Chapter 4 - The Photograph in Camille’s Purse
Camille denied everything.
Not elegantly.
Not completely.
Just enough.
By five that afternoon, her attorney issued a statement saying Lucia had “misunderstood an ordinary family photograph.”
Dominic read it aloud in the hotel suite.
I stared at him.
“An ordinary family photograph.”
“Yes.”
“Of my husband.”
“Yes.”
“In Camille’s purse.”
“Yes.”
“And her lawyer thinks that sentence helps.”
“No.”
Lucia sat cross-legged on the bed watching cartoons with the volume low.
We had not told her why adults were suddenly interested in what she saw.
She only knew people had questions.
I wanted to keep it that way.
Dominic’s phone buzzed.
His expression changed.
“What?”
“Nora’s attorney delivered the originals.”
“The payment records?”
“Yes.”
He stood.
“I need to go.”
“So go.”
“You’re coming.”
I looked at Lucia.
“No.”
“Salerno can stay.”
“No.”
He stopped.
I appreciated that.
“I am not leaving her tonight.”
“Then I bring the files here.”
“Fine.”
He made one call.
Thirty minutes later, Salerno arrived carrying a locked case.
No drama.
No black leather briefcase with handcuffs.
A gray legal storage box.
Lucia looked up from the bed.
“What’s that?”
“Boring papers,” I said.
She lost interest immediately.
Dominic set the box on the dining table.
We waited until Lucia fell asleep.
Then we opened it.
Richard Whitmore’s records were meticulous.
That frightened me.
Criminals in movies burned evidence.
Richard indexed it.
Tabs.
Dates.
Initials.
Payments.
He had documented the destruction of my life as if preparing taxes.
One file contained Warren Pike’s invoice.
Another contained photographs of Marco.
The same photograph Lucia saw in Camille’s purse appeared inside.
Marco outside the garage.
Blue work shirt.
Grease on one cheek.
Looking irritated.
The man beside him was Carlo Bellini.
His uncle.
I touched the edge.
“I took that shirt to the laundromat every Sunday.”
Dominic said nothing.
Good.
I turned the page.
A handwritten note.
M. Rossi confirmed same as Bellini. Wife Elena. Daughter Lucia, age 3.
My breath stopped.
“Three.”
Dominic looked at me.
“She was three when Marco died.”
“Yes.”
“They knew about her.”
“Yes.”
I closed the file.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“No. I need five minutes.”
I went into the bathroom.
Locked the door.
Sat on the floor.
The rage did not come first.
Fear did.
A stranger had known Lucia’s name when she was three.
Her age.
Our address.
Her father.
And I had spent four years walking into Dominic’s mansion under my own name, never knowing people connected to the family might know exactly who I was.
When I came out, Dominic stood by the window.
“Did you know they had her name?”
“No.”
“If you did—”
“I didn’t.”
I looked at him.
He did not look away.
I believed him.
I hated that belief because trust had become expensive.
We kept reading.
A second section concerned the night before Marco’s death.
Richard wrote:
Bellini contacted D.C. again. Unclear disclosure. Pike confirms vehicle accessible.
D.C.
Dominic Castalano.
My eyes moved to him.
“You were in the file.”
“Yes.”
“What did Marco tell you?”
Dominic sat.
For the first time, I saw reluctance not as control but shame.
“He told me Richard had found him.”
“I know that.”
“He also told me something else.”
I waited.
“He said if anything happened, I was not to retaliate.”
I laughed bitterly.
“Marco knew you.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because he thought violence would put you and Lucia in more danger.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
Marco.
The man who apologized to furniture after bumping into it.
The man who once drove forty minutes back to return ten dollars a cashier gave him by mistake.
He had known enough about Dominic to ask him not to turn grief into war.
“Did you keep the promise?”
Dominic’s face tightened.
“Yes.”
“Completely?”
A pause.
“No.”
I stared.
“What did you do?”
“I pressured Whitmore Shipping.”
“How?”
“Contracts disappeared. Ports became difficult. lenders reconsidered.”
“That sounds like retaliation.”
“Yes.”
“Did you hurt anyone?”
“No.”
“Have anyone hurt?”
“No.”
I believed that less easily.
Dominic saw it.
“I can show you records.”
“I want them.”
“You’ll have them.”
No argument.
We continued.
Another note appeared three weeks after Marco’s death.
ROSSI WIDOW EMPLOYMENT — D.C. HOUSEHOLD CHANNEL.
My hand froze.
“What?”
Dominic looked.
His face changed.
“I did not know about this.”
“You hired me.”
“No.”
“Your house hired me.”
“Yes.”
“Through whose recommendation?”
I knew the answer.
A staffing agency called Bellweather Domestic.
Mr. Salerno interviewed me.
I got the job two days later.
Dominic called Salerno.
“Who referred Elena?”
Silence on speaker.
“Salerno.”
The old man exhaled.
“Your father.”
Dominic stood.
“My father was alive then.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said Marco’s widow needed stable work.”
I stared.
