Chapter 8: Kensington Moves
Mateo saw the car first.
He was at the study window with his second phone — the one with the encrypted line to the federal task force — when the morning light caught the windshield at the wrong angle.
He noted the plates.
Ran them in his head against every vehicle registered to the estate's approved visitor list.
Nothing.
He walked to the front door, opened it, and stood on the top step with his coffee.
Just a man having his morning coffee.
Looking at nothing in particular.
The car didn't move.
He went back inside and called Leo.
"Black sedan.
East side of the drive, past the elm.
Engine off, driver visible, no movement for twenty minutes."
"Kensington's?"
"Plates are clean.
Too clean.
Rental, most likely, paid in a name that won't trace anywhere useful." Mateo moved away from the window.
"He's not here to do anything.
He's here to watch.
To make sure we know he's watching."
"He wants us to change the plan."
"He wants us to panic and change the plan.
Which means the plan is the right one." Mateo set down his coffee.
"We move Beatrice and Lily in the next hour.
Different car, different route, private terminal.
I'll ride with them to the gate."
"He'll follow."
"Let him follow.
By the time he figures out which terminal, they'll be in the air." A pause.
"Leo.
The task force called twenty minutes ago.
Victoria's phone gave them enough to execute a warrant on Kensington's financial network.
They're moving today."
Leo was quiet.
"Today," he said.
"Today.
Which means Kensington knows or suspects.
Which is why he's sitting in your driveway at six in the morning." Mateo kept his voice level.
"He's scared.
Scared men do stupid things.
We need Lily and Beatrice out of this house before he decides to do something stupid."
"Agreed.
Forty-five minutes."
Mateo ended the call.
He went upstairs and knocked on Lily's door.
Beatrice answered.
She had Lily's bag over her good shoulder, the rabbit tucked under her bandaged arm, and the look on her face of someone who had already decided.
"Now?" she said.
"Forty-five minutes.
Get Lily ready."
She nodded and turned back into the room.
Mateo went to prepare the car.
Thirty minutes later, the three of them came down the stairs — Lily in the middle, holding Beatrice's good hand on one side and her rabbit on the other, chattering about lemon trees and whether Italy had good biscuits.
Beatrice answered every question with the steadiness of a woman walking a tightrope over a very long drop.
Leo was waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
Lily let go of Beatrice's hand and threw herself at him.
He caught her, held her hard, his eyes closed for just a moment.
"Are you coming soon, Daddy?"
"Very soon, princess."
"Promise?"
"I promise."
She pulled back and studied his face with the grave attention of a child who has learned that adults sometimes say things they mean and sometimes say things they need to be true.
Whatever she found there seemed to satisfy her.
She wriggled down and went to take Beatrice's hand again.
Leo looked at Beatrice over his daughter's head.
There was too much to say and no time to say it.
He settled for the truth of it, which was that he had never in his life felt the particular combination of fear and certainty that he felt watching this woman prepare to walk out his front door carrying everything he loved.
"Forty-eight hours," he said.
"I know," she said.
Mateo opened the front door.
Outside, the black sedan was still there.
Mateo walked directly toward it.
He stopped beside the driver's window and waited.
After a moment, the window came down.
The driver was young.
Twenty-five, maybe.
Trying hard to look like he wasn't nervous.
"Tell Mr.
Kensington," Mateo said pleasantly, "that his warrant was executed at 6:04 this morning.
His accounts are frozen.
His attorneys have been notified.
And his daughter is currently in federal custody answering questions she does not have good answers for." He smiled.
"Have a safe drive."
He walked back to the car where Beatrice and Lily were already seated.
The black sedan sat for another thirty seconds.
Then it started its engine and pulled away.
Mateo got behind the wheel.
"All clear?" Beatrice asked.
"All clear," he said.
He pulled out of the drive.
In the back seat, Lily pressed her nose to the window and watched the mansion get smaller.
"Bee," she said.
"Do you think the lemon trees will have lemons yet?
Or do we have to wait?"
"We'll have to see when we get there," Beatrice said.
"But if there are lemons, we make the cake?"
"If there are lemons, we make the cake."
Lily settled back against the seat, satisfied.
She tucked the rabbit under her arm.
But Beatrice's phone, in her coat pocket, buzzed once.
She took it out and read the screen.
It was a number she didn't recognize.
The message was four words.
*This isn't over yet.*
She looked at it for a moment.
Then she turned the phone face-down on her knee, looked out the window at the road ahead, and said nothing.
She would tell Leo when she landed.
Not before.
There was nothing he could do from here, and there was no version of telling him now that didn't end with Lily sensing that something was wrong.
The road opened up ahead of them.
The morning was fully bright now, the kind of cold clear light that makes everything look sharp and certain.
Beatrice kept her face toward the window.
She had been afraid before.
She would be afraid again.
But Lily was breathing steadily beside her, and the rabbit was tucked safely under her arm, and somewhere in Verona there were lemon trees waiting.
May you like
That was enough.
For now, that was enough.
