Chapter 7 - Three Daughters Remember the Same Morning Differently

The next morning, I asked the girls if they wanted to talk.

Not if they could.

Not what they remembered.

If they wanted to.

Olivia said yes.

Sophie said maybe.

Nora asked whether there would be pancakes.

Grace looked at me.

“I told you she had a platform.”

We ate first.

Then Grace suggested the library because the girls had chosen it themselves the first time.

I wanted a therapist present.

Grace said no.

Not because therapists were bad.

Because the girls had spent fourteen months performing grief for professionals.

“If they want one later, we bring one,” she said. “Today, let them tell you what they choose.”

I hated uncertainty.

I agreed.

We sat on the rug.

No desk.

No recording device.

No notebook.

Nico waited in the billiards room in case I needed him, far enough away that the girls would not see another adult watching.

Olivia held her rabbit.

Sophie had a box of colored pencils.

Nora brought two pancakes folded inside a napkin.

Preparation meant different things to different people.

I began with the only promise I could make.

“Nobody is in trouble for what they remember or don’t remember.”

Olivia nodded.

Sophie looked at Grace.

Grace said, “You can stop whenever you want.”

Nora ate half a pancake.

Then Olivia spoke.

“Mommy was mad in the car.”

I kept my face still.

“At who?”

She shook her head.

“I don’t know. She was talking on the phone.”

That could have been Marco.

Could have been Evelyn.

Could have been me.

“Okay.”

“She said we were going to school and then she had to see someone.”

Sophie looked up.

“Uncle Marco.”

Olivia glanced at her sister.

“Later.”

That mattered.

They were correcting each other, not following me.

Olivia continued.

“Mommy parked far away because the close spaces were full.”

The police report placed Isabelle’s car near the side lot.

“She got us out. Nora was crying because she lost her mitten.”

Nora looked offended.

“I was little.”

“You were very little,” Grace agreed.

Sophie smiled.

The tension eased.

Then Olivia’s face changed.

“Uncle Marco came.”

“From where?”

“His car.”

“What color?”

“Black.”

Most of our cars were black.

Useless as evidence.

Useful as memory.

Sophie spoke next.

“He had Grandpa’s ring.”

I looked at her.

“What ring?”

She pointed toward my right hand.

I wore no ring.

“Black one.”

My father had owned a black onyx signet ring.

After he died, Marco took it.

He still wore it.

A square stone with one chipped corner from the night our father punched a safe when we were teenagers.

“What about it?”

“Mommy grabbed his hand.”

Sophie’s voice shrank.

“She scratched him.”

A memory surfaced.

At Isabelle’s funeral, Marco had worn gloves.

Black leather.

November had been cold.

I had thought nothing of it.

“Where?”

Sophie touched the back of her own hand.

I did not react.

“Then what?”

Olivia stepped in.

“Mommy said, ‘You stole from him.’”

Every muscle in my body tightened.

Northline.

Grace saw it but did not interrupt.

“Marco said she didn’t understand.”

Olivia’s eyes lowered.

“Mommy said she understood enough.”

I heard Isabelle.

Not an imagined version.

Her.

The woman who would stand in a parking lot with three children and tell a Romano man exactly what she thought of him.

My chest hurt.

“What happened after that?”

Olivia looked at Sophie.

Sophie looked at Nora.

Then Nora said, “Man came.”

I turned to her.

“What man?”

She shrugged.

“Hat.”

“Do you remember his face?”

“No.”

Good.

A truthful no was better than a useful invention.

Olivia said, “He came from behind the fence.”

That detail was new.

“Did he talk?”

She nodded.

“To Marco.”

“What did he say?”

“I don’t remember.”

“What did Marco say?”

Olivia pressed the rabbit against her chest.

“He said, ‘Not here.’”

My pulse shifted.

Sophie frowned.

“No.”

Olivia looked at her.

“He did.”

“He said, ‘The children.’”

Grace leaned forward slightly.

“Both things can be true.”

Sophie considered that.

Then nodded.

“He said the children.”

That was important for a reason I did not yet understand.

Marco had not expected them there?

Or he had not expected the other man to appear while they were present.

Nora put down her pancake.

“Mommy said go back car.”

“Did you?”

“Olivia.”

Olivia nodded.

“She told us to get in.”

“Were the doors closed?”

“Yes.”

“Could you see outside?”

“Through the window.”

I stopped asking.

The next part belonged to them.

Olivia’s breathing changed.

Grace reached toward her, then waited.

Olivia took Grace’s hand.

“The other man grabbed Mommy.”

Sophie began to cry silently.

I wanted to end it.

Olivia shook her head.

She knew.

“Marco yelled at him.”

That did not fit my theory.

“What did he yell?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then the loud sound.”

One shot.

“Mommy fell.”

Nora crawled into my lap.

