Chapter 10: Mrs. Gable's Last Card
The envelope appeared under Nora's door at two in the afternoon.
She was sitting on her bed reviewing the written statement she'd given Lorenzo, making small corrections in pencil, when she heard the soft slide of paper on the wooden floor.
She got up — carefully, one hand on the bedpost — and picked it up.
Her name was written on the front in unfamiliar handwriting.
Inside was a single typed page and a photograph.
The photograph was of Nora.
Taken from outside, through a window, at an angle that suggested the photographer had been standing in the kitchen garden.
Nora was inside, visible through the glass, sitting in her usual position on the stool beside Giovanni.
The angle and the lighting made it look — she stared at it — intimate in a way that was clearly designed to look inappropriate.
The typed page was a letter.
It stated that Nora had been deliberately cultivating a relationship with an incapacitated elderly man for financial gain.
That she had manipulated her way into caring for him.
That she had isolated him from other staff.
That the heated blanket, the meals, the conversations — all of it was a calculated campaign to position herself as a beneficiary.
It was signed by Mrs.
Gable.
At the bottom, a line read: *This document has been sent to the estate's board of trustees, to Mr.
Moretti's primary business attorney in New York, and to the local county child services office.
A copy has been provided to Brody Callahan as evidence of his child's home environment.*
Nora sat back down on the bed.
Her heart was hammering.
Child services.
That was the one that had gone through her like cold water.
She was eight weeks from her due date.
If anyone opened a file on her—
She made herself breathe.
Then she picked up both the photo and the letter and walked down the corridor to Lorenzo's study.
She knocked once and went in.
He was on the phone.
He looked at her face and ended the call.
She set the envelope and its contents on his desk.
He read it.
He looked at the photograph.
He set it down.
"She smuggled out a phone," Nora said.
"She must have hidden it."
"Or she had a second one." He was already standing.
"How long ago did this come under your door?"
"Ten minutes."
He opened the study door and spoke to Sal in the corridor.
Sal moved fast.
"Sit down," Lorenzo told Nora.
"Don't go back to your room until I come and get you."
"The child services part—"
"I'll have Vincent call the county office within the hour.
This letter is retaliatory and it's connected to a documented pattern of behavior that my attorney can explain in detail." He looked at her directly.
"You are not in trouble.
You have done nothing wrong.
This is a woman with her back against a wall."
"A woman with her back against a wall can still do damage."
"Yes," he said.
"But she just made a significant mistake."
"What mistake?"
"She sent this letter to the board of trustees." He picked up the photograph.
"The board of trustees includes three men who have known my father for forty years.
Men who will receive this letter, and then receive my call explaining what is on those 41 video files, and then make their own conclusions." He set the photo down.
"She thought the trustees were her protection.
She didn't realize they're the last people she should have contacted."
Sal appeared in the doorway.
"She's not in the guest room.
She's not in the building."
Lorenzo was still for exactly one second.
"Get the gate log," he said.
"Find out how she got past the gate."
Sal left again.
Nora sat in the chair in front of Lorenzo's desk.
Outside, the blizzard had begun to ease — the wind lower, the snow thinner now, the gray sky lightening almost imperceptibly.
The roads were nearly passable.
May you like
And Mrs.
Gable, who had spent eleven years controlling every exit and entrance of the Moretti estate, had used that knowledge to find the one exit nobody had thought to watch.
