Chương 3
He waited.
Her fingers moved to the chain at her waist. Twenty-seven keys whispered against one another as she placed them beside the evidence pouch.
Emma watched them. “That one Mommy.”
Clara went still.
The child pointed at a small brass key near the center of the ring. It was identical to the one that had fallen from Renata’s fist.
Matteo looked from the ring to the key on the floor. “There are two.”
Renata recovered quickly. “The lockers have maintenance duplicates.”
“Stored where?” Lorenzo asked.
“In my office.”
“Who can access them?”
“I can.”
“Anyone else?”
“The estate administrator. Security, in an emergency.”
“What emergency happened today?”
Renata said nothing.
Lorenzo instructed Matteo to escort Clara and Emma downstairs and to post Luis outside instead of an armed guard. Pino ignored the order to remain in the hall and followed Emma until Lorenzo caught his collar.
The dog resisted.
“He’ll frighten the other tenants,” Lorenzo said.
Pino leaned forward, muscles tightening beneath his coat.
Emma waved the damp handkerchief. “Pino stay.”
The dog sat.
It was an obedience Lorenzo had not received from him in months.
Clara watched the exchange, unsettled. “How does she know him?”
“I don’t,” Emma said. “Bunny does.”
Luis made the mistake of smiling. He covered it with a cough.
After they left, Lorenzo stood alone with Renata beneath the chandelier. Matteo remained at the monitor, pretending to examine cables. Rain tapped the tall windows. Somewhere below, a washing machine entered its spin cycle and began knocking against a wall.
Renata folded her hands. Without the keys, the gesture looked incomplete.
“You should let me explain privately.”
“Explain the key.”
“I found Clara’s key on the floor near the west stairs.”
“And put it in your fist?”
“I intended to return it.”
“You reached for her daughter.”
“The child was hysterical and hiding beside the bins in the rain. I was bringing her inside.”
“Pino disagreed.”
“Pino is an animal.”
“He has better instincts than most of the men I employ.”
Renata’s eyes cooled. “That has never been a high standard.”
Under other circumstances, the remark might have amused him. Instead it reminded him of the woman she had been before fear took over her face.
“What happened at four ten?” he asked.
“I prepared termination documents based on the discovery of stolen property.”
“The property had not been reported stolen.”
“I was informed before the formal report.”
“By whom?”
She looked past him toward Matteo.
Lorenzo followed her gaze. Matteo’s posture changed. Not guilt exactly. Attention.
“Leave us,” Lorenzo said.
Matteo hesitated. “You told me no calls.”
“I told you to leave the room, not the property.”
When he was gone, Renata’s restraint collapsed by degrees. Her shoulders sagged. She touched the base of her throat, where a pulse moved quickly beneath pale skin.
“I need your assurance,” she said.
“You’re in no position to ask for one.”
“Then I have nothing to say.”
“You framed a maid and put your hands on her child.”
“I did not hurt Emma.”
“You frightened her enough that my dog put himself between you.”
Her mouth tightened. “Your dog has been sleeping outside the basement stairwell for two weeks. He is attached to the child because staff members have been feeding her near the laundry room.”
Lorenzo stared at her.
Renata seemed to realize too late what she had admitted.
“How often has Emma been here?”
“I do not keep count of every policy violation.”
“You knew.”
“Clara has no reliable childcare. She brings the girl when she cannot make other arrangements. I allowed it more times than I should have.”
“Why?”
For the first time, something other than fear passed through Renata’s face. Weariness, perhaps. Or resentment.
“Because Clara works,” she said. “Because when other people call out, she stays. Because she cleans rooms no one thanks her for cleaning and sends half her wages to a mother who no longer remembers her name. Because a three-year-old sitting with crayons beside the industrial dryers seemed like the lesser problem.”
It sounded true. That was inconvenient.
“Then why frame her?”
Renata looked at the monitor’s dead gray boxes. “I did not choose Clara.”
“Who did?”
Her silence became an answer.
Lorenzo took one step closer. Renata did not retreat, but her eyes dropped to the faint tattoos above his collar. She had scolded him when he got the first one. His father had laughed and said the boy was finally learning to look like family.
“Who?” Lorenzo asked again.
“I need time.”
“You had enough time to forge a confession.”
“I did not forge the signature.”
The answer came too quickly.
“Who did?”
“I was given the paper.”
“By whom?”
Renata closed her eyes. “You cannot protect everyone in this house.”
“I’m not trying to protect everyone.”
“No,” she said softly. “That has always been the problem.”
He sent her to the blue drawing room under guard, though the word guard was generous. Luis sat outside with a chair and strict instructions not to let anyone enter. Renata could have knocked him unconscious with a lamp if she had been desperate enough. Lorenzo wanted to know whether she would try.
Then he went to the security office.
Dominic Vale arrived through the underground garage seven minutes later in a dark overcoat beaded with rain. He was fifty-two, broad through the chest, with a patient face that had once persuaded juries to trust him. Before joining the Ducas, he had spent eighteen years in the New York Police Department and two years consulting for men whose problems rarely reached court.
“Why are my gates locked?” he asked.
“Why are my cameras down?”
Dominic removed his wet coat slowly. “Archive server failed at five twelve.”
“The theft was discovered before five.”
“The live feeds remained active. Recording failed.”
“All six feeds?”
“Archive is centralized.”
“Luis says they were recording at lunch.”
“They probably were.”
May you like
“Who has administrator access?”
Dominic’s eyes shifted toward Matteo, who stood by the equipment rack. “Me. Matteo. Renata has limited access for staff disputes. Arthur Bell.”
