Chapter 3 - ROOM EIGHT FOURTEEN
Valentina Russo opened her apartment door in a silk robe and asked if I had come to apologize.
I had come without the flowers she liked, without the necklace I'd given her, and without the convenient version of myself that could spend two days with her and pretend my wife was elsewhere by mutual agreement.
“Isabella left,” I said.
Valentina's hand tightened on the door. “I heard.”
“From whom?”
“My father. Your brother called him.”
It was six in the evening. Behind her, the expensive penthouse overlooking the Hudson smelled of lilies and coffee. The rooms were quiet, ordered, and lavish in exactly the way I used to find restful. Now I could see the evidence of my dishonesty everywhere. The jacket I had left over a chair. The photograph of us at a private resort, turned facedown when visitors arrived. An unfamiliar key on the console beneath the alarm panel.
“Your father has people looking for Isabella,” I said.
Valentina stared at me. “Why would he?”
“That's what I came to ask.”
“You're frightening me.”
“For nine months you've been comfortable with who I am. Don't suddenly act as though asking a question is the worst thing about me.”
She flinched. I hated myself for taking pleasure in the reaction. It was easier to be cruel than to admit how frightened I was of what Isabella had uncovered.
Valentina moved aside. “Come in. But don't talk to me like one of your soldiers.”
I went to the window. Far below, a ferry made a white line on the black water. I had spent entire evenings here believing I was escaping responsibilities. In fact I'd been collecting fresh ones, and leaving Isabella to carry the old ones alone.
“Who leased this place?” I asked.
“I did.”
“Through what company?”
She hesitated. “My father's property division. You know that.”
“Who else has access?”
“The building staff. Me. You, obviously.”
“Anyone from Nico's office?”
Her expression changed. It was small but real. “Nico arranged the security package.”
“Why?”
“He said you needed privacy.”
Privacy. Such a clean word for concealment. I walked to the small metal panel beside the door. Our family crest was etched on its corner. Nico had supplied hundreds of systems for our hotels. This one was connected to his firm's monitoring service.
“Did he ever come here?”
“Once or twice when the cameras weren't working. Dante, what's this about?”
I turned. “The foundation money. Pier Nine.”
Valentina folded her arms. “I know my father sits on the advisory board.”
“He controls companies that received money meant for families whose relatives burned to death.”
“No.”
“I have records.”
“That doesn't mean he stole it.”
“No, it doesn't. But I'd like to understand why your father's investigators are tracking my wife and the woman who handled the original claims.”
Her mouth opened and closed. She looked suddenly much younger than twenty-nine, and far less practiced than I'd imagined. Then she spoke with the directness I'd once found appealing.
“You didn't love me, did you?”
The question struck harder than an accusation.
“I cared about you.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
“No,” I said. “I didn't love you the way you deserved to be loved.”
She laughed quietly. “You told me I was what you needed.”
“I was selfish. I said whatever made it possible to come back.”
“And Isabella?”
“She deserved a husband who could tell the truth.”
Valentina looked at the necklace on the table. It contained an emerald pendant that had cost enough to buy a small house. She had once worn it to dinner with me and laughed that it made her feel like a spy in a terrible movie.
“My father asked me to keep you busy this spring,” she said at last.
A coldness spread beneath my ribs. “Explain.”
“He said you were taking on too much, that there were delicate negotiations and Nico could handle them. He asked me to arrange weekends away. I thought it was because of the alliance. I thought...” She stopped.
“You thought what?”
“That he approved of us. That if the families agreed, eventually you would leave her.”
I stared out the window. The truth of my betrayal did not improve because another man had encouraged it. I had known precisely what I was doing every time I turned off my phone.
“Did you know anyone was threatened?”
“No. I swear.”
“Did you know about Isabella's work?”
“She mentioned a problem with the foundation once at dinner. Nico said she was overreacting to a clerical issue.” Valentina's face drained. “God. I laughed.”
She sat down on the sofa. For the first time since I'd known her, she seemed unable to choose an attractive angle in which to present herself.
