Elena took Lucia’s hands around the warm mug. “Listen to me. You cannot wander in this house. You cannot touch things, even to help. There are rooms you stay out of and conversations you don’t listen to. Do you understand?”
Lucia nodded.
“What do you do if someone asks you a question?”
“Tell the truth.”
Elena hesitated. That was what she had always taught her. In the Marchetti estate, truth was not always protection. Sometimes it was an unlocked door.
“You tell me first,” she said.
Lucia frowned. “What if they ask where you are?”
“Then you tell them.”
“What if they ask if I’m hungry?”
Elena let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
Mrs. Donnelly set a plate of toast on the counter. “For heaven’s sake, Elena, let the child answer hunger questions without legal counsel.”
The kitchen door opened.
Rocco entered, and the little ease in the room vanished.
“Elena,” he said. “Mr. Marchetti wants to speak with you.”
Lucia put down the mug.
“Alone,” Rocco added.
Elena folded the blanket more tightly around her daughter. “Stay with Mrs. Donnelly.”
“I can come.”
“No.”
Lucia looked toward Rocco with a seriousness that made him shift his weight.
“She won’t be long,” he said.
Elena stood. “You don’t know that.”
Rocco’s face gave nothing away. “No. I don’t.”
He led her not to the library but to the small office behind the conservatory. Dante sat at a desk with a glass of water near his right hand. He had changed neither his shirt nor his trousers. The damp mark from Lucia’s jacket remained visible across one knee.
A laptop was open before him. Beside it lay several printed payroll statements.
Elena remained by the door.
“Sit,” Dante said.
“I’d rather stand.”
“So would I. The doctor has objected.”
She took the chair opposite him but stayed on its edge.
Dante turned one of the statements around.
“Is this your pay?”
Elena looked at the page. Her name appeared at the top, followed by an annual salary almost twice the amount she had ever received.
“No.”
“How much are you paid?”
She named the figure.
Dante picked up another sheet. “This says you receive health insurance for yourself and Lucia.”
“We don’t.”
“Retirement contributions.”
“No.”
“Transportation allowance.”
“No.”
“An education stipend for dependent children.”
Her eyes lifted from the page. “I didn’t know there was one.”
Dante sat back.
On paper, Elena Bianchi had been one of the best-compensated domestic employees in Boston. In reality, she took home less than a hotel housekeeper. The difference disappeared through deductions labeled debt recovery, insurance reimbursement, and voluntary transfers.
“Did you sign these?”
He pushed a packet across the desk.
Elena touched only the first page. Her signature sat above a paragraph authorizing payroll deductions for a private debt to Marchetti Holdings.
“It looks like mine.”
“Is it?”
She stared longer. “No. I make the B differently.”
Dante saw it when she pointed. The forged signature curved too neatly.
“What debt do you believe you owe?”
Elena’s face closed.
“Matteo’s,” he said.
“My husband made an agreement.”
“With whom?”
“With Mr. Greco.”
“What agreement?”
She glanced toward the door.
“No one is listening,” Dante said.
“That isn’t true anywhere in this house.”
The answer irritated him because it was accurate.
He got up, opened the office door, and looked into the hall. Rocco stood twenty feet away beside the conservatory entrance.
“Leave the floor,” Dante said.
Rocco hesitated.
“Now.”
When the corridor was empty, Dante shut the door and returned to his chair.
Elena watched him. “You expect that to make me feel safe?”
“No. I expect it to make it harder for anyone to hear you.”
She looked down at the forged signature.
“Matteo was told he had lost a shipment,” she said. “Mr. Greco said the value was one hundred and twenty thousand dollars.”
Dante’s hand stopped beside the water glass.
“What shipment?”
“I don’t know.”
“What date?”
“The night he died.”
The winter wind struck the conservatory glass with a long, low moan.
Elena continued before courage failed her.
“Matteo called me from the hospital. He was awake for six minutes, maybe seven. He said the brakes didn’t respond. He said Mr. Greco would claim the shipment was missing, but it had never been in the car. Then the nurse took the phone because they were moving him.”
Dante’s voice lowered. “Did you tell the police?”
“I told an officer at the hospital. Mr. Greco arrived before I finished. He said Matteo was confused from medication. The officer wrote something down, but no one called me afterward.”
“And then Sal told you there was a debt.”
“Three days after the funeral.”
“Why would you agree?”
“I didn’t.”
“But you came to work here.”
Her eyes hardened.
“I had a four-year-old, no savings, no insurance, and a landlord who had already waited two months. Mr. Greco said the debt would pass through the estate, and that if I refused the job, his attorneys would take Matteo’s half of our apartment and whatever settlement came from the crash. I didn’t know whether he could do it. I didn’t have money to ask someone who did.”
“He threatened you.”
“He explained my options.”
Dante disliked the phrase because it belonged to his world. Men like Sal rarely described threats as threats. They called them explanations, choices, opportunities to avoid misunderstandings.
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
Elena gave him a tired look.
“Would I have been allowed through the gate?”
“You work in my house.”
“I clean the rooms you’ve left. I don’t enter the ones you’re in.”
“You entered the library today.”
“My daughter did.”
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“And you thought I’d punish her for it.”
“I thought you left five thousand dollars in front of a hungry child to see what kind of people we were.”
