Chương 8
Hannah let go immediately.
“No.”
Luca looked at her.
“No what?”
“No men showing up at Keefe’s house tonight.”
“I wasn’t going to—”
“Yes, you were.”
“You don’t know what I was going to do.”
“I know your face.”
“You met me four hours ago.”
“I’m observant.”
“You walked into a river.”
“Those facts are unrelated.”
“No, they aren’t.”
Hannah folded her arms.
“If Keefe had something to do with the crash, you call the police.”
“I will.”
“You call them first.”
“I said I will.”
“First.”
Luca looked at her.
“You think I’m going to kill him.”
“I think everyone downstairs becomes very polite when you stop blinking.”
He almost laughed.
He did not.
Hannah stepped closer.
“Sophia needs the truth more than she needs revenge.”
The sentence landed badly because it was true.
Luca looked through the doorway.
His daughter slept with one hand open beside her face.
Nine months earlier, he had sat in an ICU room and promised God things he had no intention of keeping if Sophia lived.
Quit this.
Leave that.
Forgive someone.
Become someone else.
Parents bargaining beside hospital beds were shameless.
He had kept one promise.
He had changed the way his business operated.
More distance.
Less violence.
No children near certain people.
No work at home.
No guns where Sophia could ever find them.
He had congratulated himself for improvement.
Then someone had apparently tried to force a car carrying his daughter off a bridge.
And the first instinct he felt when he heard Daniel Keefe’s name was not police.
It was blood.
Luca put the phone back in his pocket.
“Fine.”
Hannah watched him.
“Fine?”
“Police first.”
“Actually first?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Okay.”
“You’re extremely irritating.”
“I saved your child.”
“I’m aware.”
“I plan to use that in arguments for the rest of my life.”
He looked at her.
She looked surprised by her own sentence.
So was he.
Neither of them laughed.
But something shifted.
At eight fifteen the next morning, Sophia woke furious that her ankle had swollen.
At eight twenty, she demanded pancakes.
At eight twenty-five, she informed Luca that hotel blueberries tasted “too organized.”
At eight thirty, Hannah left the room to cry in the hallway.
Luca found her there.
She wiped her face quickly.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He leaned against the wall.
Hannah looked through the open suite door where Sophia was negotiating syrup quantities with room service.
“She’s exactly like she was.”
Luca stared at her.
“You knew her for how long?”
“Maybe twenty minutes.”
“She was unconscious for some of that.”
“Still.”
Hannah wiped under one eye.
“She complained about being cold while we were both in a river.”
“That sounds right.”
“She told me my coat was ugly.”
“That also sounds right.”
“She asked if I had a dog.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
“Then she was probably checking whether you were trustworthy.”
Hannah laughed unexpectedly.
It turned into another tear.
She shook her head.
“I thought she died.”
Luca said nothing.
“I kept looking at news updates. First they said critical. Then serious. Then there was nothing for days. I thought maybe the family had asked for privacy because…”
She stopped.
Luca finished quietly.
“Because she died.”
Hannah nodded.
“The foundation wouldn’t confirm anything.”
“They shouldn’t have.”
“I know.”
“No. You deserved to know.”
She looked at him.
He corrected himself.
“You deserved some acknowledgment.”
Hannah leaned her head against the wall.
“I kept thinking I should’ve stayed at the hospital.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“The police put me in an ambulance.”
“After that?”
“My sister picked me up.”
“Why didn’t you come back the next day?”
“I couldn’t walk.”
He looked down.
She noticed.
“The stitches were high on my leg.”
“I know.”
“Clare.”
“Clare.”
Hannah shook her head.
“You people have no boundaries.”
“I have many.”
“You have staff.”
“That’s different.”
“It absolutely is not.”
Sophia shouted from inside.
“Hannah! Daddy says four pancakes is enough!”
Hannah called back, “Your father is correct!”
Luca stared at her.
She smiled.
“I’m not undermining basic nutrition.”
“You’ve known her one day.”
“I’m trying to make a good impression.”
Sophia yelled, “Traitor!”
For five seconds, the most serious problem in Luca Moretti’s life was pancakes.
He did not know then how badly he would miss those five seconds.
By noon, Detective Raines and two investigators from the state police were in a conference room at a law office on Wacker Drive.
Luca insisted on outside counsel.
Not foundation counsel.
Not family counsel.
A criminal defense attorney named Naomi Feld, whom Luca had hired twice in fifteen years and disliked precisely enough to trust.
Naomi listened to Hannah’s account without interrupting.
Then she looked at Luca.
“You say nothing.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“That was a future instruction.”
“I know.”
“You particularly say nothing when someone asks about Anthony.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
Naomi looked at Raines.
“Proceed.”
Raines was older than Luca expected, with white hair and a grocery-store reading-glasses case clipped inside his jacket pocket.
He remembered Hannah.
More than remembered.
“You were the only civilian witness who gave us a consistent account of a second vehicle.”
Hannah frowned.
“Martin said I was inconsistent.”
“You were inconsistent about color and distance. Not about the existence of the car.”
Luca said, “Why wasn’t I told?”
Naomi looked at him.
Luca raised both hands.
Raines answered anyway.
“You were told a second vehicle was possible.”
“Possible isn’t the same as a witness.”
“Your representative received the supplemental report.”
“Which representative?”
Raines checked his notes.
“Martin Voss.”
Naomi leaned forward.
“When?”
“January third.”
Hannah closed her eyes.
Luca said, “The report?”
Raines nodded.
“It included Ms. Carter’s statement and our request that the family provide any information regarding possible threats against Mr. Russo or Mr. Moretti.”
Luca looked at Naomi.
She said, “Don’t.”
He looked back at Raines.
“I never received it.”
Raines did not appear surprised.
“Then you have an internal problem.”
May you like
“We established that.”
The second investigator, a younger woman named Patel, opened a folder.
