Chapter 10: The Last Move Kensington Made
Leo arrived at ten in the morning.
Lily heard the car on the road and was at the front door before it stopped, bouncing on her toes with the rabbit held up like a flag.
When Leo stepped out, she launched herself at him from the top step with complete faith that he would catch her.
He caught her.
Beatrice watched from the doorway.
Giulia appeared beside her with two cups of coffee and handed one over without comment.
Leo carried Lily inside, listening to a rapid account of the lemon trees, the soup, the cypress trees, the drawing she had started of the garden, and the question of whether they could make the cake today or if they had to wait until tomorrow.
He answered each item with the focused attention of a man who has been given back something he almost lost and intends to treat it accordingly.
He set Lily down in the kitchen, and she immediately pulled Giulia toward the back garden to begin the lemon assessment.
Leo turned to Beatrice.
"Your mother is fine," he said.
"My men report she fed them both breakfast and asked if they played cards."
"She cheats at cards," Beatrice said.
"I'll warn them." He looked at her.
"You should have told me about the message."
She had told him.
She had texted him from the Verona house last night after Giulia went to bed.
"I told you," she said.
"You told me eight hours after you received it."
"There was nothing you could do from London."
"That's not the point."
"It is exactly the point." She held his gaze.
"If I had told you in the car, you would have pulled us off the road and changed every plan and Lily would have known something was wrong.
The message was designed to make you do that.
I didn't let it."
A pause.
"You made a tactical decision," he said.
"I made the right decision."
He looked at her for a long moment.
"Yes," he said.
"You did."
He sat down at the kitchen table.
She sat across from him.
Through the window, they could hear Lily in the garden, conferring with Giulia about lemons in the serious tone she reserved for important matters.
"Kensington was arrested at 7 a.m.
this morning," Leo said.
"At his home in Hampshire.
His legal team was already there — they'd been called the night before, which tells you he knew the warrant was coming.
Didn't matter.
The federal team had the financial records, Victoria's phone, and three years of communications between him and Malich." He paused.
"Elena's case.
The evidence she was building.
Kensington had a copy of her entire file.
He knew exactly what she had and exactly how close she was."
Beatrice was quiet for a moment.
"He k*lled her for a file."
"He k*lled her for what the file would have done to him." Leo's hands were flat on the table.
"Forty-three counts.
Money laundering, conspiracy, ordering violence for hire.
His attorneys will fight it for years.
But his accounts are frozen, his network is dismantled, and Malich was picked up in Prague six hours ago." He looked up.
"It's done."
"And Victoria?"
"Cooperating.
She's trying to trade what she knows about her father's network for reduced charges." A pause.
"She'll get some reduction.
Not enough."
Beatrice looked at the table.
She thought about eight months of Victoria Kensington moving through the Rossi house.
The ceramic soap dish.
The cellar door.
The text message sent while Lily lay on a freezing stone floor struggling to breathe.
"Good," she said.
Outside, Lily made a triumphant sound.
"Bee!
Bee, there are lemons!
Real ones!
Come and see!"
Beatrice stood.
She looked at Leo.
"Come and see the lemons," she said.
He stood.
They walked out into the garden together.
Lily was standing under the tree with both arms raised, pointing at a cluster of pale yellow fruit like she had personally arranged for them to be there.
Giulia stood beside her, arms crossed, wearing the expression of someone watching something go exactly right.
"Look," Lily said.
"Look, Bee.
We can make the cake."
Beatrice crossed the garden and stood under the tree.
She looked up at the lemons — small, imperfect, real.
"We can make the cake," she said.
Lily grabbed her good hand and pulled.
"Now?
Can we do it now?"
"After lunch."
"Promise?"
Beatrice looked down at her.
The dark hair.
The bright eyes.
The rabbit tucked under her free arm, present as always.
"I promise," she said.
Leo stood a few feet away, watching.
Giulia caught his eye and looked away quickly, which was its own kind of answer.
The morning was warm and still and full of the smell of the garden.
May you like
Beatrice stood under the lemon tree with a six-year-old's hand in hers, and for the first time in longer than she could remember, she did not feel like part of the furniture.
She felt like someone who had earned the right to be exactly where she was.
