Chapter 8 - THE DRIVER'S CONFESSION
Dario returned to the estate on a rainy Tuesday evening, but not through the front gate.
He came to the side entrance carrying a paper bag of pastries and looking like a man who had not slept for three days. The guard on duty asked him to wait. Matteo came downstairs himself.
For a long moment neither man spoke.
“I heard you wanted to ask about Sofia,” Dario said.
“Renee Lawson says you were supposed to drive her the morning she died.”
Dario looked at the floor. “I was.”
“You told me you were off duty.”
“I lied.”
The admission was so simple that it hurt Matteo more than a complicated excuse would have.
“Come inside,” he said. “Olivia's here. We'll talk with her.”
Dario shook his head. “I know what people are saying. I'm not going to confess to something I didn't do.”
“Nobody asked you to.”
“I should have told you. I know that.”
“Then tell me now.”
He did, in the library with Olivia and his own attorney on the telephone. Liana was elsewhere with Nico. Matteo had told her she could attend if she wished; she had chosen not to be present at a conversation that belonged to Sofia's final morning and might become part of a criminal investigation.
Dario explained that Sofia had asked for a ride to a meeting with Renee. When he arrived, she was distressed. She said a gray sedan had followed her twice in the previous week. Dario advised her to tell Matteo. She refused, explaining that she needed to verify her suspicions before provoking a family fight.
“I told her I would drive,” Dario said. “Then Vittoria called.”
“What did she want?” Matteo asked.
“She said there had been a security incident at a warehouse and I needed to report immediately. She told me Sofia had changed her plans.”
“Did you confirm that with Sofia?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because Vittoria was my supervisor for household operations when you were away. I assumed she knew.”
Dario swallowed. “I called Sofia ten minutes later. It went to voicemail. I left a message. By the time I heard about the crash, it was too late.”
“What happened to the gray sedan?” Olivia asked.
“I never identified it. But there was a traffic camera on the road near the estate. I requested a copy and was told the footage had been overwritten.”
“Who told you?”
“An officer who handled the initial report.”
Matteo leaned back, exhausted. “Why did you lie about being off duty?”
“Vittoria told me if anyone knew I'd left Sofia without an escort, the family would blame me. She said I should say I was assigned elsewhere. I was ashamed. And I believed the story wouldn't change anything.”
“It changed everything for me,” Matteo said.
Dario nodded. “I know.”
Olivia asked him to preserve his phone records and any messages from Vittoria. He agreed. She also warned him not to contact potential witnesses to coordinate accounts. After the meeting, Matteo walked him to the side door.
“I don't know if I can trust you again,” Matteo said.
Dario looked as if he'd expected nothing else. “I wouldn't ask you to.”
“But thank you for finally telling me.”
Dario nodded once and disappeared into the rain.
That night, Liana found Matteo on the terrace outside the nursery. He was standing beneath the covered roof, watching water gather along the steps.
“Did he confess to hurting her?” she asked.
“No. He confessed to leaving her without the ride he promised. There's a difference.”
“Is it enough to make you forgive him?”
“I don't know. I keep thinking that if I'd answered Sofia's call, or if Dario had driven her, maybe she'd be alive.”
Liana stepped beside him. “I used to count the things I might have done differently with Rosie. I'd lie awake and make little lists. If I'd asked for another doctor. If I'd noticed the chart change earlier. If I'd stayed awake one more hour.”
“What made you stop?”
“I haven't. Not entirely. But my counselor asked whether I was counting because I wanted to learn something or because I believed I deserved to hurt.”
He looked at her. “Which was it?”
“Both. Some days.”
He let out a long breath. “That sounds familiar.”
“Then maybe we're both going to need help sorting it out.”
They stood together without touching. For the first time, Liana felt the possibility of warmth between them as something she could acknowledge without acting on. Matteo was grieving. She was grieving. Nico needed stability, not a romance built from two adults trying to make their losses less painful by moving too quickly.
