Chương 7
At the bottom, in Ricardo’s handwriting, someone had added formal dinner, 7:30.
Clara crossed it out.
Ricardo found the page an hour later.
“You changed his schedule.”
“He isn’t a shipping company.”
“Routine helps him.”
“Predictability helps him. Control doesn’t.”
He studied the black line through formal dinner.
“What do you suggest?”
“Soup in the kitchen.”
“We eat in the dining room.”
“He hides under the table in the dining room.”
“That happened once.”
Sarah, passing behind him, said, “It has happened fourteen times.”
Ricardo turned.
She kept walking.
That evening, they ate tomato soup at the kitchen island.
Ricardo’s knees barely fit beneath the counter. Dante stood outside the doorway, visibly offended by the entire arrangement. Sarah tore bread into small pieces and dropped crumbs on her black skirt. Leo sat between Clara and his father, dipping a spoon into his bowl and watching everyone else before tasting.
No place had been set for Elena.
The empty chair remained in the dining room, but the folded napkin was gone.
Leo looked toward the doorway several times.
“Mama eat?” he asked.
Ricardo’s spoon stopped.
Clara waited.
Sarah’s eyes lowered.
“No,” Ricardo said. “Mama does not eat here.”
“Where?”
Ricardo looked at Clara, angry at being cornered by a question a child had every right to ask.
“Somewhere else.”
“Far?”
“Yes.”
“Coming?”
Ricardo’s hand tightened around the spoon.
“Not tonight.”
Leo absorbed this. He took another sip of soup.
Clara released a breath.
The answer was small and incomplete, but it did not insult the child with adult abstractions.
After dinner, Leo led Clara to a cupboard in the playroom. Behind a stack of puzzles sat a worn stuffed lion with one missing eye.
He held it toward her.
“Broke.”
She pressed the paw and heard a burst of static.
“There’s a speaker inside.”
“Mama.”
Clara looked toward the doorway.
No one was there.
She found a zipper beneath the lion’s belly. Inside was a small recording device with corroded batteries. The compartment smelled faintly of metal.
“Do you want me to fix it?”
Leo nodded.
Clara carried the lion to the kitchen. The house had every kind of imported olive oil and no ordinary batteries. Sarah sent a guard to a pharmacy.
When Dante learned why, he entered the kitchen so quickly that Leo flinched.
“Where did you get that?”
“The playroom.”
Dante took one step toward the lion.
Clara placed her hand over it.
“He brought it to me.”
“It was supposed to be removed.”
“Why?”
Dante’s eyes shifted to Leo.
Clara lowered her voice. “Why?”
“It was hers.”
“That’s the point.”
“You don’t know what’s on it.”
“Do you?”
Dante did not answer.
Ricardo appeared behind him.
The room became quiet.
His gaze settled on the stuffed lion.
“Throw it away,” he said.
Leo screamed.
He seized the toy and backed into the cabinets, holding it against his chest.
Clara turned on Ricardo. “Don’t.”
“It confuses him.”
“He knows exactly what it is.”
Ricardo’s face sharpened. “You have been here less than a day.”
“And he brought it to me before he brought it to you.”
The words struck harder than she intended.
Ricardo looked at his son.
Leo crouched beside the cabinets, protecting the lion with his body.
Sarah entered carrying a package of batteries. She stopped when she saw everyone.
“What happened?”
“Your brother wants to throw away Elena’s voice.”
Sarah went pale.
Ricardo said, “We do not know what she recorded.”
“I do,” Sarah whispered.
He turned toward her.
Sarah held the batteries against her chest. “I was there.”
Dante closed his eyes briefly.
Ricardo’s voice dropped. “You told me it was gone.”
“I thought it was.”
“What did she say?”
Sarah looked at Leo. “Nothing dangerous.”
“That was not my question.”
“She sang to him. She told him she loved him.”
Ricardo’s anger seemed to leave the room and return as something heavier.
Sarah walked to Clara and placed the batteries on the counter.
“She recorded it the week before she left.”
Leo watched every movement.
Clara replaced the batteries with hands that had begun to shake. She zipped the compartment and pressed the lion’s paw.
For a moment, there was only static.
Then a woman’s voice filled the kitchen.
She was not crying. That would have been easier. She sounded warm, slightly amused, and very close to the microphone.
“Hello, my little lion. You found me.”
Leo’s entire body went still.
The recording continued.
“If the room gets too bright, close your eyes and count my kisses. One on your forehead. One on your nose. One right here—”
A kiss sounded against the microphone.
Leo touched his cheek.
The woman began to hum.
Ricardo reached for the counter as if the floor had shifted.
Sarah covered her mouth.
Even Dante looked away.
The recording ended with Elena saying, “I love you, Leo. I am coming back.”
The kitchen remained silent.
Leo pressed the paw again.
“Hello, my little lion. You found me.”
Ricardo walked out before the message finished.
Clara found him in the study, standing with both hands on his desk.
She closed the door behind her.
“You knew the last line.”
He did not turn.
“That’s why you wanted it destroyed.”
“She made a promise she had no right to make.”
“She meant to return.”
“She meant to take him.”
Clara waited.
Ricardo turned then, and the control in his face had thinned enough to show what lived beneath it.
“She left in the middle of the night,” he said. “She took documents from my office. She gave them to people who wanted to destroy this family. She intended to return with agents and remove my son from his home.”
“Was she afraid of you?”
His expression became dangerous.
Clara did not step back.
“Was she?”
“She was afraid of what she had chosen to marry.”
“That isn’t the same answer.”
“It is the only one you’ll receive.”
“Where is she now?”
“Protected.”
May you like
“By whom?”
“People who believe using my wife against me makes them righteous.”
