Chapter 3 - WHAT CAMILA KNEW
“You saw Camila this morning?”
Maso lowered his sleeve.
“Adriana—”
“You stood here and told me she disappeared.”
“She did.”
“That is not the same as saying you found her.”
“I didn't find her.”
Leah stepped between us before I could get closer.
“Then start talking.”
Maso looked toward the windows.
“Camila found me.”
At four seventeen that morning, he'd been checking the rear gate of Alessandro's estate when a car rolled from the trees with its headlights off.
Camila was inside.
Alone.
Blood on her dress.
She refused to explain whose blood it was.
“She gave me the bracelet,” Maso said. “Then she told me to bring your ring here.”
“The fake ring.”
“I didn't know it was fake.”
“Where is she now?”
“I don't know.”
I laughed once, without humor.
“You're becoming remarkably talented at not knowing things.”
His jaw tightened.
“She begged me not to tell Alessandro she'd survived.”
Survived.
The word landed hard.
“Survived what?”
“She wouldn't say.”
Maso removed the bracelet.
The clasp was broken, which explained the cut on his arm.
He placed it before me.
“Her exact words were, ‘Give this to Adriana. Her father knew what it opens.’”
I examined the oval plate.
The tiny star wasn't decorative.
I pressed it with a probe.
Click.
The plate opened.
Inside was a brass key no longer than my thumbnail.
Stamped into it:
Leah exhaled.
“So we have a number and a key.”
“And my father involved in something seventeen years ago.”
I turned the old ledger toward me again.
Beside order 417 was another notation I'd missed.
F.C. Station.
Maso recognized it.
“Fulton Central.”
The old train terminal.
Its original lockers were still in the east concourse.
Locker 417.
We drove there together.
I should have been thinking about Alessandro.
Instead, I kept seeing Camila's trembling hand closing around my wedding ring.
She hadn't looked like a mistress.
She'd looked like someone standing beside a man because saying no wasn't safe.
Maybe I'd mistaken Alessandro's cruelty.
Or maybe I'd underestimated it.
Locker 417 opened with the tiny key.
Inside sat three objects.
A man's silver watch.
A child's red wool coat, carefully folded.
And a cassette tape.
Leah touched the coat.
“This is tiny.”
“Five-year-old, maybe six.”
I picked up the watch.
The back was engraved.
TO MARCO — COME HOME SAFE. E.M.
“Elena Marino,” I whispered.
Maso went rigid.
“Marco Marino was Camila's father.”
“You knew him?”
“Everyone knew the story. He stole from the Rossi family and disappeared.”
“When?”
“Seventeen years ago.”
The same year my father made Elena's bracelet.
There was no cassette player nearby, but my father had kept one in his shop.
We returned immediately.
The tape crackled when I pressed play.
For several seconds there was only static.
Then my father's voice filled the room.
“If Adriana ever hears this, then I failed to keep her away from all of it.”
I gripped the table.
Leah touched my shoulder.
My father continued.
“Marco Marino did not steal from the Rossi family.”
Maso closed his eyes.
“He discovered someone else was stealing from them.”
A chair scraped on the recording.
Then a woman's voice.
Elena.
“He has copies.”
“Where?” my father asked.
“With someone Alessandro trusts.”
My breath stopped.
Alessandro.
But then my father said, “Alessandro is nineteen years old, Elena. He can't protect you.”
Nineteen.
Of course.
Seventeen years ago, Alessandro had barely been a man.
Whatever my father feared, it hadn't begun with my husband.
Elena started crying on the recording.
“If Vittorio finds out Marco talked—”
The tape snapped into static.
Maso looked at me.
“Vittorio Rossi.”
Alessandro's uncle.
The man who had practically raised him after his father died.
The respected elder who had sat three seats away from me at my birthday dinner.
Suddenly, the entire night looked different.
Camila beside Alessandro.
Her fear.
His hand against her back.
Not possessive.
Guiding.
Keeping her close.
“Oh God.”
Leah understood first.
“You think Alessandro wasn't bringing his mistress to dinner.”
“He was bringing Camila somewhere Vittorio couldn't touch her without witnesses.”
Maso looked miserable.
“He was supposed to tell you afterward.”
I turned on him.
“You knew?”
“Only that she was under protection. Not why.”
“And nobody thought perhaps the wife being publicly humiliated deserved one sentence of warning?”
“Alessandro believed your reaction had to be real.”
“It was.”
The anger returned, sharper because it now had somewhere legitimate to go.
“He used me.”
“Yes,” Maso said quietly.
At least he didn't insult me by denying it.
A metallic sound came from the cassette player.
Something had fallen from inside the tape case.
A tiny folded strip of paper.
I opened it.
My father's handwriting again.
THE WATCH DOES NOT BELONG TO MARCO.
I turned the silver watch over.
“To Marco” was engraved on the back.
Then I saw it.
The case back had been replaced.
I opened it using my father's blade.
Inside, beneath the movement, was another engraving.
V.R.
Vittorio Rossi.
Leah frowned.
“Why would Vittorio's watch have a dedication to Marco?”
“Because someone changed the back to make it look like Marco's.”
Maso stared at the watch.
“To frame him.”
A sound came from the shop downstairs.
Not a knock.
The front bell.
Someone had used a key.
Maso drew his gun.
Leah pulled me behind the workbench.
Footsteps climbed the stairs.
Slow.
Familiar.
Alessandro appeared in the doorway.
His black coat was torn near the shoulder.
There was dried blood along his collar.
For one terrible second, neither of us spoke.
Then his eyes found the silver watch in my hand.
All the color left his face.
“Where did you get that?”
“Locker 417.”
His expression changed from shock to fear.
Not fear for himself.
For me.
“Adriana, put it down.”
“Why?”
He took one step toward me.
“Because the last person who opened that watch was your father.”
My throat tightened.
“And?”
May you like
Alessandro's voice broke for the first time I'd ever heard.
“And three hours later, he was dead.”
