Chapter 10 - The Locked Nursery
Vittorio vanished before Rico could confront him.
His apartment was empty.
Phone off.
Car abandoned in a garage.
That was the first thing that made Rico truly afraid.
Not because Vittorio was gone.
Because innocent men usually argued longer.
Dante tightened security around Leo.
Clara hated the sudden guards in every doorway.
He started screaming whenever doors locked.
One afternoon Clara found him sitting outside Elena’s old nursery.
The room had been sealed since the funeral.
“Want in?” Clara asked.
Clara did not argue immediately.
“Why?”
“That room is hers.”
“She’s not in it.”
Clara regretted the sharpness but not the point.
Leo pressed his hand against the door.
“Mommy song.”
Dust had settled on the crib Elena once planned to donate.
A rocking chair sat beside the window.
Leo walked straight to the chair.
“Song.”
Clara crouched and found a small voice recorder taped beneath the wooden seat.
“Police searched this room.”
“People search for guns and papers,” Clara said. “Not lullabies.”
The recorder contained dozens of short clips.
Then one file from two days before her death.
“Vittorio knows I copied the Harbor ledger.”
“I’m putting the copy somewhere he’d never look because he thinks motherhood makes women sentimental and stupid.”
Clara looked around the nursery.
“Rico, if you hear this, check the book you hate.”
“What book do I hate?”
“That narrows it down?”
Despite himself, he smiled.
Then he walked to the shelf.
There was one children’s book he had complained about constantly because Leo demanded it every night.
The pages had been glued around a hollow center.
And a photograph of Vittorio standing beside Paul Gallo.
Taken outside Harbor Meridian.
Three days before Elena died.
Then one file stopped everyone.
A signed instruction ordering Paul to replace Elena’s regular driver for the charity event.
Authorized by:
Clara knew the difference now.
This was certainty beginning to form.
Then Dante opened the final image.
It showed another signature beneath Vittorio’s.
Rico stared.
“No.”
May you like
His own mother’s name was there.
Carmela Moretti.
