Chapter 4: # CHAPTER 4: What Teresa Knew
They brought Teresa out to the sitting room off the main hall — Enzo's wife Rosa, who cooked for the household three days a week, guided the wheelchair herself while the guests in the dining room sat in uncertain silence.
Nobody had left.
I wasn't sure if that was loyalty or something closer to shock.
I stayed near the doorway of the sitting room because Luca had not told me to go, and Teresa's hand had found mine twice since we came inside.
That seemed like reason enough.
Marco sat in the chair across from Luca.
He had the expression of a man who had made one calculation too many and had now run entirely out of numbers.
"Start from the beginning," Luca said.
"Vanessa came to me six weeks ago." Marco pressed his palms flat against his knees.
"She said she needed help.
She said she was worried about Sophie — that you were too distracted with the business to notice that Sophie wasn't doing well.
She said she'd spoken to a specialist in Florence who recommended a temporary change of environment."
"A specialist," Luca repeated.
"She had paperwork.
A letterhead.
It looked official."
"Did you call the specialist?"
Marco's jaw moved.
"No."
"Did you verify the letterhead?"
"No."
"Did you ask me?"
"She said you'd already approved it.
She said you just needed someone you trusted to handle the logistics so you wouldn't be pulled away from the business negotiations this week." Marco stopped.
"I should have called you.
I know that."
Luca looked at him for a long moment.
"Six weeks ago," he said.
"That's when Hannah told me my mother had been improving."
He glanced at me.
I nodded.
He turned back to Marco.
"Did Vanessa tell you anything else about my mother?"
Marco hesitated just long enough.
"She said the doctors had confirmed Teresa's condition was deteriorating.
She said there was a care facility in Milan that specialized in post-stroke patients and that she'd been arranging a transfer.
She said you were already in contact with them."
The room went very still.
Rosa, standing behind Teresa's wheelchair, put one hand on the older woman's shoulder.
Teresa's lips were pressed together.
Her eyes were on Marco.
They were not the eyes of a woman whose mind was gone.
"He believed her," Teresa said.
Marco looked at her.
His face crumpled at one corner.
"Mrs.
Moretti, I—"
"Because she was very good at it," Teresa said.
The words came slowly.
Measured.
Like someone who had been saving them for exactly this room.
"She practiced.
I heard her."
Luca leaned forward.
"What do you mean you heard her?"
"My room." Teresa's hand moved to her lap.
"She did not know I could hear.
She thought I was like before.
She stood in the doorway and talked on the phone." A pause for breath.
"Three times."
"What did she say?"
"That I would be moved before I could cause trouble.
That Sophie would be with Marco and then — she said a name.
A man's name.
Not Marco."
The room waited.
"Ricci," Teresa said.
Marco went white.
Luca stood up.
"Dante Ricci," Marco said, very quietly.
"Luca, I swear to you I didn't know he was involved.
If I had known—"
"Who is Dante Ricci?" I asked.
Nobody answered me directly, but I watched Luca's hand go to the back of the chair he had just left, and I watched his knuckles.
That was answer enough.
"She was going to take Sophie to Ricci," Luca said.
It was not a question.
"I didn't know," Marco said again.
"I thought it was a family arrangement.
I thought—"
"You thought what Vanessa needed you to think." Luca's voice was very quiet.
"That's the point."
Teresa squeezed my hand.
"Hannah," she said.
"I'm here, Mrs.
Moretti."
"The phone." Her eyes moved carefully to the small table beside the door — the one where Rosa set keys and the household mail each morning.
"In the drawer."
I crossed the room.
The drawer was shallow and held a rubber band, two pens, and a phone I did not recognize.
Small, old, a cheap prepaid model.
The kind bought with cash.
I brought it to Luca.
He looked at it without touching it.
Then he looked at Teresa.
"Where did you get this?"
"Rosa," Teresa said simply.
Rosa, behind the wheelchair, straightened slightly.
"She asked me to take it from Mrs.
Bellini's room three weeks ago.
She drew the picture of where it was.
The dressing table, third drawer." She paused.
"I didn't know what was on it.
I still don't.
But Mrs.
Moretti asked me, so I did it."
Luca held the phone for a moment.
Then he set it on the table between himself and Marco.
"Does Vanessa know this is missing?" he asked.
Teresa almost smiled.
"She looked," she said.
"I watched her look."
From somewhere in the entrance hall came the sound of the front door opening.
Then Vanessa's voice, sharp and close.
"Luca, I am not going to stand outside in the cold while you listen to a woman who cannot string three words together — I want to speak to you.
Now."
She appeared in the doorway.
She saw the phone on the table.
May you like
The color left her face completely.
* * *