The following week, investigators obtained financial records linking Harborline to a series of inflated medical-equipment invoices. Some payments had been diverted to a consulting company controlled by Leonard Pike. State authorities announced a formal inquiry into the foundation's procurement practices and possible fraud. Olivia cautioned that the inquiry did not establish criminal guilt for any named person.
Liana's independent legal advocate, Marisol Vega, arranged a review of Rosie's complete medical record by pediatric specialists with no connection to St. Agnes or the Varrics. They found substantial documentation gaps and inconsistencies that warranted further investigation. They could not yet determine whether those problems had caused Rosie's death.
The conclusion was not satisfying. It was, however, honest.
“I wanted them to tell me one person was responsible,” Liana admitted to Marisol.
“That would be easier to understand,” Marisol said. “But your daughter's care deserves a careful answer. We don't want a convenient villain to substitute for the truth.”
Liana nodded, looking at the photo of Rosie on her phone.
Back at the estate, Nico began sleeping longer stretches. His ear improved with treatment. His appetite returned. His father learned to recognize the difference between hunger, discomfort, and the particular protest Nico made when someone took away a wooden spoon.
Matteo spent fewer hours at work and more in the nursery. He sometimes sat beside Liana while Nico played, asking questions that any new parent might ask: Was it normal for him to bang his cup? Should he be crawling that fast? How many times could a child laugh at a person sneezing?
“There's no official limit,” Liana said one afternoon. “But I believe Nico's personal record is eleven.”
Matteo sneezed for the twelfth time on purpose. Nico laughed so hard he toppled sideways onto a pillow.
It was the happiest sound in the house.
Then a letter arrived from Vittoria's attorneys.
It accused Matteo of using company resources to conduct a personal vendetta and warned that the board might consider his leadership compromised. An emergency board meeting was scheduled for Friday. Several directors whose investments depended on Varric-controlled businesses supported the motion.
Matteo read the letter in silence. He had spent his adult life believing he could protect the company from every threat with enough force and enough money. Now the greatest threat to his position appeared to be a decision to cooperate with investigators.
“What will you do?” Liana asked.
“Attend. Give them the facts. Step down if the board decides I can't serve.”
She looked at him in surprise. “You'd really leave?”
“I built the company. It's not my child.” He glanced toward Nico. “I know the difference now.”
The board meeting lasted six hours. Matteo disclosed the independent accounting review, recused himself from decisions involving the foundation, and proposed an external compliance committee with power to examine past transactions. He also disclosed his personal conflict of interest and promised not to interfere with investigations.
Several directors voted against him. Two demanded his resignation. But a majority approved the independent oversight plan and retained Matteo as chief executive under stricter controls.
When he returned to the estate, he looked relieved and deeply tired.
“Still employed?” Liana asked.
“For now.”
“Congratulations. I hear your boss is difficult.”
“You have no idea.”
They laughed.
Then Olivia called with a development that wiped the smile from Matteo's face.
Investigators had recovered a backup from the hospital's security network. It showed Dr. Vale entering a restricted supply room during the evacuation and leaving with a case that was not logged in the inventory system. The recording did not reveal its contents.
But it also showed another person waiting at the far exit.
Vittoria.
She took the case from him, placed it in her car, and drove away.
For the first time, investigators had a documented action connecting two central figures on the night Rosie died.
May you like
Liana heard the news while labeling Nico's little containers for the following day. She placed the pen down, read Olivia's summary twice, and resisted the urge to call Dr. Vale herself. No amount of anger would make a frightened witness speak more accurately. Instead, she wrote the new questions in her notebook and called Marisol. The lawyer promised to request the relevant findings through proper channels. Liana returned to the nursery, where Nico was asleep, and sat beside his crib until her breathing settled. She had learned that taking action sometimes meant waiting for people who could establish facts.
And the investigators wanted to know what had been inside that case.
