Chapter 2 - THE RECORDING THEY WANTED GONE
By sunrise, Liana had learned two things about the Varric household. Nobody spoke plainly when Vittoria was in the room, and every hallway had a camera except the one leading to Nico's nursery.
That second fact bothered her more.
Matteo found her in the breakfast room with the baby asleep in his stroller. He had changed clothes but not rested. He carried a slim laptop and a paper cup of coffee that appeared to have gone untouched.
“The archive was altered,” he said.
Liana studied his face. “How?”
“Sixteen hours of footage replaced with older recordings. The security company says a local administrator authorized the changes.”
“Who has administrator access?”
“Vittoria. Dario. Me. And the man who installed the system.”
“Would someone need to be physically in the house?”
“Apparently not.” He looked down at Nico. “I never knew the nursery camera wasn't connected to the archive.”
“Maybe it used to be.”
He looked sharply at her. “What makes you say that?”
“Alma said, ‘before they erase it again.’ Not ‘before they switch it off.’ She believes footage exists.”
Matteo nodded slowly. “I need to talk to her.”
“Not with your guards surrounding her.”
“I don't threaten my employees.”
Liana thought of Dario blocking her in the foyer. “Your employees don't necessarily know that.”
For a man who controlled rooms through silence, Matteo seemed unusually willing to hear this woman correct him. He set down the laptop and walked to the stroller. Nico slept with one hand curled near his face.
“A pediatrician is coming,” Matteo said. “Dr. Miriam Shah. She works at a children's hospital across town. No connection to my family.”
“Good.”
“She asked why the previous physician called his symptoms separation anxiety without examining the ears.”
“That's a good question.”
He hesitated. “You said you lost a daughter.”
“Yes.”
“I won't ask what happened.”
“Thank you.”
“But I want you to know you can leave when your shift ends. You don't owe us your grief.”
Liana stared at him. Nobody had put it that way. Relatives had called her strong. A former employer had called her unreliable. A social worker had called her situation complicated. Matteo said she owed them nothing.
“I need the job,” she admitted.
“You have it.”
“Even if I keep asking questions?”
“Especially then.”
Dr. Shah arrived at eight-fifteen in a practical coat and shoes that squeaked on the polished floor. She examined Nico while Matteo stood nearby and Liana remained within the baby's sight. Nico fussed when the doctor touched his right ear. Dr. Shah checked both sides carefully, listened to his chest, took his temperature, reviewed his growth chart, and asked about recent medications and caregivers.
“He has an inflamed right ear,” she said. “That may explain some of the distress, but I don't want to assume it explains all of it.”
Matteo's hands closed into fists. “Vale told me he was fine.”
“I can't speak to that examination,” Dr. Shah said evenly. “I'm recommending treatment and a follow-up, and I'd like a full list of everything he's been given. Not only prescriptions—drops, supplements, sleep products, all of it.”
Vittoria entered in time to hear the last sentence. “Dr. Vale has been treating this child since birth.”
Dr. Shah turned. “Then he may be able to provide useful records.”
“There's no need for competing opinions.”
“There is when the parent requests one,” Dr. Shah answered.
Matteo looked at his aunt. “The appointment is over. We have the care plan.”
Vittoria's smile tightened. “Of course.”
Liana watched her leave. The woman never raised her voice. She simply acted as though disagreement was a temporary error in the world around her.
In the kitchen, Alma waited until the staff breakfast ended before approaching. Her hands shook as she folded dish towels.
“I'm going to lose my job,” she said without looking up.
“Not because of me,” Liana replied.
“You told him?”
“I did.”
“Then I should've kept quiet.”
“Maybe. But if you knew a baby was hurting and somebody covered it up, would you have felt better keeping quiet?”
Alma pulled out a stool and sat. “I used to help the night nurse, Beatrice. She was kind to Nico. She'd talk to him even when he couldn't understand the words.”
“Where did she go?”
“Gone in the middle of her shift, two weeks ago. Her locker emptied. Her pass disabled. They said she stole medicine.”
“Did you believe it?”
“No. Beatrice used her own money to buy this family the right kind of diaper cream when the supply office messed up the order.”
Liana swallowed. She recognized how quickly a poor worker's reputation could be destroyed by a wealthy person's accusation.
“Why the nursery footage?”
