Chapter 3 - What Olivia Remembered About the Black Car

Nico found Thomas Keene in Scranton.

He had changed industries.

That was how Nico phrased it.

The man who had once driven armored sedans for my family now repaired commercial refrigerators out of a two-bay garage behind a tire shop.

I did not send for him.

I drove there myself.

Grace objected.

Not to Scranton.

To my leaving the girls in the mansion.

“They’re afraid of Marco,” she said.

“Marco is in Manhattan.”

“He comes back.”

“So do I.”

“That isn’t the point.”

We were standing in the mudroom while Mrs. Donnelly packed lunches for the girls as though the house were not quietly rearranging itself around a murder accusation.

“What is the point?”

Grace crossed her arms.

“You keep treating danger like a schedule.”

I looked at her.

“If I know where Marco is—”

“You know where his car is. You know where his phone is. You know what his employees tell you.”

Fair.

I disliked fair criticism almost as much as dishonest praise.

I called Peter into the room.

“You stay on this floor. The girls don’t leave the house. Marco doesn’t see them alone.”

Peter nodded.

Grace did not.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Your face says something.”

“My face has been a problem for you since yesterday.”

Mrs. Donnelly hid a smile behind the refrigerator door.

I ignored both of them.

“If anything changes, call me.”

Grace’s expression softened.

“I will.”

Then Nora ran into the mudroom carrying one pink shoe and one blue one.

She stopped when she saw me.

For fourteen months, I had learned to accept those stops.

Children entered rooms and became careful around me.

I had mistaken that for grief.

Some of it had been me.

I crouched.

“You need help?”

Nora looked at Grace.

Grace kept packing sandwiches.

No rescue.

No translating.

Nora looked back at me and held out the blue shoe.

“Wrong.”

Her voice was small.

My heart stopped anyway.

I looked at the shoe.

“It’s definitely wrong.”

Nora’s mouth twitched.

I found the matching pink one under the bench.

She took it from me.

“Thank you.”

Two words.

More valuable than every building I owned.

I did not touch her.

I did not celebrate.

I had finally learned enough not to turn her courage into an event.

“You’re welcome.”

She ran away.

Grace waited until the hallway was empty.

“Better,” she said.

I gave her a look.

She smiled.

The drive to Pennsylvania took two hours and twenty minutes.

Nico met me outside Keene’s garage.

He had brought no visible weapon.

Neither had I.

Visible being the important word.

Thomas Keene was fifty-eight now, broad through the shoulders, with white at his temples and refrigerant stains on his work shirt. He saw me through the open garage door and dropped a wrench.

“Mr. Romano.”

I stopped ten feet away.

“Thomas.”

His eyes moved to Nico.

Then the parking lot.

He was calculating exits.

“I don’t work for you anymore.”

“I noticed.”

“I was fired.”

“I noticed that too.”

He wiped his hands on a rag.

“If this is about something from back then, I don’t know anything.”

I had not asked a question.

Nico leaned against my car.

I stepped closer.

“Why did Marco fire you?”

Keene’s jaw moved.

“He said I was drinking.”

“Were you?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

He looked past me.

“Because I asked where Mrs. Romano had gone that morning.”

Every sound in the garage seemed to sharpen.

“What morning?”

His eyes met mine.

“You know what morning.”

I did.

“Tell me.”

Keene sat heavily on an overturned bucket.

“I was scheduled to drive her to the preschool. She came downstairs at seven forty. Your brother was already in the foyer.”

“What did he want?”

“I couldn’t hear everything. They argued quietly.”

“About?”

“I heard her say, ‘If Dominic knew, you’d be finished.’”

My hands went still.

“And Marco?”

“He told her she was making a mistake.”

“What happened next?”

“She told me she didn’t need the car. Said she’d drive herself.”

“Why were you fired?”

“Because after she left, Marco told me to take the day off.”

Keene swallowed.

“I went to the kitchen for coffee first. Ten minutes later I saw his sedan leave.”

The bridge record.

I kept my voice level.

“Was Marco driving?”

“No.”

“Who was?”

“I couldn’t see.”

“Was he inside?”

Keene hesitated.

“I saw somebody in the rear seat. Looked like him.”

Not proof.

But the direction narrowed.

“Why didn’t you tell police?”

Keene laughed once without humor.

“I did.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

“I told the detective who interviewed the staff.”

“What detective?”

“Lasker. Lewis. Something like that.”

I remembered Detective Paul Lasky.

He had handled the early investigation before the county task force took over.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. Two days later Marco fired me.”

“Did you tell anyone else?”

“My wife.”

“Where is she?”

“Dead. Cancer. Three years ago.”

The answer left no convenient witness.

