Chapter 3 - The group met in the late afternoon, and sometimes I arrived after she had left.”
I looked at the note again.
Please tell my husband to stop watching the door long enough to see who is still inside.
It sounded like Elena, but not the Elena I had allowed myself to remember.
Not the woman who had died in the blast, frozen forever in the final image I carried of her.
This was Elena making plans.
Seeking advice.
Trying to prepare for a conversation she believed might change everything.
“Did she know the car was unsafe?”
I asked.
Clara’s expression changed.
“What do you mean?”
“Before the bombing, she told me the SUV felt different.
The steering pulled left.
She said the rear door had rattled for two days.”
“Did you have it inspected?”
“Of course.”
“By whom?”
“My security garage.”
“And they found nothing?”
“Nothing that explained it.”
“Did Elena believe them?”
“She believed me.”
Clara’s gaze remained steady.
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
I looked away.
The inspection report had been signed by Andre Bellini, the head mechanic who had worked for me for nine years.
He had been questioned after the bombing and dismissed when investigators found no connection to the explosive device.
Andre had died of a heart attack six months later.
I had never questioned the report again.
“Was the car bomb discovered before or after the accident?”
Clara asked.
“After.
The device was under the chassis.”
“Then why would she be writing about the day of the accident?”
“Because she may have known something.”
“Or because the accident had already started before the explosion.”
I turned back to her.
“What are you saying?”
“Nothing definite.”
“Clara.”
She clasped her hands in her lap.
“When my brother was injured, the doctors told us the fall was caused by a faulty support platform.
The company blamed the workers.
The workers blamed the equipment.
Everyone wanted the simplest explanation because the complicated one required admitting that several people had ignored warning signs.”
“You think Elena was investigating the bombing?”
“I think she was afraid there were warning signs nobody wanted to discuss.”
The rain softened against the glass.
I remembered the morning of the accident with painful clarity.
Elena had insisted on taking Matteo to his therapy appointment.
I had argued that one of my drivers should take them.
She had said Matteo needed one ordinary morning with his mother.
I had let them go.
Forty minutes later, the convoy had been attacked.
My vehicle had been behind theirs, delayed by a call from Dominic.
The lead car had been forced to stop at the coastal road.
Elena’s SUV had taken the impact.
I had reached the scene too late.
For years, I had focused on the person who planted the device.
I had never examined the minutes before the blast.
“Did she mention a mechanic?”
I asked.
Clara shook her head.
“Did she mention anyone by name?”
“She said the name Bellini once.”
The room went silent.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.
She was talking about the house.
She said there were people around you who had access to everything, and that you trusted their loyalty because you had chosen them yourself.”
“Did she say Andre was one of them?”
“No.”
“But she mentioned him.”
“She mentioned the name.
That’s all.”
I moved to the desk and reached for the phone.
Clara watched me.
“Who are you calling?”
“Dominic.”
“To ask what?”
“Whether Bellini’s records are still in the archive.”
“Vincent.”
I stopped.
She rarely used my first name.
“If you turn this into another operation,” she said, “you’ll lose the part that matters.”
“What part is that?”
“Matteo.”
My hand remained on the phone.
“Someone may have known the car was vulnerable.”
“And someone may not have.
You don’t know yet.”
“I need to know.”
“Yes.
But not at the cost of turning your son’s home into an interrogation room.”
“This is my home.”
“It’s his too.”
The words struck harder than they should have.
I released the phone.
Clara stood.
“I should go.”
“Not yet.”
She waited.
“Was Elena going to leave me?”
Clara’s expression softened.
“I don’t know.”
“You said she needed space.”
“She was considering staying with her sister for a while.”
“She never told me.”
“She may not have had time.”
“Or she may have been afraid to.”
Clara did not deny it.
I walked to the window.
Beyond the glass, the gardens were silver beneath the rain.
Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed ten.
“Matteo asked me tonight not to watch him,” I said.
“I know.”
“He knew I was watching.”
“He has always known.”
I turned.
“What?”
“He told me the cameras were there.”
“When?”
“On my second day.”
“How could he know?”
“He said you look at the screens whenever he enters a room.”
The truth of it left me defenseless.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
“Because he thought you would be ashamed.”
I closed my eyes.
I had installed cameras to protect him, and he had learned to protect me from what they revealed.
Clara picked up her bag.
“Tell me something,” I said.
“Why did you take this job?”
“You told me.
I needed money.”
“That was true.
It wasn’t the whole truth.”
“No.”
“What was the rest?”
She looked toward the door.
“I wanted to know if the boy his mother worried about was still in there.”
My breath caught.
“You came here because of Elena?”
“I came because of the possibility that I could help him.
I stayed because he needed someone who wouldn’t disappear when he was difficult.”
The quiet certainty of her words made my eyes burn.
“You could have told me.”
“You wouldn’t have hired me.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is.”
I thought of the interview.
Her worn coat.
Her direct answers.
The way she had refused to be intimidated by the house or the guards.
I had hired her because I believed she was practical.
Perhaps she had chosen me because I was not.
After she left, I remained alone in the office until nearly midnight.
Then I called Dominic.
He answered on the second ring.
“Everything all right?”
“Bring me the Bellini records.”
A pause.
“Those were transferred to storage after the investigation.”
“Then bring me the storage inventory.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
He arrived twenty minutes later with a tablet and a ring of keys.
The archive occupied a narrow room beneath the west wing, behind the old wine cellar.
Dust coated the shelves, though the records were labeled and arranged by year.
Dominic searched the inventory while I stood behind him.
“Bellini,” he muttered.
“Vehicle maintenance.
Security garage.
Personnel file…”
He scrolled.
“Here.”
The digital record showed that Andre’s personnel file had been removed from storage eleven months ago.
“By whom?”
I asked.
Dominic opened the access log.
“Your authorization.”
“I didn’t remove it.”
He looked at me.
“Maybe you did and forgot.”
“I did not.”
The entry had been made under my security code.
Date and time: three days after Elena’s funeral.
I remembered that week.
I had barely slept.
I had questioned every guard, every driver, every contractor.
I had ordered files brought to my office, but Dominic had handled most of it.
“Who else knew my code?”
“Only you and me.”
“Check the camera footage.”
“The archive camera was offline that month.”
I looked at the shelves.
“Search the room.”
Dominic began opening boxes.
I moved along the cabinets, reading labels I had ignored for years.
Vehicle maintenance.
Route logs.
Insurance.
Legal correspondence.
Then I saw a narrow blue binder wedged behind a stack of old security reports.
It had no label.
I pulled it free.
A strip of white paper was attached to the cover with faded tape.
V.R.—Read this before you decide what happened.
The handwriting was Elena’s.
My fingers went cold.
Dominic stepped closer.
“What is it?”
I opened the binder.
Inside were photocopies of maintenance reports, photographs of the SUV’s undercarriage, and a folded map of the coastal road.
The first page bore a date six days before the bombing.
At the bottom, Elena had written one sentence.
May you like
I didn’t leave because I stopped loving you.
I stopped because someone inside your security team told me Matteo was never the intended target.
