Chapter 6 - THE PHOTOGRAPH LIED
Alessandro released Marco.
Nobody spoke.
Vittorio's claim was impossible.
Alessandro's father, Enzo Rossi, had died five years before the photograph was supposedly taken.
“I buried my father,” Alessandro said.
“Yes.”
“Then don't insult me.”
“Look at the photograph.”
I did.
Something bothered me immediately.
The wallpaper.
My father had renovated the shop when I was eleven.
The photograph showed the old wallpaper.
Meaning it had been taken earlier than we'd assumed.
I checked the back.
My father's words said THE FIRST DEATH.
No date.
We had supplied the date ourselves because the photograph had been hidden with Camila's childhood belongings.
“The picture is older,” I said.
Marco stared at it.
“How much older?”
“At least five years.”
Vittorio nodded.
“Enzo came to Antonio's shop because he'd discovered money missing from the family accounts.”
“The same theft you blamed on Marco later,” I said.
“Yes.”
That surprised everyone.
“You admit stealing?”
“I admit covering it.”
“That's not the same thing.”
“No.”
Vittorio looked suddenly older.
“My brother Enzo discovered the operation. But I wasn't running it.”
“Who was?” Alessandro demanded.
“Samuel Bellini.”
Leah recoiled.
“No.”
Vittorio didn't soften.
“Your father began moving money through shipping accounts. When Enzo discovered it, Samuel panicked.”
“You're lying.”
“I wish I were.”
Marco shook his head.
“Samuel saved my family.”
“People are rarely only one thing, Marco.”
That sentence stayed with me.
Villains wanted innocence and guilt to be simple.
Real families never were.
“What happened to Enzo?” I asked.
“Samuel shot him in Antonio's shop.”
Alessandro went completely still.
“And you?”
“I arrived afterward. Enzo was alive but suffering. There was no saving him.”
“You shot your own brother.”
Vittorio's voice broke.
“At his request.”
No one knew what to say.
It didn't absolve him.
But it changed the shape of the crime.
Leah was crying silently.
“My father killed Enzo?”
Vittorio nodded.
“Then spent the rest of his life trying to undo what he'd done.”
Marco closed his eyes.
That explained why Samuel later helped the Marinos.
Not innocence.
Atonement.
“Why frame Marco?” I asked.
Vittorio looked at him.
“Because seventeen years ago Marco found evidence that Samuel had not acted alone.”
The room tightened.
“Who helped him?” Alessandro asked.
Vittorio looked at me.
“Antonio.”
My father.
“No.”
“Your father never pulled a trigger. But he created hidden compartments, altered watches, moved records.”
“He was gathering evidence.”
“At the end, yes.”
At the end.
The phrase hurt.
Marco stepped closer.
“Antonio discovered who was still using Samuel's network after Samuel tried to shut it down.”
“Who?”
Vittorio didn't answer.
Instead, his gaze shifted toward Maso.
Again.
Maso looked furious.
“Stop looking at me.”
“Not you,” Vittorio said.
“Your father.”
Maso's expression changed.
“Gianni?”
Gianni Greco had been Alessandro's father's driver.
He had also been Maso's hero.
“He took over the network,” Vittorio said. “Samuel wanted out. Gianni didn't.”
Maso shook his head.
“My father died when I was fourteen.”
“Yes.”
“Before Marco disappeared.”
“Yes.”
“Then how could he—”
“Because someone inherited it from him.”
There it was.
The larger secret.
Not one traitor.
A system passed from one trusted person to another.
Alessandro looked around the room.
“Who runs it now?”
Vittorio looked toward the photograph.
“I don't know.”
For once, I believed him.
Then Leah suddenly pointed at the image.
“Adriana.”
“What?”
“The reflection.”
Behind Vittorio, the glass display case reflected someone holding the camera.
My father.
And beside him stood another person.
Only part of the face was visible.
But there was something distinctive around the person's neck.
A necklace.
A black stone pendant surrounded by gold.
I had seen it the night before.
On Camila.
My stomach dropped.
“No.”
Maso understood.
“That necklace belonged to someone before Camila.”
I remembered the way Alessandro's hand had rested against her back.
Not on her waist.
Near the clasp.
Had he noticed it too?
“Where did Camila get the necklace?” I asked.
Marco looked confused.
“What necklace?”
I described it.
His face drained.
“Elena.”
“Her mother?”
“She wore it every day.”
“Where is Elena now?”
Marco's answer came slowly.
“I thought she was with Camila.”
Alessandro stared at him.
“You haven't seen your wife?”
“Not in seventeen years.”
The room went silent.
Marco had believed Elena and Camila escaped together.
Camila had apparently believed something else.
Two separate stories.
Someone had kept father and daughter apart.
I grabbed my coat.
Alessandro caught my arm gently.
“Where are you going?”
“To find Camila.”
“How?”
I looked at Maso.
“She came to you this morning. Where?”
He hesitated.
Then understood.
“She wasn't driving randomly.”
“No.”
Camila had been carrying a ring built to hide evidence, her mother's bracelet, and a necklace connected to a photograph.
She was following instructions.
My father's instructions.
We returned to the alley behind the jewelry shop.
There, near the place where Maso had found the bloody ring, I saw three tiny scratches on the brick.
Jeweler's marks.
My father's mark.
They pointed toward an old drainpipe.
Inside it was a rolled train ticket.
Seventeen years old.
Destination: Bellhaven.
Leah whispered, “What's in Bellhaven?”
Marco answered.
“A convent.”
He looked terrified.
“Elena's sister lived there.”
Alessandro turned toward him.
“You think Camila went there?”
Marco shook his head.
“No.”
Then he pointed at the ticket.
“The convent closed twelve years ago.”
I unfolded the ticket completely.
Someone had recently written on the back.
One sentence.
In fresh blue ink.
ADRIANA, IF YOU FIND THIS, DON'T TRUST THE WOMAN WEARING THE BLACK STONE.
I stared at the words.
Camila had worn the black stone.
But I recognized the handwriting.
It wasn't Camila's.
May you like
It belonged to my mother.
My mother, who had been dead for nine years.
