Chapter 4 - THE HOUSE MATTEO NEVER TOLD ROMAN ABOUT
“The morning after?”
Gemma checked the date again.
“Yes.”
Roman took the ticket without touching her fingers.
“That’s impossible.”
“You’re holding it.”
“My brother was dead.”
“I understand how dates work.”
Roman gave her a look.
Under different circumstances, she might have smiled.
Neither did.
Gemma pointed at the address.
“What is this?”
“A cottage outside Beacon.”
“You said it belonged to Matteo.”
“It did.”
“Why?”
“He bought it for someone.”
Roman’s answer was reluctant.
Gemma caught it.
“A woman?”
“Yes.”
Dominic arrived twenty minutes later carrying a leather folder and wearing the expression of a man who had already decided he hated whatever came next.
Roman handed him the ticket.
Dominic swore.
“You knew about the cottage?” Gemma asked.
Dominic glanced at Roman.
Roman answered for him.
“We both did.”
“But you didn’t check it after Matteo died?”
“We did.”
“And?”
“Empty.”
Dominic leaned against the kitchen counter.
“Not empty. Clean.”
Roman’s expression tightened.
“Same thing.”
“No,” Gemma said. “It isn’t.”
Both men looked at her.
She held up the ticket.
“If my father went there after Matteo died, then either you missed something or somebody removed it before you arrived.”
Dominic looked offended.
“We don’t miss much.”
Gemma raised an eyebrow.
“You missed a brass disk sewn into a dress for ten years.”
Roman almost smiled.
Dominic did not.
The next morning they drove north.
Gemma insisted on taking her own coat.
Roman did not comment.
She noticed.
The cottage stood beyond a narrow road lined with bare trees and low stone walls.
Time had not been kind to it.
Paint peeled from the porch rails.
Dead leaves had gathered beneath the steps.
The property had eventually transferred back to the Costa holding company and remained unused.
Roman unlocked the front door.
Dust greeted them.
Gemma walked inside slowly.
“This doesn’t look clean.”
“Ten years changes things,” Dominic said.
The house contained basic furniture covered with sheets.
A fireplace.
A narrow kitchen.
A bedroom facing the woods.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing hidden behind rotating bookshelves.
Gemma began doing what she knew.
Looking.
A restorer did not search a room the way a policeman did.
She searched for interruption.
A patch of varnish newer than the wood around it.
A nail hole that did not belong.
Paint layers.
Repairs.
In the bedroom she stopped beside a framed landscape.
Cheap print.
Cheap frame.
But the backing paper had been replaced professionally.
“Roman.”
He entered.
Gemma lifted the frame from the wall.
“You said nobody lived here after Matteo?”
“No.”
“Then somebody re-backed this within the last five years.”
Dominic joined them.
“How can you tell?”
“Adhesive.”
She pointed.
“Modern pH-neutral tape.”
Dominic looked at Roman.
“I understood none of that.”
Gemma carefully opened the frame.
Inside was another photograph.
Not hidden dramatically.
Simply pressed between the print and backing board.
A woman stood on the cottage porch holding an infant.
Matteo stood beside her.
His arm was around her shoulders.
On his wrist hung a wooden rosary.
Gemma turned the photo over.
One sentence.
For Roman, when he is finally ready to forgive me.
Roman sat on the edge of the bed.
Gemma had never seen him look vulnerable.
It unsettled her more than the gun had.
“You didn’t know about the baby.”
Roman shook his head.
“No.”
Dominic looked away.
Gemma studied him.
“You did.”
Roman’s head lifted.
Dominic closed his eyes briefly.
“Not then.”
“When?”
“After Matteo died.”
Roman stood.
The room seemed suddenly too small.
“You knew my brother had a child?”
“I knew there might have been one.”
“For ten years?”
Dominic’s voice rose.
“I was trying to keep you alive.”
Roman stepped toward him.
“By lying to me?”
“By stopping you from tearing through every person Matteo ever touched while you were grieving.”
“You had no right.”
“No. I had a responsibility.”
The anger between them carried years.
Gemma quietly set the photograph on the dresser.
Dominic continued.
“Matteo had gotten reckless. He trusted Daniel. He trusted Wells. He trusted people outside the family. Then he ended up dead.”
Roman’s face hardened.
“And you decided everyone he loved was dangerous.”
“I decided anyone connected to him could become leverage against you.”
Gemma spoke.
“What happened to the woman?”
Dominic looked at the photograph.
“Her name was Elena Marlowe.”
Roman stared at him.
Dominic swallowed.
“She left New York with the baby three days after Matteo died.”
“Who helped her?”
“I did.”
Silence.
Roman’s voice dropped.
“You?”
“She was terrified.”
“Of me?”
“Of everybody.”
Dominic looked directly at his oldest friend.
“She believed Matteo’s killer was inside the Costa organization.”
Roman’s anger shifted.
Not gone.
Redirected.
“Who?”
“She never gave me a name.”
Gemma picked up the photograph.
“The rosary.”
Roman looked at Matteo’s wrist.
“What about it?”
“I’ve seen it.”
Both men turned.
Gemma searched her memory.
Then it came.
“Adrian.”
Roman’s expression sharpened.
“He keeps a wooden rosary inside the top drawer of his gallery desk.”
Dominic moved first.
“We go back.”
Gemma stopped him.
“Wait.”
She examined the photograph more closely.
Matteo’s rosary had one dark bead near the cross.
A repair.
Her father had repaired objects the same way.
She looked around the bedroom.
The framed photograph.
The ticket.
Her father’s watch.
Objects leading from one place to another.
Not evidence dumped conveniently in a box.
A trail intended for someone who understood how Daniel thought.
Gemma looked beneath the photograph.
Something was written in pencil along the bottom border.
She read it aloud.
“Blue window. Not the painting. The glass.”
Roman went motionless.
There was one blue window in the cottage.
Above the kitchen sink.
They ran downstairs.
Gemma examined the old panes.
One section contained rippled cobalt glass.
She pressed gently around the wooden putty.
A corner shifted.
Someone had removed and replaced the pane years ago.
Roman brought a screwdriver.
Gemma carefully loosened the frame.
Behind the blue glass lay a flat envelope.
Inside was a child’s drawing.
A stick-figure man.
A woman.
A little girl.
A crooked green house.
And another man standing apart, drawn much taller than everyone else.
Above him, in a child’s uncertain handwriting, was one word.
UNCLE ROMAN.
Roman stared at it.
On the reverse, written by Matteo:
If anything happens to me, she belongs with my family.
Below that was a name.
Sofia Costa.
And beside the name was a birth date.
Roman whispered, “She’d be eleven now.”
Dominic looked pale.
Gemma turned the drawing over one final time.
A newer sentence had been added beneath Matteo’s handwriting.
Different ink.
Different hand.
Gemma recognized it.
May you like
Her father’s.
DO NOT BRING HER TO ROMAN UNTIL ADRIAN IS GONE.