I held her.

Olivia continued.

“Marco hit the man.”

I stared.

“What?”

“With his hand. He was angry.”

Sophie nodded.

“He said bad words.”

Grace almost smiled despite everything.

“Then?”

“Other man ran.”

My mind raced.

If Marco had hired the shooter, why strike him?

Because the shooting happened too soon?

Because it happened in front of the children?

Because Isabelle was supposed to be frightened, not killed?

A different possibility opened.

Not innocence.

Complication.

“What did Marco do?”

Olivia’s eyes filled.

“He went to Mommy.”

“Did he help her?”

“He tried.”

That answer hurt in a new way.

“He had blood on his hands.”

Sophie whispered, “Mommy didn’t wake up.”

I could not speak for several seconds.

The girls had not told me a clean story.

They had given me something harder.

Marco had been there.

He had lied.

He had argued with Isabelle.

He had a financial motive.

But after the shot, he attacked the shooter and tried to help her.

That did not erase guilt.

It changed its shape.

Grace ended the conversation.

No more questions.

The girls went to the kitchen with Mrs. Donnelly.

I stayed on the rug.

Grace sat beside me.

“You wanted certainty.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t get it.”

“No.”

“What did you get?”

I stared at the window seat.

“The truth is worse.”

“Because?”

“Because I don’t know whether he ordered her killed.”

Grace was quiet.

“He may have brought the man there for something else.”

“To threaten her?”

“Maybe.”

“That still makes him responsible.”

“I know.”

She looked at me.

“And if he didn’t intend her death?”

I thought of Marco in the parking lot.

Blood on his hands.

Telling three little girls to close their eyes.

Then lying for fourteen months.

“He still chose every step that put her there.”

Grace nodded.

“That’s different from pulling a trigger.”

“Yes.”

“But not nothing.”

“No.”

Nico entered after Grace called him.

I gave him the new details.

He did not celebrate.

That was why I trusted him.

“The unknown man matters,” he said.

“Find him.”

“With what?”

“A side fence. A hat. A man Marco hit.”

Nico rubbed his jaw.

“Fourteen months later?”

“Start with Northline.”

“Why?”

“Because if Marco was paying someone off-book, maybe not all the money was his.”

That afternoon, we got lucky.

Not storybook lucky.

Accounting lucky.

Ferraro, the retired accountant in Florida, answered Nico’s call because Nico told him the state tax department had begun asking questions.

They had not.

Yet.

Ferraro remembered Northline.

He remembered Marco.

And he remembered a second name attached to cash withdrawals.

Darren Pike.

I knew Pike.

Not well.

Former security contractor.

Occasional muscle.

The kind of man hired when respectable employees should not know why a door needed to remain closed.

He had disappeared after Isabelle’s murder.

“Where is he?” I asked.

Nico looked at his notes.

“New Jersey.”

“Alive?”

“Yes.”

“Working?”

“Private towing company.”

I stood.

“Bring him to me.”

Nico shook his head.

“No.”

I looked at him.

“You said the girls are watching what you do next.”

“I remember.”

“Then don’t start kidnapping witnesses because the investigation got interesting.”

I hated growth.

It gave everyone leverage.

“Fine. Find a legal reason for him to talk.”

“I can find an expensive reason.”

“Use that.”

At seven that evening, Marco joined me in the dining room.

Alone.

He looked tired.

For the first time, I noticed a thin pale line across the back of his right hand.

Near the onyx ring.

Old scar.

Fourteen months old?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

I did not ask.

“Family council tomorrow,” I said.

Marco looked up.

“For what?”

“Business restructuring.”

His eyes narrowed.

“What restructuring?”

“Mine.”

“You don’t restructure without me.”

“I do now.”

There it was.

The break.

Not between suspect and investigator.

Between brothers.

Marco set down his glass.

“You’re removing me.”

“I’m reviewing everything.”

“Because of Isabelle.”

“Because of what you hid.”

He stared at me for a long time.

Then nodded once.

“Be careful, Dom.”

“I’m tired of people saying that.”

“You think I’m warning you about me.”

“Aren’t you?”

“No.”

He leaned forward.

“I’m warning you about what happens when the men who have been waiting twenty years for us to turn on each other realize you finally did.”

He stood and left.

An hour later, Nico called.

“Pike knows we’re looking.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where is he?”

“Gone.”

Of course.

Then Nico added, “One more thing.”

“What?”

“Your east gate logged a maintenance override for five tomorrow morning.”

I went still.

“Who authorized it?”

“Marco’s credentials.”

I looked toward the ceiling.

The east wing.

The brother who had never left my house after my wife died.

“He’s running,” Nico said.

Maybe.

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Or maybe he was going to meet the one man who could tell me what really happened in that parking lot.

Either way, I was done waiting for morning.