Good.

Truth rarely arrived with a full supporting cast.

Keene rubbed his palms together.

“Mr. Romano, I thought you knew.”

That sentence hurt more than accusation.

“I didn’t.”

“He said you did.”

My eyes sharpened.

“Marco?”

Keene nodded.

“When he fired me. He said you wanted anyone who had failed Isabelle gone.”

For twenty years, people had done cruel things in my name.

Some because I ordered them.

Some because they assumed I would approve.

This was different.

Marco had borrowed my grief as a weapon.

I thanked Keene.

He looked surprised.

I was becoming familiar with that reaction.

On the drive home, Nico said very little until we crossed back into New York.

Then he asked, “What are you going to do if it’s him?”

I watched traffic slide past.

“Find out.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

“I know.”

Nico drummed two fingers against the steering wheel.

“You kill people for less.”

“That was before three children started watching what I do next.”

He looked at me.

I had not meant to say it aloud.

The mansion was quiet when I returned.

Too quiet.

Peter met me in the foyer.

“Everything’s fine.”

Those words almost never mean everything is fine.

“What happened?”

“Marco came back at three.”

My watch read four ten.

“Where is he?”

“Study.”

“Did he see the girls?”

“No. Grace took them to the old sunroom.”

“Did he ask?”

“Twice.”

I handed my coat to no one.

I went to the sunroom first.

The girls had transformed it into an art disaster.

Paper covered the floor. Colored pencils rolled under furniture. Grace sat cross-legged in the middle wearing a paper crown Nora had apparently made from a grocery bag.

Olivia looked up.

I had brought nothing.

No gifts.

No questions.

I sat on the floor.

Sophie pushed a yellow pencil toward me.

“You draw bad,” she whispered.

Grace covered a laugh.

“I draw extremely well.”

Sophie gave me the first skeptical look she had offered since her mother died.

It was beautiful.

I drew a horse.

Nora said, “Dog.”

Grace laughed openly.

Even Olivia smiled.

I let them.

Ten minutes passed before I noticed Olivia’s drawing.

Four people stood beside a black car.

A woman in green.

Three small figures.

And a tall man wearing something dark on one hand.

My breath changed.

I did not point.

I did not ask.

Olivia saw me notice.

She picked up the page and came closer.

“That day,” she said.

Her voice trembled but continued.

“Mommy.”

She touched the woman.

Then the three small figures.

“Us.”

Her finger moved to the man.

“Marco.”

Grace went still.

I looked at Olivia.

“Can I ask one question?”

She nodded.

“Was he there before Mommy got hurt?”

Another nod.

“He was mad.”

“What did he say?”

Olivia’s eyes filled.

Grace shifted closer but did not interrupt.

“He said she was ruining everything.”

The phrase hit me with the force of remembered sound.

If Dominic knew, you’d be finished.

I kept my hands flat against the rug.

“Did Mommy answer?”

Olivia looked down.

“She said, ‘He deserves to know.’”

My throat closed.

Grace whispered, “That’s enough.”

Olivia shook her head.

For the first time, she chose to continue.

“Marco grabbed Mommy’s arm.”

Sophie moved beside her sister.

Nora crawled into Grace’s lap.

“And then?” I asked.

Olivia stared at the drawing.

“A loud sound.”

One.

Not many.

A parking lot.

A man close enough to grab Isabelle.

I had imagined anonymous shooters for fourteen months.

A rival crew.

A contract.

Someone faceless.

Olivia looked up at me.

“He told us to close our eyes.”

I stopped breathing.

“Marco did?”

She nodded.

“Then he put us in the car.”

Every belief I had left about my brother broke at once.

Grace reached for Olivia.

My daughter stepped past her.

And came to me.

I had no idea what to do.

So I opened my arms.

Olivia climbed into them.

She was seven now.

Too big to be held like a toddler.

I held her anyway.

Over her shoulder, I saw Marco standing in the glass doorway to the sunroom.

He had heard enough.

His face told me that.

For one second we simply looked at each other.

Then Marco’s gaze dropped to Olivia in my arms.

He smiled.

Not warmly.

Not cruelly.

Carefully.

“Good,” he said.

“What’s good?” I asked.

“That she’s talking.”

Olivia tightened her arms around my neck.

Marco noticed.

So did I.

He stepped into the room.

Grace rose.

I stood with Olivia still against me.

Marco stopped three feet away.

“Dom.”

I waited.

His eyes flicked toward the drawing on the floor.

Then back to me.

“You and I should talk.”

This time, I did not pretend not to understand the threat hidden inside an ordinary sentence.

I handed Olivia gently to Grace.

Then I faced my brother.

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“Yes,” I said.

“We should.”