Chapter 7: The Things Giovanni Kept
It was Nora who found them.
Lorenzo had asked her to spend the morning in room 4B writing her account of the past three months.
He'd had Sal bring her a legal pad and two pens.
She had settled on her stool beside Giovanni, and he had been — there was no other word for it — company.
His eyes moved when she spoke.
His fingers rested open on the armrest rather than curled inward, which she had learned in three months of watching him meant he was calm and present and not in pain.
She wrote for two hours.
She was thorough.
She included dates when she knew them, approximate times, the names of staff members who had been present for specific incidents.
She included the day Mrs.
Gable had assigned her to carry the winter drapes alone.
She included the notation about the bruises and the grip and the words spoken in the corridor.
When she finished writing, her hand was cramped.
She set the pen down and stretched her fingers.
Giovanni's gaze had moved to the side of the room.
Toward the far wall.
The same blank wall his chair had faced when she first arrived.
She frowned.
"What is it?"
He could not answer.
But his eyes moved back to the wall.
Then to her.
Then back.
She stood up.
The wall was paneled — old dark wood, the same throughout the east wing.
She crossed toward it slowly.
There was a low wooden cabinet built into the wall that she had never opened.
It had no visible lock, just a small brass latch that had been painted over so many times it had blended into the wood.
She looked back at Giovanni.
His fingers tapped once.
She opened the cabinet.
Inside were several items.
A leather-bound journal, aged and soft, with Giovanni's initials embossed on the cover.
Below it, a small wooden box.
And beside the box, neatly folded, a piece of paper that was much newer than anything else in the cabinet — the edges still crisp, the fold still sharp.
She left everything in place and called for Sal.
He appeared in less than a minute.
"Don't touch anything," she said.
"Get Mr.
Moretti."
Lorenzo arrived in four minutes.
He looked at the open cabinet.
He put on a pair of thin gloves that Sal produced from somewhere and crouched down to examine the contents.
The journal first.
He opened it at the back — the most recent entries.
The handwriting was labored, uneven, formed with enormous effort, but it was legible.
It had dates.
It went back two years.
He read in silence for a long time.
"Papa." He looked up at Giovanni.
"You've been writing in here for two years."
One tap.
"Did Mrs.
Gable know about this cabinet?"
A long pause.
Then Giovanni's palm turned upward.
The empty gesture.
No.
"She never found it."
One tap.
Lorenzo set the journal down and opened the small wooden box.
Inside were three things: a silver ring, a folded photograph, and a USB drive.
He held up the drive.
He looked at Nora.
"Do you have any idea—"
"None," she said.
He looked at Giovanni.
"Is there something on here I need to see?"
One tap.
Lorenzo handed the drive to Sal.
"Get the laptop from my bag." He turned back to the cabinet and carefully unfolded the newest piece of paper.
It was not Giovanni's handwriting.
It was typed.
At the top was a letterhead Nora didn't recognize — a legal firm, she thought, based on the dense formatting.
The letter was addressed to Lorenzo Moretti.
It was dated three weeks ago.
He read it standing up.
His face didn't change.
That was, she had learned in the past twenty-four hours, how she knew something was serious.
"What is it?" she asked, before she'd decided whether she should.
He folded it and looked at her.
"It's a letter from my father's attorney," he said.
"It was sent here three weeks ago and never forwarded to me."
"Mrs.
Gable receives all estate correspondence."
"Yes." He said it quietly.
"She does."
Sal returned with the laptop.
The USB drive held a single folder.
Inside the folder were files — videos, dated, numbered in sequence.
Forty-one files total.
Lorenzo opened the most recent one.
The angle was awkward, low and slightly tilted — the lens of a small camera, the kind built into a simple device, capturing whatever could be seen from approximately the height of a wheelchair armrest.
The room was recognizable.
Room 4B.
The date stamp read: eleven months ago.
Mrs.
Gable stood in the center of the frame.
Behind her, visible over her shoulder, was another man — tall, broad, someone Nora didn't recognize.
They were speaking.
The audio was faint but audible.
"If he ever recovers any function," the man said, "any at all—"
"He won't," Mrs.
Gable said.
"The doctors were very clear."
"The doctors said probable.
Not certain."
"Then we make sure the conditions don't allow for improvement, don't we." It was not a question in her voice.
"He stays cold.
He stays still.
He eats what I give him and nothing else.
In another year, two at most, we won't have this problem."
Nora looked away from the screen.
Lorenzo closed the laptop.
He sat very still for one moment.
Then he stood up and walked to his father's wheelchair.
He crouched down in front of it so he was below Giovanni's eyeline, looking up.
"You filmed all of this," he said.
"You rigged a camera from your wheelchair."
One tap.
"For how long?"
Giovanni's hand lifted with visible effort.
All five fingers spread wide.
Then closed.
Then opened.
Then two fingers.
Lorenzo's throat moved.
"Twelve months."
One tap.
"You waited for me to come."
May you like
The old man's eyes were bright and sharp and full of something that was not helplessness at all.
One tap.
