Chapter 7: The Last Thing Vivian Did
She called Vincent at seven the next morning.
I know because I was still at Belladonna House.
Sal had insisted on a guest room — not asked, insisted, in the way of a man who has spent a lifetime making sure certain people do not leave a building unprotected — and I had been too exhausted to argue.
I had slept four hours in a room that probably cost more per night than I made in a week, in a borrowed shirt, with my father's letter on the nightstand.
I heard Vincent's voice in the hallway.
Not the words.
The tone.
When he knocked on my door twenty minutes later, his face told me before he spoke.
"She wants to meet," he said.
"With you?"
"With both of us."
I looked at him.
"Why would I meet with her?"
"She says she has information about what happened to your father in Marseille.
Information that isn't in the document." He paused.
"She says she'll only give it to you directly."
"She's buying time."
"Yes," he said.
"Probably."
"And you think I should go anyway."
"I think you've waited thirty years." He held my gaze.
"If there's something she knows that isn't in those pages, you deserve to hear it.
Even from her."
I thought about that.
"Where?" I asked.
"A café on Mercer Street.
Public.
Sal will be there."
"Will you?"
"If you want me to be."
"Yes," I said.
"I want you to be."
The café was small and warm and smelled of coffee and wet wool.
Vivian was already seated when we arrived, at a corner table with her back to the wall.
She had dressed carefully — not the pale-gold gown, but a dark coat, simple jewelry, no performance.
She looked like a woman who had made a decision and was no longer pretending otherwise.
She looked at me when I sat down.
Not at Vincent.
"I owe you an explanation," she said.
"You owe me more than that."
"Yes." She wrapped both hands around her coffee cup.
"I do."
Vincent sat beside me.
Sal took a table near the door.
"I found my father's copy of the document eighteen months after he died," Vivian said.
"He had it in a locked box in his study.
I didn't know it existed.
I didn't know—" She stopped.
Started again.
"I didn't know what he had done.
To your father.
I knew he was not a good man.
I had always known that.
But I did not know the specifics."
"And when you found out?" I asked.
"I panicked." Her jaw tightened.
"The document named him.
Clearly.
And it named the people he had worked with, some of whom were still alive.
If it surfaced, it wouldn't only affect his legacy.
It would affect me.
My finances.
My name."
"So you came after Vincent."
"I came after the original." She held my gaze.
"My father's copy was a photocopy.
I knew the original was with Ruggiero.
I knew that because my father had written a note in the margin — *Ruggiero holds the original, Moretti boy holds the locket.* Those were his exact words."
The coffee cup in front of me had gone cold.
I had not touched it.
"You were looking for the locket," I said.
"To find me before I found the document."
"Yes."
"And if you had found me first?"
She was quiet for a moment.
"I told myself I would explain.
That I would find a way to make it right financially without the document becoming public." A pause.
"I don't know if I would have.
I want to be honest with you about that.
I don't know."
"That is honest," I said.
"I didn't know about you," she said.
"Not at first.
I knew a daughter existed.
I didn't know where you were.
I didn't know your name.
When you walked into that ballroom yesterday carrying champagne—" Her voice caught.
"I recognized the locket the moment I saw it.
And I panicked again.
That is why I—" She stopped.
"That is why you hit me," I said.
She looked down at her coffee.
"I wanted you to leave before Vincent arrived."
The table was very still.
"You hit me," I said again, "to get me out of the room before he could see the locket."
"Yes."
"And if it had worked?
If I had left?"
"I would have found you.
I had your agency's records.
I would have—" She stopped herself.
"I don't know.
I keep saying I don't know, and I understand that is not enough."
"It isn't," I said.
Vincent had not spoken.
I glanced at him.
His hands were flat on the table, and he was looking at Vivian with an expression that was not anger and was not grief and was not forgiveness.
It was the expression of a man cataloguing something he would carry for a long time.
"You said you have information," I said.
"About Marseille.
About what happened to my father."
Vivian reached into her coat pocket and placed a folded piece of paper on the table.
"My father kept records of everything," she said.
"Everything.
I found this in the same box as the document.
It is a communication log.
Names, dates, phone numbers." She pushed it toward me.
"The name of the man he paid to find your father in Marseille is on the third line."
I unfolded the paper.
The name meant nothing to me.
But Vincent's hand came down on the table.
"I know that name," he said.
"I thought you might," Vivian said.
"He's still alive.
He's seventy-four years old and he lives in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and he has never been charged with anything."
Vincent looked at her.
"Why are you giving us this?"
She met his eyes.
"Because I am trying to decide what kind of person I am going to be for the rest of my life." Her voice was level.
"And I cannot be that person and keep this in a box."
Nobody spoke for a moment.
"It doesn't change what I did," she said.
"To her.
To you.
I know that."
"No," Vincent said.
"It doesn't."
She nodded.
She picked up her bag.
She stood.
"The federal authorities will be contacting me," she said.
It was not a question.
"Yes," Vincent said.
"I know." She looked at me one last time.
"I'm sorry about your father, Elena.
I am sorry about all of it.
I know that means very little."
"It means something," I said.
"Not enough.
But something."
She left.
Sal watched her go.
Then he looked at Vincent.
"Fort Lee," Vincent said.
"I heard," Sal said.
I looked at the paper in my hand.
One name.
One address.
Thirty years of unanswered questions pointing at a man who had lived a quiet life in New Jersey while my mother read one letter once a year with the door closed.
"What happens now?" I asked.
May you like
Vincent looked at me.
"Now," he said, "we finish it."
