Chapter 5: The Widow's Performance
By noon, the news had moved.
Dante showed me the alert on his phone: a brief item on a local news site, sourced to emergency services.
A vehicle had gone through a guardrail on the mountain road overnight.
The driver had not been identified.
Condition unknown.
"Not confirmed d*ad," I said.
"Not yet.
But Vanessa will have her own sources.
By tonight, she'll believe what she wants to believe." He set the phone face-down on the desk.
"I need her to keep believing it for as long as possible."
"Why?"
"Because a grieving widow makes mistakes a careful woman doesn't." He looked at me steadily.
"And because Caruso will move the moment he thinks I'm gone.
When he moves, I'll see exactly how far this goes."
I understood the logic.
I didn't like being inside it.
"Where does that leave me?" I asked.
"Here.
Safe.
Until this is resolved."
"I have a job.
I have a life—"
"Your manager at Bellini's has been told you had a family emergency.
You won't lose your position." He said it matter-of-factly, as if he'd already handled it at six in the morning.
Maybe he had.
"Your rent is current."
I stared at him.
"You paid my rent."
"I made a call."
"You don't get to just—" I stopped.
Took a breath.
"Mr.
Moretti.
I helped you because it was the right thing to do.
I don't want to be managed."
He was quiet for a moment.
Then, unexpectedly: "What would you prefer?"
"I'd prefer to know what's actually happening.
Not the version you decide I need."
He considered that.
Then he pulled the folder back across the desk and opened it again.
The photograph of Caruso.
The email printouts.
A second document I hadn't seen before — a list of names, twelve of them, with dates beside each one.
"These are the people in this house who knew my Thursday schedule," he said.
"I've been narrowing it since four this morning."
"How many left?"
"Three."
He slid the list toward me.
I read the names.
The third one down was Rosa.
I looked up.
"Rosa?"
"She has worked for my family for nineteen years." His voice was flat.
"Which is why she is still on the list and not off it.
Loyalty that long is either real or it is the best cover there is."
I thought of Rosa setting the coffee tray by the window.
Saying nothing about the untouched bed.
"It's real," I said.
"You've known her for eight hours."
"I know." I pushed the list back.
"But it's real."
He didn't argue.
He also didn't remove her name.
At two in the afternoon, one of his men appeared in the doorway.
"Sir.
Mrs.
Moretti is at the front gate."
The room shifted.
Not physically.
Something in the air.
Dante stood slowly.
"She came here."
"Yes, sir.
She's asking to be let in.
She says she's just received news about the accident and she's—" the man paused, "—she's very distressed."
Dante looked at me.
Something passed between us that I couldn't fully name.
"Put her in the reception room," he said.
"Tell her I'll be down shortly."
The man left.
Dante straightened his jacket.
"You're going to let her think you're d*ad and then walk in," I said.
"Yes."
"What do you expect her to do?"
"I expect her to be very, very surprised." He moved toward the door.
"And I expect that surprise to tell me everything I still need to know."
He stopped at the threshold and looked back at me.
"Stay in this room," he said.
"Please."
It was the first time he'd said please.
I noticed it.
I stayed.
Fifteen minutes later, I heard it anyway — a sound that traveled up through the floor and the walls of the old stone house.
Not a scream.
Something more controlled than a scream.
A single sharp cry, cut off almost immediately.
May you like
Then silence.
Then the sound of a door closing hard enough to shake the frame.