“Who arranged the penthouse cameras?” I repeated.
“I have the invoices. Wait.”
She searched a cabinet and handed me an installation file. On the second page, the named technician was an employee of Bellhaven Systems, one of the companies Isabella had highlighted in her reports. Beside his name was an authorization from Nico's office.
I photographed the page. “Don't destroy this.”
Valentina leaned toward me. “Are you telling me my father used me?”
“I'm telling you to get your own attorney and ask him that question.”
“And us?”
I looked at her. There was no acceptable way to make the answer less painful. “It's over.”
“You're leaving because she left you.”
“I should have left before she had to.”
For several seconds she said nothing. Then she pointed at the door. “Get out.”
I went. I did not ask for forgiveness, and I did not turn her anger into a reason to be angry in return. In the elevator I called Enzo.
“I need an independent technician to examine the security installation at the penthouse,” I said. “With the owner's permission and without touching the data until we know how to preserve it.”
“Understood.”
“And find out whether Nico ever visited the property.”
“Already checking.” Enzo paused. “Boss, a woman called the foundation. Rosa Neri.”
I stopped moving. “What did she say?”
“She left a message for you personally. I didn't recognize the name until I saw Isabella's notes.”
“Play it.”
A wavering elderly voice filled my ear. “Mr. Moretti. Your wife tried to stop me from calling, and perhaps she was right. But I knew your father when he was still capable of shame. He wanted you to have the original account book, and I have waited too long to give it to you.”
A pause, followed by a faint cough.
“Your brother came to see me yesterday. He said Isabella had abandoned you. He told me I'd be wise to abandon her too. I told him no.”
The recording ended.
“Where was the call made?” I asked.
“A nursing facility near Albany. Enzo had the operator confirm she's a resident there under her own name.”
“Don't send men.”
“Then what?”
“Ask her if she'd be willing to speak with a lawyer and the prosecutor. She owes me nothing.”
As the elevator descended, I remembered the first time Valentina had asked about my wife. It had been a quiet evening with the city shining beyond the windows. She wanted to know whether Isabella was lonely in the mansion. I had answered that Isabella liked her independence. The sentence had sounded sophisticated and considerate, but I knew now it had been a way to excuse myself from knowing her life. Isabella had kept the foundation functioning, visited my mother when I forgot, and sat alone through meals I had promised to attend. She had never asked for the grand gestures I gave Valentina. She had asked for my ordinary presence, and I had treated that as the one expense I couldn't afford.
When I reached the street, the sky had cleared. I climbed into the car and stared at my reflection in the dark glass. Isabella had been investigating the same people I trusted to run our businesses. I had been hiding inside a penthouse paid for through their network. Somewhere, my brother might be laughing at how easy I had made his work.
I called my attorney, Miriam Cole, whose firm had never represented the Morettis. She had handled one personal matter for Isabella years before, a dispute over an elderly relative's estate, and had refused to be paid through my company.
“Mr. Moretti,” she said, “I understand you want to speak to federal counsel. Do you understand that some of the records you signed could implicate you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you need to prepare for an investigation into your own conduct, not merely an opportunity to accuse your brother.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I thought about the fire, the families, Isabella's twelve unsent letters. “I'm beginning to.”
Miriam arranged a meeting for the following morning. Before hanging up, she added, “Your wife isn't required to speak to you, even if you uncover what happened to your father.”
“I understand.”
But I was only beginning to understand that too.
That night I moved out of the penthouse, left my car with a friend, and entered the office where my father had once planned to retire. I opened a safe containing his personal papers. There were no revelations in it, only old photographs and a childhood drawing Nico had made of the three of us beside a boat.
I almost closed the safe before I noticed a folded receipt under the lining.
It was from a private marina on the night Pietro died. The customer signature belonged to Nico. The vessel number matched the speedboat that had delivered the assassin to Pier Nine.
I held it beneath the desk lamp.
My brother had told me he was home that night.
May you like
The receipt said otherwise.
And I realized that the man who had taught me to recognize lies in strangers might have spent twelve years hiding one in plain sight.
