Chapter 4: The Missing Cookbook
Tessa unlocked her apartment shortly after midnight.
Mateo waited behind her while Aaron checked the stairwell.
“You don’t both need to follow me inside.”
“David threatened you,” Mateo said.
“He threatened my reputation.”
Aaron lifted his phone.
“And I recorded most of it.”
Tessa looked at him.
“You did what?”
“I started when I heard him mention the cookbook.”
Mateo held out his hand.
“Send me a copy.
Send one to Tessa too.”
Aaron pressed three buttons.
“Done.”
Tessa entered the kitchen and pulled open the cabinet beside the refrigerator.
The empty space made her grip the counter.
“No.”
Mateo stepped closer.
“What was there?”
“The cookbook.”
Aaron checked the lock.
“There’s no damage.”
“My spare key.”
Tessa hurried to a ceramic bowl near the door.
The key was gone.
“David knew where you lived?” Mateo asked.
“He handled my employment records.”
A floorboard creaked in the bedroom.
Mateo pushed Tessa behind him as the door opened.
David walked out carrying a yellow cookbook inside a clear plastic bag.
“You break into my home and call me the scandal?” Tessa demanded.
“I used a key.”
“That is still breaking in.”
David held up the book.
“This was never yours.”
“My great-grandmother put it in my hands.”
“And she took something that belonged to my father.”
Salvatore appeared in the doorway, breathing hard from the stairs.
“Daniel helped her escape.
He did not own her truth.”
David turned.
“You should not have come.”
“I have waited forty years to learn what happened to my wife.”
“She stopped being your wife when she married Robert Hayes.”
Salvatore’s face folded for one second.
Tessa stepped toward David.
“Give me the book.”
“Give me the photograph Salvatore carries and sign a statement saying tonight was a misunderstanding.”
“No.”
“Then Bellori closes at noon.”
Mateo took out his phone.
“The police can settle the cookbook.”
David removed one brittle page from the book.
“Call them, and this goes down the garbage disposal before they reach the building.”
“David,” Tessa said, “your father tried to preserve the truth.
Why are you destroying it?”
“My father preserved old guilt.
I’m turning it into something useful.”
“Money?”
“Security.”
“You threatened my nursing career for security?”
David’s fingers tightened around the page.
“Three million dollars buys my silence, returns Bellori’s lease, and sends this book home with you.”
Salvatore stared at him.
“Giancarlo taught your father well.”
“Do not compare me to a man I never met.”
“You use frightened women exactly as he did.”
David ripped the loose page in half.
Tessa flinched.
“Next time,” he said, “it will be the page containing Elisabetta’s confession.”
He moved toward the hall.
Aaron stood aside, but his phone remained aimed at the plastic bag.
“You recorded me,” David said.
Aaron lowered the phone.
“You entered her apartment with a stolen key.”
David grabbed for it.
Mateo caught his arm and pushed it away.
“Walk out,” Mateo said.
“While you still can.”
David backed into the corridor.
“Ten in the morning.
After that, everyone loses.”
The door closed.
Tessa pressed both hands to the counter.
Salvatore spoke behind her.
“Why did she never come to me?”
Tessa turned sharply.
“You think she chose this?”
“I searched.”
“She raised me with a chair under the doorknob every night.
Whatever happened, she was afraid until the day she was gone.”
Salvatore looked down.
Tessa’s voice cracked.
“Do not make her defend herself from the grave.”
Her knees weakened.
Aaron pulled out a chair while Mateo caught her elbow.
“You don’t have to prove anything tonight,” Aaron said.
Tessa covered her face.
Mateo crouched beside her and waited until she could breathe again.
Then Aaron noticed a round recipe tin on top of the refrigerator.
“Was that hers too?”
Tessa wiped her eyes.
“Yes.”
May you like
Inside the tin, beneath handwritten cards, lay an envelope sealed with yellowed wax.
Salvatore’s name was written across it in Elisabetta’s hand.
