Chapter 6: What Vanessa Said
Dante came back to the room forty minutes later.
He sat down without speaking.
He poured two glasses of water from the pitcher on the desk, pushed one toward me, and drank from his own.
"Well?" I said.
"She cried." He set the glass down.
"For approximately ninety seconds.
Then she stopped."
"That's not very long."
"No." He looked at the glass.
"Then she said she was relieved.
That she'd been terrified it was me.
That she'd heard about the accident and driven straight here."
"Did she ask how you survived?"
"Yes.
I told her the car was caught on the hillside and I managed to get clear before it fell.
I told her I'd been here since midnight, dealing with the aftermath."
"Did she believe you?"
"She wanted to." He paused.
"But there was a moment — when I walked in — where her face did something it couldn't take back."
I waited.
"She looked at me," he said, "the way you look at something that shouldn't be there."
The room was quiet.
"I asked her about her evening," he continued.
"She said she'd been home.
Headache.
Early night.
The housekeeper could confirm it." He leaned back.
"The housekeeper she hired eight months ago.
Over my recommendation."
"Caruso's person?"
"Almost certainly." He stood and moved to the window again.
It seemed to be where he went when he was thinking.
"I didn't push her.
I let her talk.
She filled the silence herself, the way people do when they're frightened and trying not to show it.
She mentioned Nico twice without being asked."
"She's trying to point you at him."
"Yes.
Carefully.
Subtly.
She's not stupid." He turned.
"She also touched my face when she came in.
Both hands.
Told me she'd been so frightened."
Something about the way he said it made me look away.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"That's — I'm sorry."
"Don't be." His voice was even.
"It's useful information." He came back to the desk and sat.
"She doesn't know what I know.
She thinks she's managing me.
That gives us time."
"How much time?"
"Caruso will expect confirmation within forty-eight hours.
When he doesn't get it, he'll reach out to Vanessa directly.
When he does—" He opened the laptop.
"I'll be listening."
He turned the screen toward me.
A second email account.
Different address.
But the same shell company name on the other end.
"You set up a mirror," I said.
"My people did.
Three hours ago." He almost smiled.
Not quite.
"Vanessa checks this account from her personal phone.
The moment she opens it, I'll see everything she sees."
I looked at the screen.
At the empty inbox waiting to fill.
"She's going to try again," I said.
"When she realizes it didn't work."
"Yes."
"Which means you're still in danger."
"Yes." He said it simply, without drama.
As if danger were a weather condition he'd learned to dress for.
"And me?" I asked.
"Caruso doesn't know I exist yet.
But if Vanessa figures out someone warned you—"
"She won't figure it out from me."
"She might figure it out on her own.
She was at Bellini's.
She knows who was working that section."
He went still.
I watched him work through it.
The private booth.
The partition.
The woman clearing the table he hadn't noticed.
"You think she'll remember you," he said.
"I think she might." I held his gaze.
"I think if she starts asking questions and someone at the restaurant talks, she'll remember the waitress who left her shift early and never came back."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Then he picked up one of his phones.
"Marco," he said.
"Bellini's.
Tonight.
I want to know if anyone asks about the waitress who worked the east section on Thursday." He paused.
"Yes.
Anyone."
He set the phone down.
"Thank you," I said.
"For taking it seriously."
"You took a serious risk," he said.
"The least I can do is take it seriously in return."
Outside the window, the afternoon light was fading.
The men near the tree line had been replaced by different men.
The rotation was precise.
Practiced.
I thought about my apartment.
My cat, Mrs.
Briggs, who was probably sitting on the kitchen counter right now wondering where her dinner was.
"I have a cat," I said.
Dante looked at me.
"She needs to be fed.
I don't have anyone who can—"
He picked up the phone again.
"Rosa."
A pause.
"There's a cat at Miss Fields' apartment.
She'll give you the address." He looked at me.
"Key?"
"Under the mat.
I know.
I know."
"Under the mat," he repeated into the phone.
"Yes.
Thank you."
He set the phone down.
I couldn't tell if he was amused or simply efficient.
With Dante Moretti, those two things seemed to occupy the same expression.
Then his laptop chimed.
One new message.
Vanessa's mirrored account.
He turned the screen and we both read it at the same time.
The sender was Caruso.
May you like
The message was four words.
*Is it done yet?*
