Chương 3
“The clock disappeared from a locked study during a private dinner,” he said. “It was found near the employee exit. Renata told me you had been seen leaving the study corridor with a linen cart. You had no permission to be there. You denied it.”
“I was bringing towels to the west bathroom.”
“You also emptied your locker before your shift ended.”
“My locker had my daughter’s pajamas in it. I thought I was being fired.”
“You were told to wait.”
“I was told nothing. Two men came into the laundry room.”
Mara pulled at Elena’s sleeve. “Mommy, I’m hungry.”
The ordinary request broke something in Elena. She looked away before anyone could see her mouth shake.
Lorenzo stood, crossed to the counter, and lifted the glass dome over the lemon cake.
Danny made a small noise. “That’s for breakfast.”
Lorenzo looked at him.
Danny reached for a knife. “I’ll cut it.”
Mara watched the slice being placed on a saucer. “No frosting?”
“It’s a loaf cake,” Danny said. “It doesn’t have frosting.”
“Then it’s bread.”
Danny glanced at Lorenzo, uncertain whether he was allowed to argue with a child under protection. “It’s expensive bread.”
Mara considered that. “Okay.”
She ate with her fingers. Elena wiped crumbs from the front of her black dress and tried not to imagine how close she had come to disappearing into the sedan. Lorenzo had not said where the guards meant to take her. She knew enough about his name to understand that there were questions she might survive only by refusing to ask.
Mr. Heller arrived twenty-seven minutes later wearing a raincoat over his dinner clothes. He was in his sixties, narrow-faced, careful, and irritated at being summoned before he understood why. He had served as the Duca family’s attorney since Lorenzo’s father was alive, though he handled enough legitimate business to keep his name out of newspapers.
He stopped in the staff dining room doorway.
“Why is there a Doberman under the table?”
“Because he prefers it there,” Lorenzo said.
Pino had rested his chin on Mara’s shoe.
Heller took in Elena, Mara, the guards, the silver key, and the empty space where Renata should have been. “Tell me nobody has been struck.”
“No one has been struck.”
“Threatened?”
Elena laughed once. She had not meant to.
Heller looked at her. “Ms. Ruiz?”
“My daughter and I would like to leave.”
“You may not leave yet,” Lorenzo said.
Heller shut his eyes briefly. “That is the kind of sentence you should not say before I understand the circumstances.”
“The gates are locked because an item was stolen and evidence may still be in the house.”
“Better. Still not ideal.” Heller removed his raincoat and draped it over a chair. “Where is the item?”
“In the courtyard.”
“You left it outside?”
“No one has touched it since I saw it.”
“The rain is touching it.”
Lorenzo looked toward Frank. “Cover it. Don’t move it.”
Frank left.
Heller sat opposite Elena. He spoke to her first, which she noticed. “You are not under arrest. You are not required to answer me. I represent Mr. Duca and his companies, not you. If you want independent counsel, I can provide a list, but I cannot choose one for you.”
“I can’t afford one.”
“That is a separate problem. It can be addressed without making the lawyer yours in name only.”
Lorenzo’s mouth tightened at the rebuke.
Heller asked Elena to tell him what had happened from the beginning. She described arriving at one in the afternoon, bringing Mara because childcare had failed, asking Renata’s permission, working on the third floor, and being redirected to the west guest suite at four fifteen. At five twenty, Anthony and Frank had entered the laundry room and told her to come with them. Renata had been standing in the hall with Elena’s open locker behind her.
“What was missing from the study?” Heller asked.
“A Fabergé-style presentation clock,” Lorenzo said. “Gold, enamel, diamonds, sapphires. Early twentieth century. It belongs to the Bellandi Foundation.”
Heller’s fingers stopped on his legal pad. “It is on loan?”
“Yes.”
“For the gala?”
“Yes.”
“And the insurer was notified it would be displayed in a private residence with the study alarm active?”
“Yes.”
Heller turned his face slowly toward Lorenzo. “Then police may not remain optional for long.”
“I’m aware.”
“Are you?”
The room went quiet again.
The Bellandi Foundation was one of the cleanest parts of Lorenzo’s life. It funded restoration projects, scholarships, and a small museum in Manhattan. The foundation’s board included people who smiled beside him in photographs but never entered his home without their own drivers waiting outside. The clock had been brought to the mansion for a donor dinner because its restoration campaign was to be announced the following week.
If the loss became public, questions would not stop at the clock. Insurers asked about security. Boards asked about governance. Reporters asked why an organization devoted to preservation had entrusted a jeweled object to a man whose surname still appeared in stories about federal racketeering cases from the 1990s.
Lorenzo’s father had spent years buying respectability one building, donation, and handshake at a time. Lorenzo had inherited the bills and the suspicion.
Anthony returned with Renata. He carried a small gray lockbox.
“The study key was inside,” he said.
Heller put on a pair of nitrile gloves from his briefcase. Elena wondered what sort of lawyer carried gloves to dinner.
The lockbox contained labeled keys, cash for household emergencies, blank checks from a limited operating account, two passports belonging to overseas guests, and a folded inventory sheet. The study key lay in its proper envelope. The paper seal was broken.
Renata looked at it as if she had never seen it.
“When did you last use this?” Heller asked.
“Monday morning. The study was cleaned before the clock arrived.”
“Who resealed it?”
“I did.”
“Who has access to your office?”
“Only me.”
May you like
“And the master key?”
“It was in my hand because I was securing the service doors after the accusation.”