“Beatrice kept a little camera above the bookshelf, not one of the house cameras. She said the security cameras only showed the doorway and she needed to monitor Nico while she prepared bottles. It saved clips to her tablet.”
“Where is the tablet?”
“That's what Vittoria wanted from her.”
“Did Beatrice give it to her?”
Alma looked at Liana for the first time. “No. She gave it to me.”
Liana felt her pulse jump. “Where is it?”
“Not here. I was too frightened to keep it here.”
“Does it show someone hurting Nico?”
“I don't know. It's locked. Beatrice told me not to open it unless something happened to her.”
“And something did.”
Alma nodded miserably. “She called me once, from a borrowed phone. Said she had gone somewhere safe. Said if anybody asked whether I'd seen her, I should say no.”
Liana placed a hand over hers. “Tell Matteo yourself. Let him hear it from you.”
“He's family with Vittoria.”
“He's Nico's father first.”
That afternoon, Matteo met Alma in the winter garden without guards. Liana waited at the far end of the room with Nico, allowing the housekeeper to speak in privacy. As the conversation continued, Matteo's face went from controlled concern to disbelief, then to something hard and dangerous. He stood when Alma began to cry, but didn't go near her until she said she wanted to leave.
He offered her paid time off and the telephone number of an independent attorney. He also instructed Dario to restore her building access and prevent any personnel changes without his written approval.
After Alma left, Matteo joined Liana beside the window.
“She says Beatrice kept a record of nighttime doses,” he said. “And she believes somebody told Beatrice to make Nico sleep during meetings.”
“Who?”
“Someone using the clinic's name. Alma didn't see the order. She only heard the arguments.”
Liana was careful. “There may be a harmless explanation for some of it. But someone shouldn't be changing his care without you knowing.”
Matteo took a long breath. “I trusted Vittoria to handle the household after Sofia died. I spent every day trying to keep the company together and every night listening to him cry.”
“It's possible for someone to misuse your trust without making you foolish for having it.”
His gaze lingered on her. “You talk like somebody who's heard too many apologies.”
“I have.”
He said nothing, waiting.
She hadn't told anyone in this house about Rosie. But Alma's story had dragged her back to the hospital where she'd spent four months demanding clear answers. “My daughter died at St. Agnes twenty-two days ago. A respiratory crisis. They said she deteriorated suddenly. There were discrepancies in her chart, but the hospital hasn't given me a complete explanation.”
Matteo's face changed. “St. Agnes?”
“Yes.”
His eyes moved to the phone on the table. “That's the hospital where Nico was seen last month.”
Liana stopped breathing. “When?”
“Three weeks ago. He had a fever. Vittoria took him while I was out of state.”
Liana felt a cold weight settle beneath her ribs. Three weeks ago she had been camped beside Rosie's bed, sleeping in a chair, washing bottles at a shared sink. A blue-eyed baby had been wheeled through the hallway, crying desperately while a woman in dark silk argued with a nurse.
“I think I saw him,” she whispered.
Matteo leaned forward. “Where?”
“In the pediatric wing. The night there was an evacuation alarm. I remember a woman in a navy coat carrying a blond boy. A nurse asked her to wait.”
“Vittoria wears navy all the time.”
“I know that's not proof. I could be wrong.”
“Tell me what else you remember.”
Liana closed her eyes. A fluorescent corridor. Rosie's knitted blanket. Her own hands trembling. A stranger asking if she could hold a child for just a moment while a staff member cleared the hallway. The infant's frantic face settling when Liana swayed and tapped his back.
Three taps. A pause. Two taps.
“Oh,” she breathed. “That's why he reached for me.”
“What?”
“I held him. Just for a minute or two, that night. I didn't know his name.”
Matteo looked toward Nico, who was now exploring the tassel of a cushion with profound concentration.
A moment of human kindness had survived inside the baby's memory when everything else felt threatening. That possibility nearly broke Liana.
Her phone vibrated. An unknown number had sent a photograph.
It showed her outside St. Agnes, standing beside Rosie's empty stroller the morning after her daughter died.
Underneath were eight words:
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED AWAY FROM THE VARRICS.
Liana turned the screen toward Matteo. He read it once, slowly. Then he reached for his phone.
“No,” she said sharply. “Not your men first. We keep the message, we contact the police, and we find out who's sending it.”
May you like
Matteo looked at the photo again. His voice was quiet when he answered.
“Agreed. But until we know, you and I are going to be very careful about whom we trust.”
