Chương 11
“I’ll read it.”
“Elena said you’d need an attorney.”
“I can’t afford an attorney.”
“I can pay for one independent of my office.”
“That sounds like an attorney dependent on your money.”
Dominic nodded. “Find your own. Send me the invoice.”
“That’s still your money.”
“Yes.”
“You don’t understand how independence works.”
“I understand how invoices work.”
Lena went home with the contract in her bag.
Someone had spray-painted LIAR across the laundromat’s metal shutter.
Mrs. Patel waited near the stairs.
“Your landlord came,” she said. “He asked if police would keep coming.”
“What did you tell him?”
“That police come when crimes happen, so perhaps he should repair the front lock.”
Lena smiled despite the knot in her stomach.
Mrs. Patel touched the sleeve of the pale-blue sweater.
“That man bought this?”
“His assistant did.”
“Good color.”
“Everyone’s a little too interested in the sweater.”
“It is the first nice thing you wear.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Patel.”
“You look tired.”
“That was less helpful.”
Upstairs, Lena found an email from Frank confirming that her position had been terminated because of “unresolvable scheduling and security concerns.”
A second email came from the property manager. Her lease would not be renewed when it expired in seven weeks.
The reasons were listed as late payment and repeated disturbance to other residents.
Lena had been late once. The disturbances had begun after the video.
She read Dominic’s contract twice.
Then she signed it.
The first week at the Rosetti house was quieter than Lena expected.
Lily did schoolwork at the dining-room table, met with Dr. Shaw, refused most food unless it arrived on a plate with blue edges, and woke from naps shouting for someone to open a locked door.
Lena did not ask about the door.
She made toast, played cards, and helped Lily build a paper city from cereal boxes. Lily placed the hospital in the center and surrounded it with walls.
“Ambulances need to get in,” Lena said.
“They know the password.”
“What if they forget?”
“They don’t.”
Lena looked at the high cardboard walls.
“Maybe one gate should stay open.”
“No.”
“All right.”
The next day, Lily cut a small doorway into the hospital wall when she thought no one was watching.
Dominic came home late and left early. He joined them for dinner but spent most of it responding to messages. When Lily stopped speaking, Lena kicked him beneath the table.
His eyes lifted.
She pointed at his phone.
He set it down.
Lily resumed telling a story about a girl in her class who had eaten glue in kindergarten and now denied it.
After dinner, Dominic found Lena in the kitchen rinsing cups.
“You kicked me.”
“You noticed.”
“No one kicks me.”
“That sounds lonely.”
He leaned against the counter. “Vincent has stopped answering my calls.”
“Does he know you suspect him?”
“He knows I’ve removed his access to the house and companies.”
“That probably suggested something.”
“He claims I’m humiliating him without proof.”
“Are you?”
“Yes.”
Lena turned off the faucet.
“You enjoy honesty when it requires nothing from you.”
His expression sharpened.
“What does that mean?”
“You admit you’re a criminal. You admit you humiliated him. You admit you used illegal companies. Those admissions sound brave, but you make them to people who can’t do much about them.”
“You think you can’t do much?”
“I think you’re comfortable with the facts that don’t force you to change.”
Dominic stepped closer, though not threateningly.
“What fact am I avoiding?”
“That Vincent learned from you.”
The kitchen seemed to grow larger around them.
“You built the system he used,” Lena continued. “Your secret phrases. Your shell companies. Your employees who obey without asking questions. Your habit of handling problems privately. He didn’t need to invent a method. He borrowed yours.”
Dominic’s hand closed on the edge of the counter.
“You don’t know what I built.”
“I know a seven-year-old was carried through it.”
He looked toward the ceiling, where Lily’s room lay two floors above.
“She told me her mother said Vincent made you smaller.”
His gaze returned to Lena.
“She heard Bianca say that?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Dominic turned away.
For several seconds he stared at a row of copper pans hanging above the island. They looked decorative. Lena doubted anyone in the house used them.
“Bianca wanted me to speak to federal prosecutors,” he said.
Lena stopped breathing for a moment.
“About Vincent?”
“About everything.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I believed cooperation would put Lily at greater risk. Because I thought I could unwind the business myself. Because I was proud. Choose one.”
“Did Bianca die before she could?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ve spent three years trying to decide whether her death was an accident.”
“Yes.”
“Have you told Detective Chen?”
“No.”
Lena laughed once without humor.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The fact that would force you to change.”
Dominic looked at her.
“If I give Chen what Bianca collected, I don’t only expose Vincent.”
“You expose yourself.”
“And people who have families. People who followed orders. People who did worse than they understood and understood worse than they admit.”
“You’re protecting them?”
“I’m protecting stability.”
“That word is just fear wearing a tie.”
He moved closer.
“You believe law enforcement creates safety?”
“No. I believe hiding evidence creates danger.”
“Chen would use you.”
“So do you.”
The sentence remained in the kitchen after she wished she could take it back.
Dominic’s face closed.
“You’re employed to help Lily,” he said.
“Then stop bringing your crimes into the room where she eats breakfast.”
He left without answering.
The next morning, Daniel told Lena Dominic had not come home.
Lily noticed too.
“Is he mad?”
“Yes,” Lena said.
“At me?”
“No.”
“You?”
“Probably.”
“Will you leave?”
Lena sat beside her at the dining table.
“I don’t know.”
Lily’s mouth tightened.
“That isn’t fair,” she said.
“You’re right.”
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“Adults always say they don’t know when they mean yes.”
“Sometimes we say it because we’re scared of both answers.”