Dominic’s father, Vittorio Castalano.
Dead eighteen months after I started.
I had seen him only a handful of times.
An old man with oxygen tubing and terrifying eyes.
Once he asked whether Lucia liked school.
I thought he was being polite.
“He knew who I was.”
“Yes,” Salerno said.
“Did he tell Dominic?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Marco wanted distance.”
I laughed.
“He put me in Dominic’s house.”
“Yes.”
“That is not distance.”
Salerno sounded ashamed.
“He thought it was protection.”
There it was again.
Protection.
The word powerful men used when they made decisions for other people.
Dominic looked furious.
Not at me.
At his dead father.
“Did he tell Whitmore?”
“No.”
“Did anyone?”
“Not that I know.”
I looked at the note.
Richard knew anyway.
ROSSI WIDOW EMPLOYMENT — D.C. HOUSEHOLD CHANNEL.
“How did Richard know I worked there?”
No answer.
Then Dominic said, “Camille.”
I looked up.
“She knew before meeting you?”
“Maybe.”
He called for records from the staffing agency.
Old emails.
Archived references.
Two hours later, they arrived.
My application had been forwarded from Bellweather to Castalano Household Administration.
Copied recipient:
C. WHITMORE FOUNDATION — Community Placement Liaison.
I stared.
Camille’s foundation had funded Bellweather’s widow-employment program.
My job had passed through a system she could access.
“She knew me before she knew you,” I whispered.
Dominic’s expression went still.
We mapped the timeline.
Four years ago: Marco died.
Three weeks later: Richard recorded my placement.
Two months later: I began work at Castalano mansion.
Two years ago: Richard died.
Eighteen months ago: Camille and Dominic began dating publicly.
Fourteen months ago: Camille began spending regular time at the mansion.
She had walked past me dozens of times.
Asked for coffee.
Changed dinner times.
Complained about table linens.
Once asked how old Lucia was.
I thought she was making conversation.
She knew.
Maybe not everything.
But enough.
Dominic said, “I want to confront her.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“Why?”
“Because she’ll lie.”
“Probably.”
“Then don’t give her the questions before law enforcement asks.”
He studied me.
“You are thinking like an investigator.”
“I am thinking like a woman who got lied to for four years.”
Fair.
At ten, federal investigators contacted Dominic.
Nora’s documents had opened a formal review.
Richard’s payments to Pike.
Pell’s buried report.
Possible obstruction.
Possible homicide-related conspiracy depending on evidence.
Words.
Careful words.
Not justice yet.
At eleven, Detective Pell was interviewed in Florida.
He asked for a lawyer.
At eleven thirty, Warren Pike’s social security number produced an unexpected result.
He was alive.
Living under another name in Arizona.
I stared at the screen.
“The mechanic who disappeared.”
Dominic nodded.
“He didn’t disappear.”
“He was relocated.”
“Looks that way.”
“By whom?”
“We don’t know.”
At midnight, my phone buzzed.
Camille.
I looked at Dominic.
He did not tell me to answer.
I did.
“Elena.”
Her voice sounded calm.
Too calm.
“You have made a terrible mistake.”
“I folded napkins.”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. Explain.”
Silence.
Then: “Dominic is grieving the idea of me. You are giving him something easy to blame.”
“For what?”
“My father.”
I felt my pulse change.
“So you know.”
“Of course I know.”
“What did your father do to Marco?”
Dominic moved closer.
Camille answered carefully.
“He frightened him.”
“Did he kill him?”
“No.”
Fast.
Too fast?
Maybe.
I remembered Dominic’s rule.
Facts.
Not instinct.
“Did you know about the brake line?”
Silence.
“Camille.”
“I found the report after Dad died.”
“Did you carry Marco’s photograph last night?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was going to tell Dominic after the engagement announcement.”
I laughed.
“Tell him what?”
“That your husband’s history made your presence in his household inappropriate.”
My rage arrived.
“Inappropriate.”
“Yes.”
“You were going to have me fired.”
“I was going to have you transferred.”
“Why?”
“For security.”
I almost screamed.
Instead I lowered my voice.
“My seven-year-old daughter cried in front of eighty people because you needed to remind a maid where she belonged.”
“That had nothing to do with Marco.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“You don’t have to.”
Then Camille said something that changed everything.
“Ask Dominic what Marco stole from my father before he died.”
I looked at Dominic.
His face went blank.
“What did he steal?”
Camille laughed softly.
“He didn’t tell you?”
The line disconnected.
I held the phone away from my ear.
Dominic looked at me.
“What?”
I swallowed.
“She says Marco stole something from Richard.”
Dominic did not answer.
That was the worst possible response.
“You know.”
“No.”
“You know something.”
He looked toward the gray box.
“Marco said he had insurance.”
“What kind?”
“He never told me.”
“Against Richard?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at my sleeping daughter through the open bedroom door.
May you like
Four years after Marco’s death, everyone was still looking for something he had hidden.
And Camille had just confirmed she believed I might be standing between her and whatever it was.
