Chapter 9: Morning, and What It Cost
Vanessa left at 12:41 a.m.
I watched from the upstairs window.
Daniel carried two bags to the car.
Vanessa walked out of the front door in the same red gown, her coat over her arm, her heels precise on the stone steps.
She didn't look up.
The car pulled out of the drive.
The gate closed.
Bruno was asleep on his bed by the fireplace in the study, his chin on the blue blanket, his breathing slow and even.
Luca sat at the desk.
He'd been on the phone for the last hour — his personal attorney first, then a second call I hadn't heard clearly, then a third that had lasted twenty minutes and left him very still at the end.
I brought him coffee he didn't ask for.
He looked up when I set it down.
"You should sleep," he said.
"So should you."
He almost smiled.
"Probably."
He looked at the notebook still open on the desk.
The manila folder from Dr.
Reeves.
A printed copy of the message I'd received on my phone, which Daniel had photographed and added to the pile.
"Emma," he said.
"I owe you an apology."
I shook my head.
"No.
Listen." He looked at me directly.
"You spent four months in this house being threatened by someone I brought here.
You protected Bruno at cost to yourself.
You kept evidence that you had every reason to throw away." He paused.
"And I didn't see any of it."
"You couldn't have known."
"I should have looked." He glanced toward the fireplace, where Bruno's side rose and fell in the quiet.
"My mother would have seen it in a week."
I didn't say anything to that.
"She had a way of watching people," he said.
"Not suspiciously.
Just — carefully.
She used to say that the way a person treats the people they don't have to be kind to tells you everything you'll ever need to know about them." He looked at his coffee.
"I forgot that for a while."
I sat down in the chair across from him.
"What happens now?" I said.
"To Vanessa?"
"To all of it."
He was quiet for a moment.
"My attorney is filing an emergency injunction in the morning to freeze any property transfers pending investigation.
The county recorder's office confirmed a fourth filing was submitted this afternoon — this house, as she said.
It hasn't been processed yet.
We'll stop it."
"And Whitmore?"
"He'll be contacted by my attorney tomorrow morning.
What he does after that is his choice." He paused.
"But the billing records go back four years.
That's not something that gets quietly resolved."
"And Caruso?"
"Notarizing forged documents is a crjme in this state." He looked at me steadily.
"He'll have a decision to make about how cooperative he wants to be."
I nodded.
The fire had burned low.
Bruno shifted in his sleep, one paw moving against the blanket.
"Mr.
Moretti," I said.
"Luca."
I looked at him.
"Luca," I said.
It felt strange.
It also felt right.
"She said something upstairs.
About Whitmore.
That he's been taking from the estate for four years."
"Yes."
"Is that true?"
"My attorney thinks so.
We'll know more in a few days."
"She found it," I said.
"She actually found it."
"Yes."
"And then she used it to do the same thing, only worse."
He looked at me for a moment.
"Yes."
I thought about that.
About the particular kind of person who finds a wrong being done and decides the lesson is that she should do it better.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"About the engagement.
About all of it."
He shook his head slowly.
"Don't be sorry for that."
"Still."
He picked up his coffee.
"Get some sleep, Emma," he said.
"I'll need you to give a formal statement to my attorney in the morning.
And after that—" He paused.
"I meant what I said about the time off."
"You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." He looked at me.
"Your mother was just discharged.
Go be with her for a few days.
With pay.
And when you come back—" He stopped.
"What?"
"We'll talk about your position here," he said.
"Properly.
Not like this."
I didn't know exactly what that meant.
But the way he said it didn't sound like a dismissal.
I stood up.
"Goodnight," I said.
"Goodnight, Emma."
I stopped at the door.
Bruno had opened one eye.
He watched me for a moment with that old, patient gaze.
May you like
Then he closed it again and settled deeper into the blue blanket.
I turned off the light in the hallway and went upstairs.
